AI agent development cost
Cost drivers for agent projects—scope, risk, integrations, and ops—not a public rate card.
We do not publish dollar ranges in drafts. Use these drivers to compare proposals apples-to-apples.
Scope variables
| Driver | Why it moves price |
|---|---|
| Tool surface | Read-only APIs vs write access vs shell |
| Data sensitivity | Regulated data needs more controls and review |
| Evaluation | Golden tasks, human rating loops, regression suites |
| UI surface | Chat-only vs embedded in existing product workflows |
| SLA | Business-hours vs on-call for agent failures |
Phases buyers should expect
- Discovery / spike — bounded timebox, written go/no-go
- MVP agent — one workflow, logging, kill switch
- Hardening — auth, rate limits, monitoring, runbooks
- Operate — monthly cost for APIs, hosting, and human review labor
Red flags in low bids
- No mention of evals or rollback
- Unlimited tool access on day one
- Missing ownership for prompts, secrets rotation, and model upgrades
Compare delivery models in hire AI developers vs agency. For delivery process see services.