AI implementation pricing in 2026. What real custom AI actually costs.
Most AI agencies hide their pricing. Here's the honest breakdown of what custom AI implementation costs in 2026 and what you should pay for what.
If you've shopped for custom AI development, you already know. Every agency website says "contact us for pricing." The reason they don't list numbers is that they don't have fixed ones. They quote based on what they think you'll pay.
Foundry lists numbers. Here's why, and what the categories mean.
The four tiers of AI work
Tier 1: The hype tier. Chatbot with a ChatGPT wrapper. Takes a week, costs $2-5k, does about what a no-code tool would do. Skip this. Use a $20 SaaS instead.
Tier 2: The dev-shop tier. Custom app with AI features bolted in. Takes 4-12 weeks, costs $25-75k. Usually built by a generalist dev shop that learned prompting last year. Quality varies wildly.
Tier 3: The boutique AI tier. Specialist AI shop, production-grade systems, engineers who've shipped real AI products before. Takes 4-20 weeks, costs $50-250k. This is where Foundry lives.
Tier 4: The enterprise tier. Big 4 consulting, McKinsey Digital, Accenture AI. Takes 6-18 months, costs $500k-$5M+. Mostly slide decks wrapped around outsourced dev work.
What Tier 3 actually costs at Foundry
Audit — $5,900. Paid, two-week engagement. You get a 900-word personalized report, a prioritized 12-month roadmap, and an executive readout. Credited toward any later engagement within 90 days. This is for buyers who want to know what to build before committing to building it.
Sprint — $35,000. Four weeks. One production module shipped. Could be an automation, a dashboard, or an agent. You pick the one based on the audit. This is for buyers who want to test the relationship before committing to a Build.
Build — $95,000 starting. 8-12 weeks. Three-to-five production modules, wired together into an operating layer. Internal tools, external agents, full observability. This is the typical Foundry engagement. Most clients start here or graduate to it from a Sprint.
Launch — $175,000 starting. 12-20 weeks. Build a new AI-native business from scratch. Concept, product, ops layer, go-to-market. This is for founders with capital and an idea who want Foundry to be the full build partner. Fixed fee, no equity required (though discussable).
Operate — $4,000/month starting. Ongoing retainer for monitoring, iteration, and new-module development. Most Build clients roll into an Operate tier for 6-12 months after the initial engagement.
Why these numbers
The math comes from what it actually costs to ship. A senior AI engineer in the US is $180-300k/year fully loaded. A Build engagement uses 1.5-2 engineers for 8-12 weeks plus 0.3 of a designer and 0.3 of a project manager. The $95k-150k range is the ethical margin for that work.
If someone quotes you $25k for a Build-sized engagement, they're either underpaying an engineer in a lower-cost market (quality risk) or going to cut corners (ship risk).
If someone quotes you $500k for the same work, they have ten mouths between you and the engineer.
Foundry keeps it boutique. Small team, flat price, work you can trace back to the person writing the code.
What changes the price
Three real variables move the number up or down:
Integration complexity. If you're on modern APIs (HubSpot, Stripe, Linear, Notion), the integrations are clean and cheap. If you're on legacy systems (custom ERPs, enterprise tools without good APIs, data in CSV files emailed around), add 20-40%.
Decision complexity. If the AI's job is straightforward classification or drafting, it's faster to ship. If it's multi-step agentic reasoning with tool use and human-in-the-loop, it takes longer. Agentic work adds 30-60%.
Compliance needs. If you're regulated (healthcare, finance, legal), documentation and testing overhead adds 20-50%.
We tell you all three on the audit call, not after we've started building.
What doesn't change the price
Your company size, your funding stage, the fact that it's "for your CEO." The work takes what the work takes. We charge what it costs to do it well.
What to do
If your budget is under $30k: start with an audit or a sprint. Don't overcommit.
If your budget is $50-150k: Build is the right shape for you. Book a call to scope it.
If your budget is $200k+: Launch or custom Build. Run the audit first so we're aligned on what to ship.
If your budget is "we don't have one yet": run the audit, get the report, show it to your CFO. The math usually makes the case.
Foundry's prices are on the pricing page. No contact-us-for-quote. If we're right for you, you'll know before we're on a call.