# How much does an AI consultant cost? 14 ways to get AI working in your business, priced Every way a business can get an AI job running, from a $9-a-month automation tool to a $136,000-a-year hire, each priced on its maker's own page on 2026-10-19 with a link to check it. Mackenzie Bowes is one row, and the page says where the others win. Getting one job in your business run by AI can cost about $100 a year or US$136,000 a year. The difference is mostly who does the work. If you build it yourself on a tool, you pay for the tool and your own evenings. If you hire someone, you pay for their hours, and those hours run from US$32 to more than $200 each. Every price below was read on the seller's own page on 2026-10-19. Each one links to that page, so you can check whether it has changed. ## What AI help costs, as of 2026-10-19 Prices marked US$ are in US dollars. A plain $ means the seller's page didn't name its currency. We read those pages from Canada, so we can't say which dollar they mean. | # | Option | Kind | Published price | First year, worked out | Who builds it | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | 1 | Make, Core [1] | Automation tool | $9/mo billed yearly (currency not stated) | $108 | You | | 2 | Microsoft 365 Copilot Business [2] | AI seat (add-on) | $18/user/mo yearly (promo to 2026-12-31; list $21) | $216 a user, plus your Microsoft 365 plan | You | | 3 | Zapier, Professional [3] | Automation tool | $19.99/mo billed yearly | $240 | You | | 4 | n8n, Starter [4] | Automation tool | €20/mo billed yearly | €240 | You | | 5 | ChatGPT Business [5] | AI seat | $20/user/mo yearly; 2 users minimum | $480 for 2 users | You | | 6 | Claude Team [6] | AI seat | $20/user/mo yearly; 2 users minimum | $480 for 2 users | You | | 7 | Upwork freelancer [7] | Hired person | $31.63, $44.17 and $49 an hour (the first 3 listed) | $316 to $490 per 10 hours | A freelancer | | 8 | Yehonatan Saadia [8] | Solo developer | $300 to $1,800 for one workflow | $300 to $1,800 | The developer | | 9 | Mackenzie Bowes, AI setup sprint [13] | Solo consultant | $2,500 for one job, in one week; US$250 deposit, the rest only if the job is running by the end of the week | $2,500 | Mackenzie | | 10 | Innovatrix Infotech [9] | Agency | $2,750 to $4,900 for one workflow (quoted in USD) | $2,750 to $4,900 | Their staff | | 11 | Mackenzie Bowes, AI retainer [13] | Solo consultant | $1,500/mo for one new workflow a month | $18,000 | Mackenzie | | 12 | Frenchy Digital [10] | Agency | $5,000 agent + $5,000 setup, then $2,500/mo (currency not stated) | $40,000 (their own figure) | Their staff | | 13 | Fractional CTO, via Go Fractional [11] | Part-time executive | $9,000 to $15,000/mo for about 15 hours a week (currency not stated) | $108,000 to $180,000 | A hired person | | 14 | Software developer on staff [12] | Employee | $135,980 a year median wage (US, May 2025) | $135,980 before benefits and payroll tax | Your employee | Rows 1 to 6 are the cheapest because you do the building. Rows 7 to 14 cost more because someone else does it. ## Which one is for you The cheapest option is the best fit for someone with free hours who likes setting things up. For anyone else, it is the most expensive. That is because the seat prices leave out the buyer's own time. None of the six tool pages publishes how long setup takes. 1. **You have evenings and like tinkering: rows 1 to 6.** Make, Zapier and n8n are built for this, at about $100 to $250 a year. Make offers firms under 20 employees 50% off its Business plan [1]. ChatGPT and Claude both say they don't train on your business data by default [5] [6]. If you're weighing a seat, see [is ChatGPT Business worth it?](/competitors/ai-agent-setup/chatgpt-business-worth-it) 2. **You have one simple job and a small budget: rows 7 and 8.** An Upwork freelancer costs $32 to $49 an hour, so you could buy 50 to 80 hours for the price of one sprint. Yehonatan Saadia's one-workflow price starts at $300, which is less than an eighth of the sprint. 3. **You want one real job done this week without learning a tool: rows 9 to 11.** These three are fixed-price, so you know the cost before you start. 4. **You want a phone agent, a chatbot or a large build with a team behind it: rows 10 and 12.** Innovatrix publishes chatbot tiers up to $32,500. Frenchy Digital prices bespoke agents at $28,000 to $70,000, and its plans include telephony. 5. **You need someone to own technology across the company: rows 13 and 14.** A staff developer's median wage is US$11,330 a month, about 7.5 times the US$1,500 retainer. Go Fractional's posted fractional CTO rates are $9,000 to $15,000 a month. They do a different job: they run the company's technology, not one workflow. ## Where the others beat Mackenzie 1. **On price for one small workflow.** Yehonatan Saadia starts at $300, and Upwork rates run $32 to $49 an hour. If the job is one trigger and one action, they cost less than the sprint. 2. **On team size.** Innovatrix and Frenchy Digital are agencies, so if one person is out, someone else picks up the work. Mackenzie works alone, and the sprint takes one job at a time. 3. **On range.