AI Consulting Pricing — Transparent Tiers, Fixed Fees, Performance Guarantee
Three tiers. Three fixed fees. One guarantee: production AI in 2-3 weeks on Sprint, 90 days on Build. Or you don't pay.
AI consulting pricing ranges from $15,000 for a 2-week assessment to $2,000,000+ for a Big 4 rebuild program. AIDOLS prices three transparent fixed-fee tiers: Sprint ($15-25K, 2-3 weeks), Build ($75-150K, 90 days), Scale ($25K/month, ongoing). Every Build engagement carries a 100% ROI guarantee — if the deployed system does not generate ROI exceeding the fee within 90 days, the fee is refunded in full.
A compass, not a contractor. Engineering-first, not advisory-first.
AIDOLS vs Big 4 vs Freelance
Same problem, three pricing structures. The cost difference is real; the deliverable difference is bigger. A working production system is a different artifact than a 200-page slide deck.
| Dimension | AIDOLS | Big 4 (Deloitte, PwC, EY, KPMG) | Freelance consultant |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Fixed fee per tier | $1,500-$3,000 / consultant / day | $150-$400 / hour |
| Typical engagement cost | $15K-$150K fixed | $500K-$2M+ | $90K-$360K (variable) |
| Timeline to production | 2-3 weeks (Sprint) · 90 days (Build) | 6-12 months | 3-6 months (single contributor) |
| Primary deliverable | Production AI system + evaluation harness | Strategy document + roadmap | Model code (single component) |
| Outcome guarantee | 100% ROI guarantee or refund | None | None |
| Team composition | Senior engineers only | Partners sell, juniors build | Solo contributor |
| Risk profile | Low — fixed scope, fixed fee, refund clause | High — open-ended hourly, no outcome lock | High — single point of failure |
| MLOps + integration | Included | Separate workstream / SOW | Usually out of scope |
The three tiers
Pick the smallest tier that solves your problem. Most clients start with Sprint to validate the opportunity, then move to Build once the highest-ROI use case is confirmed.
Sprint
AI Readiness Assessment
Starts at $15,000
Range: $15K-$25K · 2-3 weeks
A 2-3 week diagnostic that answers one question: where does AI move the needle, and in what order should you build it?
What's included
- Data and infrastructure audit
- Prioritized opportunity map with ROI estimates
- Target-state reference architecture
- 90-day implementation roadmap with named owners
- Executive readout deck and walkthrough
- Up to 8 hours of stakeholder interviews
Best for
Organizations evaluating AI investment, validating use cases, or building a board-ready business case.
Build
90-Day Production AI
Starts at $75,000
Range: $75K-$150K · 90 days · 100% ROI guarantee
An end-to-end engineering team ships a production AI system in 90 days. Fixed fee. Locked scope. Money-back if ROI is not delivered.
What's included
- Data engineering and pipeline build-out
- Model development and evaluation
- MLOps deployment to production
- Integration with existing systems
- Evaluation harness and KPI dashboard
- Security review and compliance documentation
- Knowledge transfer and runbooks
- 100% ROI guarantee (refund if KPI missed at 90 days)
Best for
Organizations with a validated use case ready to ship one high-ROI production AI system in a single quarter.
Scale
Ongoing MLOps Retainer
$25,000 / month
12-month minimum · 60-day notice
Monthly engineering retainer for organizations operating production AI systems. We run the MLOps so you don't hire a $300K MLOps engineer.
What's included
- Model retraining on agreed cadence
- 24/7 monitoring and drift detection
- Incident response with defined SLAs
- Evaluation harness updates
- One new feature release per month
- Quarterly architecture review
- Dedicated Slack channel with engineers
Best for
Organizations operating 2-4 production AI systems that prefer to outsource MLOps rather than build an in-house team.
What determines the price of an AI consulting engagement?
AI consulting pricing is driven by six factors — scope, data readiness, integration complexity, regulatory overhead, infrastructure, and whether you need ongoing operation. With time-and-materials firms these variables make the final bill unpredictable; AIDOLS prices them into a fixed fee up front, so the number you're quoted is the number you pay.
| Cost driver | Lower cost | Higher cost |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | One high-ROI use case, one business unit | Multiple use cases across business units |
| Data readiness | Clean, accessible, well-documented data | Fragmented, poor-quality, or siloed data |
| Integration complexity | Modern APIs, cloud-native stack | Legacy systems, OT/IT, many integration points |
| Regulatory overhead | Light-touch sector | Regulated (finance, healthcare) — added validation & governance |
| Infrastructure & model | Managed cloud, proven architectures | On-prem, custom models, strict latency/residency |
| Ongoing operation | One-time Build, handed to your team | Managed operation & iteration (Scale) |
This is why AIDOLS scopes a short Sprint first: it fixes the variables above before quoting a Build, so the Build fee is locked and carries a 100% ROI guarantee. Traditional time-and-materials engagements leave every one of these drivers open-ended — which is why Big Four AI programs routinely run $500K–$2M+ over 6–12 months.
