The short answer: typical 2026 market ranges
The honest answer I give owners is that there is no single price, because 'AI consulting' covers everything from a two-week diagnostic to a multi-month build. What I can give you is the bands the market has settled into. Know them and you stop over-paying, or worse, buying a build before anyone has diagnosed whether it pays.
- AI readiness assessment or audit: roughly £1,500 to £3,000 in the UK, or $2,000 to $8,000 in the US, delivered in two to four weeks.
- AI strategy and roadmap: around $8,000 to $25,000 for a comprehensive, costed plan with tool selection and a phased implementation timeline.
- Day rates: UK AI and automation consultants typically charge £400 to £1,500 a day, depending on seniority and whether they advise or build.
- Project-based SME automation builds: roughly £2,000 to £15,000, depending on scope and how much data plumbing is needed first.
- Fractional AI leadership: around £1,500 a day for two to four days a month (~£36,000 a year), versus the six-figure cost of a full-time Chief AI Officer.
What actually drives the price
I have watched two similar businesses get quotes an order of magnitude apart for what sounded like the same job. When I dig into why, it almost always comes down to the same four factors.
- Scope: a diagnostic roadmap costs a fraction of a build. Advising where AI pays is cheap; shipping it is where the number scales.
- Data readiness: a business with clean, owned data pays less. One that needs a data spine built first pays for that first, before any AI.
- Seniority and productisation: a standardised, productised diagnostic is cheaper than bespoke, senior-led strategy work.
- Build versus advise: the roadmap is the cheap part. Implementation, integration and change management are where cost concentrates.
The four pricing models, and when each fits
How you are charged matters as much as how much. Four models dominate the SME market.
- Day rate: flexible and good for exploratory work, but you carry the scope risk and the meter is always running.
- Fixed-price package: a defined deliverable (an audit, a roadmap) for a set fee. Predictable, and the right way to start a relationship you can exit cleanly.
- Retainer or fractional: ongoing leadership for a monthly fee. Sensible once you have a real programme to run, not before.
- Performance or outcome-based: fees tied to a measurable result. Rare, and only honest where the outcome can be cleanly attributed.
Judge it on value, not on day rate
Whenever an owner opens with 'what is your day rate?', I know we are measuring the wrong thing. I would rather they asked what each outcome costs. I have seen a £3,000 roadmap surface three quick wins worth five figures a year, and I have watched businesses pour £25,000 into a build nobody had a business case for. The day rate told you nothing in either case.
- Ask for a costed business case per opportunity before any build is quoted.
- Prioritise quick wins that can be operational in 60 to 90 days over a grand transformation.
- Be wary of anyone who sells the build before they have done the diagnosis. The order tells you who they work for.
What this looks like in practice
The details change from one business to the next, but the pattern almost never does. The costed roadmap keeps landing on the dull, expensive internal process the owner has stopped noticing, not the exciting AI project they walked in asking about. Three examples of how that tends to play out:
- Manufacturing, the slow quote: a components or food manufacturer, 30 to 50 staff in the Midlands or North, is sure they need AI on the shop floor. The roadmap says the floor is fine; the money is leaking from the quoting desk, where an estimator spends the best part of two days hand-pulling prices from spreadsheets and old emails while faster rivals win the job. The win is an AI-assisted quoting workflow: quotes out same-day instead of two days later, and roughly a day a week back for the estimator.
- Professional services, the month-end drowning: a regional accountancy or law firm with 10 to 20 fee-earners, worried they are behind. The opportunity is not a clever client-facing tool, it is the quiet tax on senior time, the 5 to 8 hours a week each lost to first-draft emails, file notes and document summaries, worst at month-end and year-end. The win is a draft-and-summarise assistant the fee-earners drive, with a human signing off every output, and most of a working day back per fee-earner when it matters most.
- eCommerce, the post-campaign inbox: a direct-to-consumer brand turning over a few million a year, whose support inbox floods after every big campaign until response times slip and refunds creep up. The win is AI triage plus drafted replies for the most repetitive queries, approved by a human before they send: first response down from around 14 hours to under 2, and a 30 percent spike in volume absorbed without a new hire.
Where to start: a costed roadmap before you spend
You should never commit to an AI build without a costed, ranked view of where it actually pays in your business. That is exactly what our free AI Profit Roadmap is: a 45-minute discovery call, a costed analysis delivered within a week, and three named quick wins you can act on regardless of whether you work with us further.
It is roughly £750 (about $1,000) of work, given free, because it also qualifies both sides. If a paid engagement is wrong for you, the roadmap is still useful on its own. You spend on outcomes, not on hype.