The entry ticket
Three people, an audit with a written plan and one workflow built: $4,600 to $10,600 over twelve months. Below that there is no project, only experiments that die during the first busy week.
Blog · Small business guide · Budget · 2026 prices
How much AI costs a small business: real 2026 budgets
Almost nobody publishes a price, so the owner trying to size a project is working blind. Here are the lines that show up in every quote, the ranges the market is actually charging this year, and the three reasons the same project comes back at $2,000 from one supplier and $12,000 from the next.
Short answer
For a ten-person company, $9,000 to $15,000 in the first year
The figure lands wrong in both directions. It is nowhere near the six-figure programmes the press writes about, and well above the $25 subscription many owners assume will cover it. Three lines make up that budget, and only one of them is really negotiable.
The common case
Ten people with six of them equipped, one training day and two workflows in production: $9,100 to $15,100. This is the budget that produces a measurable result before the year ends.
The line everyone forgets
What comes back every month once the system ships: subscriptions, workflow hosting, upkeep. Anywhere from $50 to $2,000 depending on what runs. Settle it before signing, not six months later.
The lines
What sits inside an AI budget, line by line
One thing worth saying before the detail: the figures below are the market's, not mine. I do not publish a rate card, because the price of a project depends on what there is to do and I only know that after looking at your tools. These ranges are here so you can tell whether a quote you receive is in the right zone.
An AI quote mixes three kinds of spending that follow different rules. A subscription can be compared in three clicks. A training day is negotiable. A build is priced against scope, and nobody can price it seriously before looking at your tools. Mixing the three is how you end up paying service rates for software, or the reverse.
Licences
ChatGPT Business and Claude Team charge the same: $20 per person per month on annual billing, $25 month to month, two seats minimum. Microsoft 365 Copilot asks $30 per person, or $18 under 300 employees, on top of a Microsoft 365 licence. Budget $20 to $30 per person per month, and only equip the people who will use it.
Training
A day on site runs from $3,000 to $12,000 in the United States for a group of ten to twenty-five, and from 1,500 to 3,500 euros in France. Four private two-hour sessions sit between $1,200 and $1,800. The rate rarely follows head count: it follows the preparation work on your real cases.
The build
One workflow built and tested runs $2,000 to $5,000. A project crossing several departments goes from $5,000 to $15,000. The line that overruns is never the AI itself: it is the plumbing into your existing software when nobody remembers how it was configured.
Then there is the recurring cost, which no quote puts on the front page. Hosting a workflow on n8n cloud costs 24 euros a month for 2,500 executions and 60 euros for 10,000, with 17 per cent off on annual billing (n8n prices in euros). Self-hosted, the software is free: all that is left is the server, under 10 euros a month with most hosts. Model calls are counted in cents per document. Upkeep is the negotiable one, $1,000 to $2,000 a month, and it only earns its place when the workflow touches your invoicing or your customers. What the tool actually changes is covered in the n8n guide for small businesses, and the official rates sit on the n8n pricing page.
Three budgets
Three companies, three twelve-month totals
A range means nothing until you put it against a real case. Here are three first-year budgets, built from the prices above, before any negotiation.
3 people
The bare minimum
Two business seats for the year: $600.
An audit and its written plan: $2,000 to $5,000.
One workflow built, the quotes: $2,000 to $5,000.
Total: $4,600 to $10,600 in year one.
10 people
A team that works with it
Six people equipped: $1,800 for the year.
One training day for the team: $3,000.
Two workflows built, quotes and invoices: $4,000 to $10,000.
Workflow hosting: $300 for the year.
Total: $9,100 to $15,100 in year one.
30 people
Several departments involved
Fifteen people equipped: $4,500 for the year.
Two training days, two groups: $6,000.
A project spanning sales and finance: $8,000 to $15,000.
Upkeep over six months: $6,000 to $12,000.
Total: $24,500 to $37,500 in year one.
Three notes on those totals. Year two costs two to three times less, since the build is not paid twice. None of these budgets includes a new line-of-business licence, a CRM rebuild or a data migration: those projects exist, but they are not AI projects. And in all three cases training weighs less than the build, even though training is what decides whether the system is still in use come March.
Variables
Why the same project is quoted at $2,000 or $12,000
The gap rarely comes from the supplier's margin. Three variables do most of the work, and you control two of them.