How to choose your tier
The cheapest tier that solves your problem is always the right tier. Most clients move through the stack in order: Sprint validates the opportunity, Build ships the system, Scale operates it. Skipping steps is rarely a good idea.
Start with Sprint if you can answer "no" to any of these
- Have you confirmed the single highest-ROI use case with quantified upside in dollars?
- Is the data needed to train and evaluate the model already collected, clean, and accessible?
- Has leadership signed off on a target KPI and a baseline measurement?
- Do you know which existing systems the AI must integrate with, and who owns the integration points?
If any answer is no, a Sprint is the cheapest way to get to yes. Skipping straight to Build with unresolved scope is the leading cause of expensive rework in the industry.
Move to Build when all four are true
Build is for organizations that have already done the strategic work — internally, through a Sprint, or with a prior partner. The fixed-fee, 100% ROI guarantee structure only holds when the use case is well-formed and the data is real. We will turn down a Build engagement if the diagnostic surfaces unresolved blockers. That is the discipline behind the guarantee.
Typical Build clients have a Sprint output in hand or an equivalent internal readiness document, executive sponsorship at the VP-or-above level, and a single named business KPI tied to the deployment. The fee range of $75K-$150K depends on data complexity, integration count, and regulatory scope (HIPAA, SOC 2, GDPR add 10-20% to the fixed fee for compliance work).
Need governance documentation? The AIDOLS Governance Charter 2026 (free, gated) provides 32 pages of board-ready policy templates and is shipped alongside every Build engagement.
Add Scale when you cross 2 production systems
A single production AI system can usually be operated by an existing data engineering team with light support. Once you reach two or more systems in production, the operational surface area — model retraining cadences, drift monitoring, evaluation harnesses, incident response, security patching — exceeds what a part-time owner can handle. At that point the math is simple: one senior MLOps engineer costs $250K-$350K fully loaded; Scale costs $300K per year and brings a team. We recommend Scale when the alternative is hiring, not when the alternative is doing nothing.
What's NOT included
Scope-creep is the silent killer of AI engagements. Every tier has a hard boundary. Anything outside is a separate change order with its own fixed fee.
- Cloud infrastructure costs (AWS, GCP, Azure) — billed direct to client account
- Third-party model API spend (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google) — passed through at cost, no markup
- Custom hardware procurement (GPUs, on-prem clusters) — separate scope
- Data labeling at scale (>10,000 records) — separate vendor, AIDOLS coordinates
- Multi-system rollouts beyond the agreed scope — handled as a new Build engagement
- Change-management training for >50 end users — separate workstream
- 24/7 incident response on Sprint and Build tiers (only included in Scale)
- Marketing or PR around the deployed system — outside engineering scope
Why we publish this list: the consulting industry uses ambiguous scope to inflate fees. Clear boundaries protect both sides and let us hold the fixed-fee promise. Anything you need outside the list is a written change order with its own fee — never a surprise invoice.
The 100% ROI Guarantee
If a Build engagement does not generate measurable ROI exceeding the fee within 90 days of production deployment, AIDOLS refunds 100% of the engagement fee. No prorations. No arbitration clauses. No fine print.
What triggers the refund
- Defined ROI metric (cost savings, revenue uplift, cycle-time reduction) is agreed in writing at kickoff
- Metric is tied to a verifiable business KPI with a baseline measurement
- If actual ROI at 90 days post-deployment is below the fixed fee, full refund issued
- Refund processed within 30 days of trigger event
What it covers
- Build tier: full $75K-$150K engagement fee refundable
- Scale tier: prorated refund of months in dispute
- Sprint tier excluded (assessment, not deployment)
- Cloud and API pass-through costs not refundable (paid direct to vendor)
Why we offer this: fixed fees only work when both sides are accountable. The guarantee is a forcing function — it makes us pick the right use case at kickoff, design for measurable outcomes, and ship fast enough to read the result inside 90 days. It also filters clients: the guarantee only works when leadership commits to the KPI and the data exists to measure it. If neither is true, we recommend a Sprint instead and skip the engagement.
Frequently asked questions
Everything we get asked on every scoping call. If your question isn't here, book a 15-minute call and ask it live.
See if you qualify for our 100% ROI guarantee
We back every engagement with a 100% ROI guarantee. Book a 15-minute call to confirm fit and walk through the qualification criteria.
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