What custom AI automation actually costs — an honest breakdown
Real numbers, no discovery call: the $1,000 audit, $3,500 AI Install, builds from $15,000, retainers from $1,500/mo — what drives the price, what alternatives cost, and when not to buy.
By Jared Zitting · Founder, ArchaFlow
Custom AI automation from ArchaFlow runs on a fixed ladder: a $1,000 workflow audit, a $3,500 AI Install (your Company Brain plus a first working agent, live in about a week), fixed-scope builds from $15,000, and a month-to-month retainer from $1,500. The audit and Install both credit toward what comes next. This post breaks down what drives those numbers, what the alternatives cost, and when you shouldn't buy at all.
Ask most agencies what custom AI costs and you'll get "it depends," a discovery call, and a proposal three weeks later. We think that's backwards. You should be able to see the numbers before you talk to anyone — so here they are, with the reasoning behind them.
The ladder, with real numbers
Two hours watching how your team actually works, every recurring task scored by value vs. effort, and a designed plan for your first agent. Diagnosis only — no build yet. It exists so you can put a dollar figure on the busywork before committing to anything bigger, and it credits forward, so it's never a sunk cost.
Where most companies start. We install your Company Brain — your pricing, process, and past jobs in one place — ship your first working agent, and solve one real problem, live. You see ROI in your first week, not in a slide deck.
A full build: one exec-level agent plus the skills your business needs, working in your real apps — even legacy portals with no API. One fixed price for a defined scope, paid as a deposit plus milestones. You know the number before we start, and the first agent is live in 48 hours.
After launch: hosting, monitoring, a watchdog that alerts us before you notice, and — on the higher tiers — a new automation or skill every month. Month to month, no lock-in. You own the code and the accounts either way.
What actually drives the price
Custom AI isn't priced by mystery — three things move the number:
- How many systems it touches. An agent that reads one inbox is simpler than one wired into your CRM, your books, and a 2009-era supplier portal with no API.
- How much judgment it needs. Drafting a follow-up email is cheap. Pricing a job off your own historical costs takes a Company Brain and guardrails.
- What failure costs. A missed internal report is annoying. A wrong number in a customer-facing bid is expensive — so bids get review steps, logging, and a human in the loop, and that engineering is part of the price.
What doesn't move the price: hours. We don't bill time, because you shouldn't pay more when we're slow.
What the alternatives cost
Open-ended AI consulting typically runs $150–350/hour, or $5,000–25,000+ per project, often ending in a strategy deck rather than working software. The risk stays with you.
Hiring for it — an ops admin to absorb the busywork is $40–60k/year loaded, every year, and doesn't scale past one person's hours. An AI engineer is $150k+, if you can find one.
Stacking SaaS tools looks cheap per month, but each tool does part of the job, none of them talk to each other, and the copy-paste between them becomes its own busywork. You also rent that stack forever — and your workflow bends to fit the tool instead of the other way around.
The honest comparison isn't "custom AI vs. free." It's custom AI vs. what you're already paying — in wages, missed leads, and subscriptions — for a problem that doesn't go away on its own.
The math on a real example
Take a 12-person services company where the office spends 15 hours a week on manual admin — re-keying data, chasing follow-ups, assembling the same report — at a $45/hour loaded cost:
15 hrs × $45 × 50 weeks = $33,750 a year in busywork. That's before counting a single missed call or dropped lead.
Against that, the $3,500 Install plus a $1,500/month retainer costs $21,500 in year one. If the agents absorb even half the admin load, the system pays for itself well inside the first year — and unlike a subscription, the asset is yours. Run your own numbers with the busywork calculator — it takes about a minute and doesn't ask for your email.
When you shouldn't buy this
Honesty cuts both ways, so: custom AI is the wrong purchase if your team is tiny and the busywork is under a few hours a week (a $30/month off-the-shelf tool is the right call — we've written about when to buy vs. build); if your process changes completely every month, because automation needs a stable-enough workflow to automate; or if you're hoping AI will run the business for you. It won't. It does the repetitive 40% so your people can do the valuable 60%.
If any of those describe you, the audit will say so — telling you not to buy is part of what the $1,000 pays for.
Why fixed prices at all
Because "it depends" is how budgets die. Fixed scope means we carry the estimating risk, not you. Milestones mean you pay as working software lands, not before. And ownership means that if we part ways tomorrow, everything keeps running — the code, the data, and the accounts are yours from day one.
The full ladder, side by side, is on the pricing page. If you'd rather start with a number than a call, the busywork calculator will give you one in about a minute — and when you're ready, it starts with a free 30-minute call.