An independent AI consultant costs $80 to $200 an hour, a boutique firm $150 to $300, and a big consulting firm $300 to $600, according to Groovy Web's 2026 rate guide. A one-off pilot runs $10,000 to $50,000 and a production install $50,000 to $150,000, according to The Crunch.
Those are market ranges from public pricing guides. Your own quote will land somewhere inside them. Below: what moves your number up or down, then 8 names, from an engineer you hire by the hour to firms built for global banks.
There's no single price list for this market. So we took the ranges from three pricing guides published or updated in 2026 and put them side by side. They mostly agree. Where they don't, you'll see both numbers.
| Who you hire | Market range (2026) | Source | What you usually get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Independent consultant | $80-$200/hr | Groovy Web | One person. Senior independents and fractional AI leads can bill $350-$500/hr, per The Crunch. |
| Boutique AI firm | $150-$300/hr (Groovy Web), $150-$350/hr (The Crunch) | Groovy Web, The Crunch | A small team of senior builders. Layer 3 Labs puts boutiques a bit lower, at $125-$250/hr. |
| Big consulting firm | $300-$600/hr | Groovy Web, The Crunch | A large bench. The Crunch puts partners at these firms at $1,000-$1,500/hr. |
| One-off pilot | $10K-$50K | The Crunch | A proof that one use case works, in 4 to 8 weeks. |
| Production install | $50K-$150K | The Crunch | A system that runs on your real data every day, in 8 to 16 weeks. |
| Ongoing support | $2.5K-$15K/mo | Layer 3 Labs | From upkeep of one workflow to active development each month. |
Sources: Groovy Web (published April 2 2026), The Crunch (published June 2 2026), Layer 3 Labs (updated September 9 2026). All three are written by firms that sell AI services, so read them as a range, not a rule.
Pricing a part-time AI executive instead of a project? That's a different buy. It's covered in How Much Does a Fractional AI Officer Cost in 2026?
Messy data costs the most. If orders live in email, a spreadsheet and an old ERP, someone cleans that up first, and that work is often bigger than the AI part.
Then count the systems. One inbox is cheap. An inbox plus your ERP, your CRM and your phone system is a different project.
A pilot you check by hand stays cheap. A system that books orders at 2 a.m. with nobody watching needs logging, error handling and a way to stop it.
Ask who writes the code. The person on the sales call is often not the person who builds it.
And plan for after launch. Models change, your processes change, staff leave. Budget for support, or own it in house.
Published by Negodiuk AI. Our own firm is number one here, and the cons on every card, ours included, show where someone else fits you better. Every firm below:
We ranked for a $5M to $50M B2B company that wants AI running in production, and gave a point for a New York office. None of the eight, us included, posts prices on its site, and the price column says so.
| Name | Pricing | Best for | What they do | NYC presence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Negodiuk AI | Scoped per project, starts with a free audit | B2B operators doing $5M-$50M | Voice agents, order entry, email triage, quote-to-order | New York City |
| BlueLabel | Not listed on site (Sept 2026) | Companies building an AI product or agent | AI strategy, agent workflows, RAG, conversational AI | HQ, 18 West 18th St |
| Tekscape | Not listed on site (Sept 2026) | Companies that want their IT provider to build AI too | Managed IT, custom AI agents, Microsoft Copilot | 131 West 35th St |
| Toptal | Not listed on site (Sept 2026) | Teams that know the job and need hands by the hour | Vetted freelance AI engineers | Remote network |
| Intellectyx | Not listed on site (Sept 2026) | Enterprises wanting one vendor from plan to support | AI consulting, development, managed services | Not listed (Pasadena, Denver) |
| SoluLab | Not listed on site (Sept 2026) | Custom AI apps, often next to blockchain work | AI/ML, generative AI, blockchain, custom software | New York address listed |
| Sigmoidal | Not listed on site (Sept 2026) | Large enterprises, pharma, private equity | Embedded senior teams building enterprise AI | Not listed on site |
| Neurons Lab | Not listed on site (Sept 2026) | Banks, insurers, wealth managers | AI training and custom AI agents for finance | Not listed (London, Singapore) |
Dmytro Negodiuk is a Fractional AI Officer in New York City. He builds and runs production AI for B2B operators doing $5M to $50M: distributors, Amazon and e-commerce brands, staffing firms and B2B services. The work is voice agents on calls 24/7 in 15+ languages, handling thousands of B2B conversations weekly, plus order entry, email triage, quote-to-order and operations automation. He runs production AI systems in healthcare and B2B logistics.
