What AI Consulting Costs a Small Business in 2026

Owners ask me what AI consulting costs before they ask anything else. Most pages that answer the question give a range wide enough to mean nothing, then ask for your email. Here are our prices at Dragonfly AI, what each one buys, and the costs that never make it into a quote.

What AI Consulting Costs at Dragonfly AI

We have four prices. They are current as of October 2026.

• $2,500 for a standard Dragonfly OS install.
• From $5,000, one time, for a small project.
• $5,000 to $10,000 a month for an Automation Sprint.
• From $1,000 a month for ongoing work.

We are a Utah company, and most of the owners I talk to run Utah businesses. If that is you, see AI automation and consulting in Utah.

$2,500: A Standard Dragonfly OS Install

Dragonfly OS is an always-on AI agent set up on your own data and tools. The $2,500 install is the standard setup: the same core system I run my own businesses on, connected to your accounts, plus two custom Skills built for your operation and training for the people who will use it.

The price includes mapping the scope with you. Once the scope is mapped, the install itself typically takes a single day. Custom Tools, like a portal or a dashboard, are scoped and priced separately.

It is our lowest-priced build.

From $5,000: A Small Project

A small project is billed one time. $5,000 is the floor, and I scope every one myself.

$5,000 to $10,000 a Month: An Automation Sprint

A larger project runs as an Automation Sprint. Most sprints ship one custom agent for one job. A sales agent that qualifies inbound leads is one example. An admin agent that chases invoices and paperwork is another. You can see the agents we build most often.

A sprint costs $5,000 to $10,000 a month while we build. The price depends on the number of systems we connect and the number of people whose work changes.

Builds that cover several workflows can take up to 12 weeks. We plan those with an AI Strategy Assessment, a paid diagnostic of its own. Its price depends on the size of your operation, so we quote it on the call.

From $1,000 a Month: Ongoing Work

Automations break when the business changes. A new hire, a new service line or a software switch is enough. A retainer pays for someone to keep what we built working and to keep building.

Ours start at $1,000 a month. The largest version is the Embedded AI Department: a named AI lead at your leadership table, a roadmap we revisit with you every month, and new builds on a set schedule.

A retainer makes sense when your business is growing and the list of things to automate keeps getting longer. If your operation is stable and simple, pay for a project and call us when something changes.

What It Costs to Do It Yourself

You can start for $20 a month. That buys one seat of ChatGPT or Claude, which is enough to draft emails, summarize meetings and research a competitor. A free Zapier plan handles a couple of simple automations, like sending a form submission to your CRM.

The real cost is your time. You will spend evenings learning the tools, and most owners stall at the same two places: connecting systems to each other, and deciding which workflow is worth automating first. Do it yourself if you enjoy the work. Hire it out when your hours are worth more somewhere else.

The Costs Nobody Puts in the Quote

• Tool subscriptions. The AI models, the automation platform and any software add-ons bill monthly on top of the build. Ask for the full list with prices before you sign anything.
• Your team's time. People need hours to learn the new workflow, and those hours come out of their current workload. Skipped training is how a good build ends up unused.
• Upkeep. Someone has to watch the automations and handle the cases they get wrong. Without a retainer, that someone is on your payroll.
• Changes after launch. The first version is never the last. Budget for adjustments in the first 90 days.

How to Tell Whether It Pays Off

Count hours. Take the hours a week the work costs you now, multiply by what that person costs per hour, then multiply by 52. A job that eats 5 hours a week from a $40-an-hour employee costs $10,400 a year. A $5,000 project that removes it pays for itself in about six months.

Compare that with hiring. A part-time employee at $25 an hour for 10 hours a week costs $13,000 a year before benefits and the time you spend managing them.

If the math does not clear the price within a year, do not build it. We will tell you that on the call. One of the three answers we give is no.

Questions to Ask Any AI Consultant About Price

• Is the scope fixed, or is this an estimate?
• Who owns what you build when the contract ends?
• Who fixes it when it breaks, and what does that cost?

Our answers: a sprint has a fixed scope and timeline, you own what we build, and upkeep is what the retainer covers.

Where to Start

Book a free 20-minute strategy call. Tell us what eats your team's week, and we will tell you which of these prices fits or whether you should wait. You get a written summary within 24 hours either way.