Tools and costs
How much does an AI consultant cost? 2026 price guide
Published 2026 rates start at $100 to $300 an hour for small business advisory (Iternal) and reach $500 to $1,000 or more an hour at the largest firms (Alice Labs, citing AIDOLS Research). Most small business work is sold as a fixed project or a monthly retainer instead, and the price depends on how many workflows and tools are involved.
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These are sellers' own published prices, not a survey of what buyers paid. They disagree with each other, sometimes by several times, so treat them as a range to check a quote against.
I do not publish a price list, because every project is different. How I quote my own work is at the end.
The three ways AI consultants charge
- Hourly: good for advice or a second opinion. Risky for a build, because the total is open-ended.
- Fixed project: a set scope for a set price, such as an assessment or one workflow built and live.
- Monthly retainer: ongoing advice and support, often with a new build or fix each month.
Hourly rates published in 2026
Three firms publish hourly rates, and each figure below links to its source.
- Iternal, a small business AI consultancy, lists advisory at $100 to $300 an hour (Iternal, updated September 2026).
- Layer3 Labs lists $100 to $200 an hour for a freelance AI developer, $150 to $300 for a boutique firm, and $300 to $600 for an enterprise firm (Layer3 Labs).
- Alice Labs lists $150 to $350 an hour for independents, $250 to $500 for boutiques, and $500 to $1,000 or more for the largest firms, citing AIDOLS Research from March 2026 (Alice Labs).
Project and retainer prices published in 2026
- Iternal lists a quick-win sprint at $2,500 to $10,000 and a fractional AI advisor at $1,500 to $8,000 a month (Iternal).
- Layer3 Labs lists a readiness assessment at $5,000 to $12,000, a proof of concept at $8,000 to $20,000, a full implementation at $15,000 to $75,000, and ongoing advisory at $2,000 to $8,000 a month (Layer3 Labs).
- Alice Labs, citing ClearForge from April 2026, lists an AI readiness assessment at $10,000 to $25,000 and a strategy and roadmap at $25,000 to $75,000 (Alice Labs). Those figures lean toward larger companies.
What changes the price
- How many workflows you want built at once.
- How many of your tools have to talk to each other.
- How clean and complete your data is today.
- Whether your team needs training to use what gets built.
- Whether you want ongoing support after it goes live.
- Who does the work: one person who builds it, or a team with layers of management.
The cost people forget: the tools
AI tools are billed on top of the consulting, usually per user per month. Iternal puts tooling at $20 to $50 per user per month (Iternal). Check each vendor's own pricing page for the plan you need, because those prices change often.
Questions to ask any AI consultant before you sign
- What exactly will be running when you are done?
- Whose accounts does it run in, and who owns it if we stop working together?
- Is the price fixed, and what would change it?
- What will it cost each month to keep running, tools and support included?
- What happens when it breaks, and how fast will you know?
- Can I see something you built for a business like mine?
- Will my team be shown how to use it?
How I price my own work
I give a fixed quote after the free call, before any work starts. You pay for the build, then an optional monthly plan to keep it running and add to it. There is no hourly meter. The AI consulting for small businesses page explains how that works.
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Written by
Milos Vranes
I train small business teams to use AI on their own work, and I build the automations that come after. I have built automation systems for five years.
Anthropic certified and a verified n8n creator. Every system I write about is one I have built.