The state of your tools comes first. Wiring a workflow into a mailbox and a spreadsheet takes two days. Wiring it into a 2011 line-of-business package with no API takes ten, and sometimes forces workarounds that will need looking after. Before asking for a quote, list the software involved and check which ones can talk to the others. That list is worth money.
The number of edge cases comes next. A standard quote covering 80 per cent of your requests automates quickly. Five price grids, three tax regimes and one legacy customer on his own terms turn the same project into development work. The question is not how many edge cases exist, but how many deserve to be handled by a machine.
The level of control closes the list. A workflow that drafts and leaves you to review costs the price on the tin. A workflow that sends to your customers on its own needs guardrails, logs and a test at every model change. I recommend the first version in nearly every case: it costs less and it leaves you in charge. The five use cases that pay off first are set out in this guide to AI agents for small business.
That leaves the day rate, which covers two different jobs under one title. A freelance integrator executing an automation you have already specified charges roughly $500 to $900 a day. A day with preparation on your cases, facilitation and a written deliverable runs from $3,000 to $12,000. Comparing the two makes no sense: in the first you are buying hands, in the second a decision.
Method
Work out your ceiling before asking for a quote
01
Time the task over a real week
Take the one that comes back most often and time it, without rounding. Most owners overestimate the visible tasks and forget the five minutes repeated forty times. An honest figure beats a generous hunch.
02
Turn the hours into money
Two hours a week over 45 working weeks is 90 hours a year. Multiply that by your own loaded hourly cost, the one your accountant already knows. What comes out is what the task costs you today, and therefore the ceiling above which automating it stops making sense.
03
Fund one workflow at a time
The first one proves your tools can talk to each other and your team will follow. If it runs for two months without you, the second gets priced on real data instead of guesses. If it does not, you are out $3,000 rather than $15,000.
Limits
What deserves no budget at all
A task done twice a year does not justify a system, however tedious it feels. A process nobody has ever written down cannot be automated either: you would freeze the mess into a workflow and have to unpick it later. As for the tool your team refuses, it will cost you its price plus the hours spent arguing, for nothing.
There is one more case, more common than it sounds: the company that has no time problem but a customer problem. No automation fills an empty order book. When that is the situation, I say so on the call and I do not send a quote.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
How much does AI training for employees cost?
A one-day workshop for a group of ten to twenty-five people runs from $3,000 to $12,000 in the United States, and from 1,500 to 3,500 euros in France. Four private two-hour sessions for one to three people sit between $1,200 and $1,800. The price follows the preparation work on your own cases, not the number of attendees.
How much does a custom AI agent cost?
Budget $2,000 to $5,000 for a single workflow built and tested, such as drafting quotes or filing supplier invoices. A project that crosses several departments runs from $5,000 to $15,000. On top of that come hosting, 24 to 60 euros a month on n8n cloud, and optional upkeep between $1,000 and $2,000 a month.
What AI budget should a three-person business plan for?
From $4,600 to $10,600 over twelve months: two business seats at around $600 a year, an audit with a written plan between $2,000 and $5,000, and a single workflow built for $2,000 to $5,000. Buying seats for the whole team in month one is the easiest expense to avoid.
How much does an AI consultant charge per day?
Two markets sit under the same job title. A freelance integrator executing an automation you have already specified charges roughly $500 to $900 a day. A day that includes preparation on your cases, facilitation and a written deliverable runs from $3,000 to $12,000 in the United States. A day rate quoted without a defined deliverable compares to nothing.
How long does an AI project take to pay for itself?
The maths fits on one line: hours returned per week, multiplied by your own loaded hourly cost, over 45 working weeks. Two hours a week is 90 hours a year. Compare the figure that comes out with the price of the workflow: above it, the build does not pay for itself within the year. And it never pays for itself if the hours returned go nowhere.
Next
Where to go from here
A budget is built from your situation, not from a market range. Before comparing quotes you need to know which task deserves automating first, and that is exactly what the AI audit produces. To check what a supplier owes you for the price, this guide to choosing an AI consultant lists the questions to ask before signing.
The AI audit
90 minutes on your tasks, then a written plan within 48 hours with three costed projects. The step to take when everything feels urgent at once.
AI training for business
Four private two-hour sessions on your own tools and real files. The cheapest line in the budget, and the one that decides all the others.
Custom AI agents
I build the workflow on your accounts, with your rules, and you own it. You review, you approve, the task runs without you.