Best for: a mid-size B2B company with real volume in orders, calls or email that wants the system built and kept running. Start with the free AI audit: a short form, and a diagnosis comes back by email.
BlueLabel calls itself an agentic AI strategy and development agency. Its site lists AI strategy, AI agent workflows, RAG development, conversational AI, AI product development and data and LLM engineering. It reports a team of 75+, 13+ years in business and 300+ products launched, and says Clutch ranked it the #1 AI consultant in 2025. Its headquarters is at 18 West 18th Street in Manhattan.
Best for: a company building a new AI product or customer-facing agent that wants a full agency team in New York.
Tekscape started as a managed IT company in New York City and now builds custom AI agents. Its site describes "production AI agents that connect to your systems" and a six-week path from pilot to production. It also deploys Microsoft Copilot, next to managed IT, cybersecurity and cloud. It serves finance, healthcare, legal, education and manufacturing.
Best for: a company that wants the firm running its IT and security to build its AI agents too.
Toptal is a talent network. You hire a freelance AI engineer and manage the work yourself. Toptal says fewer than 3% of applicants are accepted, the average time to match is under 24 hours, and you get a trial of up to two weeks where you pay only if satisfied. Rates are quoted by a talent matcher, not posted.
Best for: a company with a tech lead who already knows what to build and needs extra hands.
Intellectyx sells enterprise AI consulting, development and managed services. Its pitch is that most AI programs use one vendor to advise, one to build and one to keep it alive, and that it does all three. It serves manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, retail, consumer goods, logistics, energy and media, and reports 16+ years in operation.
Best for: an enterprise that wants one vendor from roadmap to support.
SoluLab builds AI and machine learning systems, generative AI apps and chatbots, alongside blockchain, Web3 and custom software. Its site reports 250+ staff and 11 years in business, and lists industries from healthcare and finance to supply chain and logistics.
Best for: a company that needs a custom AI app built by a large development team.
Sigmoidal has built production AI since 2016. It works in three areas: enterprise AI for research, underwriting, claims and finance processes, life sciences and healthcare, and private equity. It embeds senior teams inside the client. Its site names Novartis among the organizations it has worked with.
Best for: a large enterprise, pharma company or PE firm with a serious AI budget.
Neurons Lab focuses on agentic AI for financial services: wealth management, retail and business banking, insurance and private banking. It offers AI training for teams and custom AI agents for core workflows, with forward-deployed engineers working next to client staff. Its site names HSBC and Visa as clients.
Best for: a bank, insurer or wealth manager. Outside finance this is not your vendor.
It depends on who you hire and how far the work goes. Groovy Web's 2026 guide puts independent consultants at $80 to $200 an hour and boutique firms at $150 to $300. A pilot runs $10,000 to $50,000, and a production build $50,000 to $150,000. Your own data and systems move the number more than any rate card.
Pay by the hour when the task is small and clear, like fixing one integration or reviewing a vendor. Pay by the project when you want a working system at the end. A fixed scope puts the risk of overruns on the consultant. Ask what done means in writing before you sign either one. If they can't write it down, the scope isn't ready.
A pilot runs on clean sample data with someone watching it. Production runs on your real orders, emails and calls, all day, and you're not watching it. That means connecting to your ERP or CRM, handling the weird cases, logging every action and adding a way for staff to step in. The Crunch lists pilots at $10,000 to $50,000 and production builds at $50,000 to $150,000.
It won't run itself. Layer 3 Labs lists monthly support from $2.5K to $4K for one workflow, up to $8K to $15K for active development. On top of that you pay for model usage and software. Ask the consultant for a monthly running cost estimate before the build starts, not after.
For a Fortune 500 program with a board, auditors and ten departments, often yes. The name and the bench carry weight there. For a $5M to $50M company the math rarely works. Groovy Web lists big firms at $300 to $600 an hour, and that rate buys the brand as much as the build. A smaller builder who writes the code usually gets you to production faster.
A useful audit names the specific places where your team loses hours or money, ranks them, and says which ones AI can fix and which ones it can't. You should keep it even if you don't hire the consultant. If the audit is a slide deck of generic AI trends with a sales call at the end, it was a pitch, not an audit.
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