Pricing is the part few consultants publish, and that is on purpose.
If you have spent a single afternoon shopping for an AI consultant, you have learned that almost none of them put their prices on the page. The usual order is a discovery call, then a custom proposal, then the price. By the time you see the number, you have invested two hours and a sales rep is on the phone explaining why it is justified.
We think prices belong on the page, so this post lays them out.
Below is what AI consulting costs a Metro Detroit SMB in 2026: what each tier buys, what is reasonable, and how to read a proposal so you do not overpay.
The Three Tiers
Every AI consulting engagement falls into one of three buckets. The labels are ours, and the price ranges reflect what the market charges in 2026.
Tier 1: The Audit (one-time, $297–$5,000)
A defined-scope engagement that produces a written deliverable, with no ongoing relationship.
- Low end ($297–$1,500): A focused, one-week readiness audit with a workflow review, tool recommendations, and a prioritized roadmap. Our AI Readiness Audit sits at the bottom of this range: $297 flat, a 10-minute questionnaire plus a 45-minute interview, and a written report in 48 hours.
- Mid range ($1,500–$3,500): Deeper discovery, more interviews, a longer report. Often includes a tool-by-tool comparison and a draft 90-day plan.
- High end ($3,500–$5,000): Boutique strategy firms or specialty consultants. The deliverable is more polished, and the substance is rarely 10 times the lower tiers, so much of the premium pays for the brand and the slide design.
What is reasonable for an SMB: $297–$2,000 for the first audit. If a vendor wants more than $5,000 for a one-time assessment of a 10-to-200-person business, walk away, because you would be paying enterprise rates for SMB scope.
Tier 2: The Fractional Retainer ($2,500–$15,000 / month)
A monthly engagement with a defined scope of strategy and shipped work. This is the Fractional CAIO tier.
- Low end ($2,500–$5,000 / month): 10–15 hours per month. Strategy, opportunity identification, light implementation oversight. Suitable for an SMB with a strong internal owner who needs senior guidance more than hands-on building.
- Mid range ($5,000–$10,000 / month): 15–30 hours per month. Strategy plus active implementation. The retainer covers shipped automations, vendor management, and team training. This range fits most 10-to-200-person businesses.
- High end ($10,000–$15,000 / month): 30+ hours per month. Effectively a part-time embedded executive. Appropriate for a $5M–$50M business making AI a core operating capability across multiple functions.
What is reasonable for an SMB: $2,500–$10,000 per month, depending on whether you need strategy only or strategy plus build. Anything above $15,000 / month is enterprise pricing, which only makes sense if your revenue justifies it.
Tier 3: Custom Build / Project ($15,000–$150,000+ per project)
A specific build with a defined scope. Examples: a custom AI agent integrated into your existing systems, a workflow automation across 5+ tools, a private GPT deployment with your own data.
- Small ($15,000–$30,000): A single integrated automation, such as lead routing, document intelligence, or structured-data extraction, in a 4–6 week build. Our AI Implementation Sprint covers the same kind of build, scoped and quoted after the audit.
- Medium ($30,000–$75,000): Multi-step workflow across multiple systems. Includes custom logic, exception handling, and team training.
- Large ($75,000+): Enterprise-style builds with custom model fine-tuning, dedicated infrastructure, and multiple integrated agents. These are rare for SMBs and usually unnecessary.
What is reasonable for an SMB: Most SMB problems can be solved for under $50,000 by connecting existing tools well. A six-figure custom build proposed for a 25-person business is almost always a bad deal.
What You Are Paying For
Pricing makes more sense when you understand what is inside it.
For an audit: A senior person's time. The audit is mostly thinking work, like interviews, comparing your workflows against what automation handles well, and prioritization. The fee pays for the experience that lets someone look at your business and identify the right first move in 90 minutes instead of three months.
For a retainer: A senior person's time and the right to call them. The retainer model exists because AI strategy keeps changing after the first decision. New tools ship every month. Your business changes every quarter. The value of a Fractional CAIO is partly the work and partly the standing relationship. They already know your stack, your team, and your priorities, so the next decision takes 20 minutes instead of two weeks.
For a project build: Engineering time, integration complexity, and risk. Build pricing scales with the number of systems being touched, the volume of data being processed, and the consequences of getting it wrong. A misfire on a marketing automation costs an apology email. A misfire on a billing automation costs a customer.
Five Pricing Red Flags
If you see any of these, slow down.
-
They will not give a starting number on the call. "It depends" is a fair answer. "We need to do discovery before we can talk price" is a sales tactic. A real operator can say "our smallest engagements start at $X. Does that fit your range?" within five minutes.
-
The proposal lists deliverables but not hours. A retainer should specify how many hours per month you are buying. Without that, you are paying for whatever the vendor decides to give you.
-
The contract has an auto-renewal clause longer than 30 days. Annual auto-renewals on consulting contracts lock in the vendor's revenue at your expense. Month-to-month or quarterly with a clean exit is the standard.
-
The price is far below the market. A $99 / month "Fractional CAIO" is a chatbot subscription with executive branding. Senior time has a price floor.
-
They cannot explain what the team gets to keep when the engagement ends. Capability transfer decides whether consulting keeps paying off or keeps you dependent. If the vendor has no answer for "what does my team know how to do six months after you leave," they are selling dependency.
What We Charge
This post argues for published prices, so here is where we stand.
| Engagement | Price | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| AI Readiness Audit | $297 flat | One-week assessment, written report, prioritized roadmap |
| AI Implementation Sprint | Scoped after the audit | Single defined automation, designed → built → trained → handed off in 4 weeks |
| Fractional CAIO retainer | Scoped after the audit | Strategy + shipped work + team training |
| Digital products & courses | Priced per product | Self-serve via the Laboratory |
The audit is a flat $297, published because it is the same scope for everyone. A build and a retainer are not: the price depends on how many systems the work touches and how much of it we run. The audit is what produces that scope, so we quote a fixed number after it, before any work starts. The market ranges above tell you what to expect from anyone, including us.
FAQ
How much does an AI consultant cost?
An AI consultant for an SMB typically charges $297 to $5,000 for a one-time readiness audit, $2,500 to $15,000 a month for an ongoing fractional retainer, or $15,000 to $150,000+ for a custom build project. The right number depends on whether you need a written recommendation, ongoing embedded strategy and execution, or a specific system built and deployed.
Is a $297 AI consultant audit too cheap to be real?
No. It reflects a fixed, narrow scope: a questionnaire, a 45-minute interview, and a written report in 48 hours, with no ongoing engagement. The price is low because the deliverable is a diagnosis rather than a build. Consultants quoting $5,000+ for the same scope are pricing in overhead an independent operator does not carry.
Next Step
If you want to know which tier fits your business without a 60-minute discovery call, take the free 10-minute AI Readiness Assessment. It will tell you the right starting point and the realistic budget for it.
