How much does custom AI software cost

How much does custom AI software cost?

Written by Miroslav Jugović. Published October 3, 2026.

One AI workflow

$10,000 to $25,000, 2 to 4 weeks

MVP with an AI core

$25,000 to $50,000, 4 to 8 weeks

Platform or legacy replacement

$50,000 to $100,000, 8 to 12 weeks

Advisory

$200 an hour, two-hour minimum

Running cost

tens to a few hundred dollars a month, on your accounts

The three ranges

Custom AI software falls into three sizes, and each size has a price range and a time range. The ranges below are ours. They are fixed prices: one number on the quote, and the quote is the price.

Scope	Price	Time	What it is
Feature Sprint	$10,000 to $25,000	2 to 4 weeks	One AI workflow, automation or internal tool, in production
Product Sprint	$25,000 to $50,000	4 to 8 weeks	An MVP with an AI core, roles, payments, admin
Platform Sprint	$50,000 to $100,000	8 to 12 weeks	A multi-tenant platform or legacy replacement with migration

What moves a quote within the range

Five things push a build toward the top of its range. More integrations. More user roles. Migration from an existing system. A security review. An AI workflow that needs its own evaluation data set because your cases are unusual. Fewer of these move the quote toward the bottom.

Two things do not move the price: our own estimation mistakes, which we absorb, and ideas that come up during the build, which go on a visible “next” list and into the retainer roadmap.

What the price includes

A number that only covers writing code is not a useful number. Ours includes the work that gets software into production: integration with your systems, a review queue for the cases the model is not sure about, an evaluation set built from your real data, deployment on your cloud account, monitoring, a runbook, and a fix window of 30 to 90 days.

What it costs to run

Running cost has three parts, all on your own accounts. Cloud hosting, usually $20 to $200 a month for these sizes. Model usage, usually tens of dollars a month for document workflows and up to a few hundred for products with heavy generation. Third-party services you already pay for. We instrument cost per request from the first week so the number is measured, not guessed.

How this compares

An agency team of three at $75 an hour for twelve weeks is about $108,000, billed by the hour, with no fixed date. A freelancer at $80 to $120 an hour costs less for a small feature and cannot take a platform-sized build. A full-time hire costs salary for three to six months before anything ships. The fixed-price sprint sits in the middle on price and wins on certainty: the number and the date are on paper before work starts.

Market rates are from the Clutch software development pricing guide and Upwork freelancer rate data, 2026.

How to get your number

A 30-minute call and a one-page brief. A written quote in three business days. For a Platform Sprint, a five-day Scoping Review for $1,500 first, credited against the sprint if you sign within 30 days.

Follow-up questions.

Why is one AI feature $10,000 and not $5,000?

Because the feature is in production, not in a demo. The price covers integration with your systems, a review queue, an evaluation set on your real data, deployment on your cloud, monitoring and 30 days of fixes. The model call itself is the cheap part.

Do agencies charge more or less?

Agencies typically bill $50 to $150 an hour with teams of 2 to 10 people and no fixed date. A 12-week project with three people at $75 an hour is about $108,000, open-ended. Freelancers charge less but cannot take a platform-sized build alone.

What about the cost of the AI itself?

Model usage is billed by the provider on your own account. A document workflow processing a few thousand items a month costs tens of dollars. A product with heavy generation can reach a few hundred. We measure it in the first week and show you the number.