Where the money goes
A quote should show the work behind the number. For one clearly bounded workflow, I would normally break the scope into these parts.
| Work | Typical scope | Days | Cost at £450 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Process mapping | Inputs, decisions, exceptions, owners and acceptance tests. | 1 to 2 | £450 to £900 |
| Build and integration | Prompts, rules, connections, logging and failure handling. | 3 to 8 | £1,350 to £3,600 |
| Handover | Testing record, operating guide and team training. | 1 to 2 | £450 to £900 |
| Total planning range | One useful workflow with a named owner. | 5 to 12 | £2,250 to £5,400 |
The range assumes the process already exists and somebody can explain it. If nobody owns the process, discovery becomes a separate job. My guide to which business processes AI can automate includes the four tests I use before pricing.
The six things that change the price
Process clarity
A written process with known exceptions is cheaper to automate than work held in three people’s heads.
Data condition
Clean tables and consistent documents are easier than scanned PDFs, missing fields and conflicting records.
Integrations
Each CRM, inbox, spreadsheet, database or private API adds access, testing and failure cases.
Risk
A private internal draft needs fewer controls than an action that changes customer data or sends a public answer.
Exceptions
The normal path is usually easy. The price sits in the unusual cases and what the system must do when confidence is low.
Support
A clean handover costs less than a managed service with monitoring, updates and response cover.
Costs that sit outside the build
The consultancy fee is only one line. Ask for the operating costs before you approve the project.
- Model usage. The bill depends on the model, prompt size, output size and number of runs. In October 2026, OpenAI's standard rate for gpt-6-luna was $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens, while Claude Opus 5.5 was $4 and $20. Long prompts can cost more and cached input less. These prices move often, so check them on the day you budget.
- Automation software. n8n, Make, Zapier or another orchestration tool may carry a monthly charge. Zapier now charges AI steps by model tier: 1, 3 or 5 tasks per run, and each tool call costs the same again. Make changed how the models in its built-in AI Provider use credits on 25 August 2026, with separate rates for input and output. The self-hosted n8n Community edition is free, but you still pay to host it.
- Assistant licences. If the workflow lives inside Microsoft 365, Copilot Business is £13.80 per user a month ex VAT, paid yearly, down from £16.10. That offer runs to 31 December 2026, for the first year only, for existing eligible Business customers.
- Hosting and storage. Custom code, logs and document stores need somewhere to run.
- Monitoring. Someone must know when an API changes, a run fails or costs jump.
- Internal review. Human approval is still work. Budget the owner’s time honestly.
A workflow that touches personal data needs more than a clever prompt. The ICO AI risk toolkit is a useful starting point, though the ICO now marks it as under review after the Data (Use and Access) Act. The NCSC secure AI guidance, published in November 2023, also puts security across design, development, deployment and operation.
Day rate or fixed price?
Use a day rate while the problem is still being defined. Use a fixed price once the workflow is clear.
A fixed quote should name the input, output, systems, review point, failure behaviour and acceptance test. Without those six details, the fixed price only hides the uncertainty.
Hourly rates, retainers and ROI
Hourly fees are hard to compare when discovery and implementation overlap. A day rate makes the working block visible. A fixed fee makes sense after the scope is stable. A retainer is better reserved for ongoing support, monitoring and a planned queue of improvements.
Calculate likely ROI before approving the build. Use handling hours saved, avoidable errors and faster response times. Do not count vague productivity gains that nobody will measure.
What other UK firms publish
Use these to sense-check any quote, including mine. The first row is a rate index. The rest are a small sample of firms that show prices on their own sites. All were read on 14 October 2026. Most are starting prices or ranges, not an average. Prices exclude VAT where the firm says so.
| Source | What it prices | Published price |
|---|---|---|
| ITJobsWatch | AI consultant contract day rates in UK job adverts, six months to 14 October 2026, 70 rates | Median £564 a day. Middle 80% from £425 to £713 |
| Tenhaw | Consultancy day rates, associate to partner | £950 to £1,560 a day ex VAT |
| The AI Consultancy | Day rate for open-ended scope | £950 to £1,500 a day ex VAT |
| Automation Agency | One automation, or a whole process end to end | From £500, or from £3,000 |
| Insightful AI | Fixed-price workflow automation build | From £1,500 ex VAT |
| HeyBRB | One no-code workflow across your current tools | £1,500 to £3,000 ex VAT |
| AIAS | Most first projects, fixed quote | £2,000 to £10,000 |
| Streamlined Analytics | Fixed-price automation builds | From £3,000 plus VAT |
| Ronins | Discovery workshops before a build | About £3,000 to £8,500 |
| Rocking Tech | Workflow, assistant or engine build, after £1,500 discovery | £6,000, £12,000 or £22,000 plus VAT |
Contract day rates in job adverts are what hirers offer contractors. They are not the same as a consultancy's fee to you. Survey data gives another angle. In the government's AI adoption research, businesses using or planning to use AI that could give a figure reported a median 2024 spend on AI of £2,000, and a mean of £19,000. That survey covered 3,500 UK private sector businesses with at least five staff, interviewed between February and May 2025.
Three quote warnings
- No discovery. The supplier prices before seeing the real process or source data.
- No owner. Nobody on your team is responsible for checking outputs and approving changes.
- No handover. The quote ends at deployment and leaves documentation, access and support unclear.
If your scope is still unclear, start with the consultant versus agency guide. It explains which delivery model fits a small build, a multi-team programme or a permanent internal capability.
How these figures were calculated
The figures are arithmetic based on my published £450 day rate. They describe a bounded single-workflow scope. They are not claimed as a UK market average. The outside rates, tool prices and survey figures were re-checked at the source on 14 October 2026.
