If you've looked into AI agents for your business, you've seen prices all over the map. Enterprise platforms charge thousands a month. Freelancers quote anywhere from $500 to $10,000. It's hard to know what's actually reasonable.
So here's a straight answer on what it costs to get a custom agent built and running with me. No enterprise markup, no vague "contact us for pricing."
The short version
A single straightforward agent starts at $299 to build and $99 a month to run. More involved agents, the ones doing customer support, lead qualification, or research across several tools, run higher, up to around $1,200 to build with monthly support to match. Fully custom builds start at $1,499.
Support is a monthly subscription. Full pricing for each type of agent is on the services page.
What the build fee covers
The one-time fee is the work to get your agent live. I take what you need, build the agent around it, train it on your business information, connect it to the tools you already use, test it, and hand it over with a walkthrough. You don't touch anything technical.
How long does it take?
Two weeks, start to finish. Day one, we finish intake, everything I need to build your agent. By day seven it's built and ready for a calibration period, where it runs against real situations and I tune how it behaves. By day fourteen, calibration's done and I hand it off. If yours needs more tuning, calibration runs a bit longer and handoff comes after that.
What the monthly fee covers
Your agent runs on a dedicated server, not your laptop. The monthly fee keeps it hosted, monitored, and updated, and it's how you reach me when you want a change or something's off.
What changes the price
Three things, mostly. How much the agent has to do, how many tools it connects to, and whether it's one of my standard agents or a fully custom build. A personal assistant that answers messages and books appointments sits at the low end. A customer support agent wired into your phone, your inbox, and your CRM sits higher. I'll tell you where your idea lands before you pay anything.
What about multiple agents?
Some businesses need more than one. A main agent you talk to, plus background agents handling research, content, or monitoring. You pay to build and run each agent, but once you've got two or more, making them work together is included. No extra fee for coordination.
Can the government help pay for it?
Often, yes. Nova Scotia runs an AI Digital Adoption Program through Digital Nova Scotia and NSCC, with grants up to $8,500 for small businesses adopting AI. If you qualify, it can cover your build and a good stretch of monthly support. Worth checking before you spend your own money.
How this compares
A virtual assistant doing the same tasks runs $500 to $2,000 a month, and they sleep, take holidays, and sometimes quit. Enterprise chat platforms start cheap but lock you into their box and don't plug into tools like Telegram or WhatsApp. Building it yourself is free in theory and expensive in the time you don't have. A custom agent sits in the middle: more capable than an off-the-shelf chatbot, cheaper than a hire, and built around how you actually work.
See one before you decide
Head to bradbond.org and talk to Cipher. It's a live agent running on the same setup yours would be built on. Ask it anything. That's your demo, no call required.