** Frenchy Digital builds phone agents and bills telephony minutes. Innovatrix sells chatbot tiers. Neither comes as a packaged product from Mackenzie. A sprint can connect texting through Twilio as one job's workflow. 4. **On owning the skill.** If you build it yourself on Zapier, Make or n8n, you keep the know-how. After a sprint, you get a handover, but Mackenzie did the building. ## What the sprint is Mackenzie automates one real job, end to end, in one week, on your own accounts. The price is $2,500. You spend about 2 hours on it: a kickoff call and a handover. Fixes are free for 30 days. After that, the retainer is optional: $1,500 a month for one new workflow a month, plus upkeep. US$250 deposit to book, credited to the bill. If the job isn't running on your real work by the end of the week, you don't pay the other US$2,250. On the pages we read, none of the other 13 options promises the outcome. Mackenzie has been building with AI since before most of today's tools existed. That includes [GPTBoss](/stories/gptboss-240k-ai-business), an AI product with 60,000 signups and $240k in revenue, and [thirteen months building production AI systems for real estate](/stories/huzi-ai-infrastructure). Details: [the sprint](/offers/ai-setup-sprint) and [the retainer](/offers/ai-retainer). At the agencies, the closest match is Innovatrix's single workflow: $2,750 to $4,900, with 30 days of support and two-week sprints [9]. Frenchy Digital's packaged agent comes to $40,000 in year one, by their own figure [10]. A sprint plus a full year of retainer comes to US$20,500. ## How we collected this On 2026-10-19 we read each seller's own pricing page. We recorded the price, the billing basis, the minimum, the discounts, the buyer's time, who does the work and how data is handled. Each record has its URL and the date. If a page doesn't say something, the record says "not published", and so does this page. 1. Currencies are shown as each page showed them. The only conversion is Innovatrix's, from INR to USD, and it comes from its own currency selector. Make, Frenchy Digital and Go Fractional don't name a currency, so their prices carry a plain $, and we don't compare them with US-dollar prices. 2. Upwork has thousands of listings. Row 7 is the first three listings with an hourly rate in a search for "AI automation consultant", so it shows three real rates, not an average. 3. The fractional CTO row is Go Fractional's benchmark of live postings, not its price list. The developer row uses US government wage data, which leaves out benefits. 4. Mackenzie's row comes from Mackenzie. No seller paid to be listed, and nobody was contacted. Prices change. Each row carries the date it was read. When we re-check a row, we change the date. If you sell AI setup and a row here is wrong or missing, email mackenzie@mackenziebowes.com. If you want one job in your business running by next week, that's the same address. ## Sources 1. Make pricing, read 2026-10-19: Core $9/mo yearly, $10.59 monthly, at 10,000 credits; Start-up Plan 50% off Business under 20 employees. 2. Microsoft 365 Copilot Business pricing, en-US, read 2026-10-19: add-on $18/user/mo yearly (promo 2026-07-01 to 2026-12-31, first year), list $21; Business Standard with Copilot $23.50. 3. Zapier pricing, read 2026-10-19: Professional from $19.99/mo yearly, $29.99 monthly; Team from $69/mo yearly. 4. n8n pricing, read 2026-10-19: Starter €20/mo yearly, €24 monthly, 2.5k executions. 5. ChatGPT Business pricing, read 2026-10-19: Standard seat $20/mo yearly, $25 monthly; teams of 2 to 200; no training on business data by default. 6. Claude Team pricing, read 2026-10-19: Standard seat US$20/mo yearly, $25 monthly (Claude's help centre; the pricing page shows CA$ to Canadian visitors); teams of 2 to 150; no model training on your content by default. 7. Upwork talent search "AI automation consultant", read 2026-10-19: first three listings with an hourly rate, $49, $31.63 and $44.17. 8. Yehonatan Saadia pricing, read 2026-10-19: one workflow $300 to $1,800; multi-step system or AI agent $1,800 to $8,000; excluding VAT and third-party costs. 9. Innovatrix Infotech pricing, read 2026-10-19: single workflow ₹1.7L to ₹3L, shown as $2,750 to $4,900 by the page's USD selector; 30 days of support; payment 40/40/20. 10. Frenchy Digital, "AI automation agency pricing 2026", read 2026-10-19: packaged agent $5,000 plus $5,000 setup, $2,500/mo support, year one $40,000 plus usage; bespoke $28k to $70k. 11. Go Fractional CTO rates, read 2026-10-19: $9,000 to $15,000/mo at 15 hours a week; average $211/hr. 12. US Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025, software developers (15-1252): median annual wage $135,980. 13. Mackenzie Bowes's own prices, 2026-10-19: sprint $2,500, retainer $1,500/mo. --- Published 2026-10-19. Web page: https://www.mackenziebowes.com/competitors/ai-agent-setup Part of [Mackenzie Bowes and the alternatives: every other way to get the same job done, priced](https://www.mackenziebowes.com/competitors).