Almost nobody in this industry publishes a price, which leaves owners guessing whether a conversation will end at three thousand dollars or three hundred thousand. Here are the ranges that actually exist right now.
The ranges
A readiness assessment for a small business generally runs between two and eight thousand dollars. A single workflow pilot runs roughly five to fifteen thousand. A full multi workflow implementation starts around fifteen thousand and climbs quickly. Independent consultants charge somewhere between one hundred fifty and three hundred fifty dollars an hour, and the good ones increasingly refuse hourly work entirely.
What drives the number up
Multiple locations. A large existing content library that has to be audited before anything is published. Integrating with software that has no usable interface for automation. Compliance requirements in health, finance or legal. Anything requiring a custom model rather than a well configured off the shelf one.
Proposal patterns worth walking away from
A discovery phase longer than two weeks. Deliverables described as strategy or transformation with no named output. No baseline measurement anywhere in the plan. Tools recommended that cost more than the service itself. A guarantee of placement in AI answers, which nobody can make honestly, because no vendor controls those models.
The cheapest path that actually changes something
A small assessment followed by one implemented workflow. Under ten thousand dollars in total for most small businesses, with something running in production at the end of it. Strategy without implementation is the most common way to spend real money and have nothing to show for it.
Our own prices are published on the pricing page for the same reason this article exists. If a number is a secret, it is usually a secret for the seller benefit.
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