Tzvi Boxer, AI Consulting Pricing
Most consulting sites make you fill out a form to find out whether you can afford them. Here are the numbers.
Every engagement below is fixed-scope and fixed-fee. You approve the price before work starts, and it does not move unless you change the scope in writing.
AI Consulting Pricing
What each engagement costs
AI Readiness Assessment $4,500
Two to three weeks. Fixed fee.
Before spending money on AI, find out where it will actually pay off in your business — and where it won't.
You get:
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An audit of your current systems, workflows, and data
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A ranked list of automation opportunities, each with an estimated hour and dollar saving
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An explicit "do not automate this" list, with reasoning
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A 12-month sequencing plan
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A 90-minute walkthrough call
Best for organizations who've been told they "need AI" and want a straight answer about what that means for them specifically.
The assessment fee is credited in full against an Implementation Sprint booked within 60 days.
Implementation Sprint from $18,000
Six to eight weeks. Fixed fee, scoped after assessment.
Building and deploying the systems, not just recommending them.
You get:
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Tool selection and vendor negotiation
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Build and integration into your existing stack
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Workflow documentation your team can actually follow
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Staff training sessions
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30 days of post-launch support
Typical sprints run $18,000–$34,000 depending on the number of workflows and integration complexity. You get a fixed number before signing.
Best for organizations with a clear bottleneck — order processing, client intake, reporting, reconciliation — that costs real hours every week.
Fractional Technology Advisor
from $6,500/month
Three-month minimum, then month to month.
An experienced technology voice in the room without a six-figure executive hire.
You get:
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A standing weekly working session
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Vendor and contract review before you sign
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Architecture and build-vs-buy decisions
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Direct access between sessions for time-sensitive calls
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Quarterly roadmap review with your leadership
Best for companies past $2M in revenue making technology decisions faster than their internal expertise can support.
Advisory Hours $285/hour
Ten-hour blocks. No expiry.
For specific questions rather than ongoing work: reviewing a vendor proposal, pressure-testing a build plan, a second opinion on an in-flight project.
How this compares
Independent consultant (this practice)Consulting agencyIn-house hireStrategy project$10,000–$30,000$30,000–$80,000—Monthly engagement$6,500–$12,000$10,000–$30,000+$14,000+ fully loadedTime to start1–2 weeks6–10 weeks3–5 monthsWho does the workThe person you hiredJunior staff, usuallyYour employeeRamp-up costNoneBilled to you3–6 months salary
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Agency rates buy you process, bench depth, and someone to sue. That is worth paying for on eight-figure transformations. For most organizations under 500 people, it means paying senior rates for junior delivery.
What is not billed
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Discovery calls and scoping conversations
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Proposal preparation
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Travel within the [Columbia, MD] area
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Routine email and project-management overhead
There are no setup fees, no software markups, and no percentage taken on tools you buy. Vendor licenses are billed to you directly at your own cost.
Frequently asked questions
How much does an AI consultant cost? US independent AI consultants generally charge $200–375 per hour, $10,000–30,000 for a strategy project, and $3,000–10,000 per month on retainer. Agencies charge two to four times those figures. This practice charges $285 per hour, $4,500 for a readiness assessment, from $18,000 for implementation, and from $6,500 per month for fractional advisory.
Why publish prices when most consultants don't? Because both sides waste less time. If the budget isn't there, neither of us needs a discovery call to find that out.
Can I start smaller than $4,500? Yes — a ten-hour advisory block at $285/hour is the smallest sensible entry point.
Do you offer payment plans? Implementation sprints are billed 50% at kickoff and 50% at delivery. Retainers are billed monthly in advance.
What if the project runs over? Fixed-fee engagements are fixed. If the work takes longer than estimated and the scope hasn't changed, that is absorbed, not billed.
Do you work outside [Columbia, MD]? Yes. Most work is remote, with on-site available for assessments and training.
What's the return on this? It depends on what's being automated, and anyone quoting a universal ROI figure is guessing. The readiness assessment produces an estimated hour and dollar saving per opportunity before you commit to building anything — that is the number to judge it on.