How much does AI cost for a small or mid-size business?
AI cost has four parts: finding the workflow, building it, running it, and your team's time. What moves each one, with our published prices as an example.
The cost of AI for a small or mid-size business has four parts: finding the right workflow, building it, running it, and your team's time. Running it includes hosting, AI usage, other software, and upkeep. Ship AI Studio publishes its prices: $1,500 for an Assessment, $5,000 for a Build Sprint, and $999 a month for Operations.
A quote that shows only the build covers one line of four. The other three lines decide whether the number holds up a year from now. This guide explains each part, what makes it bigger or smaller, and how to compare the total with what the work costs you today.
What are you actually paying for?
You pay for four things, whoever does the work. Some firms bundle them. Some leave parts out of the quote. Ask about each one by name.
| Cost part | What it covers | Paid when |
|---|---|---|
| Finding the workflow | Picking one task, mapping the steps, checking the data, deciding yes or no | Once, before the build |
| Building it | Connecting your tools, writing the logic, setting approvals, testing on real cases | Once |
| Running it | Hosting, AI usage, other software, monitoring, fixes, model upgrades | Every month |
| Your team's time | Answering questions, testing, reviewing what the system drafts | During the build and every week after |
A workflow follows fixed steps you can write down. An agent decides its next step within rules you set, and asks a person when unsure. Both have the same four cost parts.
What makes each part bigger or smaller?
Four things move the cost most: how many systems the work touches, how clean the data is, how many approvals it needs, and how much volume it handles.
Finding the right workflow
This is the cheapest part, and the one people skip. It costs more when nobody can describe the steps, or when the task changes every time. It costs less when one person does the work and can show it in an hour. Skipping it is how a business pays to build the wrong thing. Our guide on how to choose your first AI workflow walks through the scorecard.
Building it
The build grows with each system it touches. A workflow that reads one inbox and writes to one CRM is small. One that reads a portal, a shared drive, a billing tool, and a CRM is bigger. Each connection needs access, testing, and a plan for when that system is down.
Approvals add work too, and they are worth it. Anything that moves money, changes a client record, or goes out in the company's name should wait for a person. That review screen is part of the build, not an extra.
Running it
Running costs come in two kinds: fixed and metered.
- Hosting. The server or platform the workflow runs on. Usually a fixed monthly bill.
- AI usage. Model providers charge by the amount of text in and out. Anthropic's pricing page lists prices per million input and output tokens, with output priced higher. It also offers a 50 percent discount for batch jobs that do not need an instant answer. OpenAI's pricing page also lists prices per one million tokens. So usage grows with volume and with the size of each document.
- Other software. Licenses for tools the workflow needs, such as a document reader or an e-signature tool.
- Maintenance. Someone has to watch it, fix it when a tool changes, and test new models before switching.
Volume is the big lever here. A workflow that runs 20 times a month costs little to run. One that reads 2,000 long documents a month costs more. Cheaper models and batch jobs can bring usage down for routine steps.
Your team's time
This is the cost that never shows up on an invoice. Someone answers questions during the build. Someone tests it on real cases. After it goes live, someone reviews what it drafts. Plan for that time and put a name next to it.
What does it cost with Ship AI Studio?
Our prices are one concrete example of how a deployment can be priced. They are published on our pricing page.
| Step | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| AI Assessment | $1,500, one week | One workflow or agent candidate. A ranked plan and a fixed Build Sprint scope, or a clear no. |
| AI Build Sprint | $5,000 flat, two weeks | One workflow or agent live in production on your tools, with approvals, monitoring, a handover guide, and 30 days of fixes. |
| AI Operations | $999 a month | We run and maintain what is live. Up to three workflows or agents on one system, 8 engineering hours a month, and a monthly report. Month to month, cancel with 30 days' notice. |
Hosting, AI usage, and other software are paid separately. You see those bills directly.
The Assessment is credited in full toward a Build Sprint that starts within 30 days of the readout. Here is the arithmetic for one workflow:
- Assessment: $1,500, credited against the Sprint.
- Build Sprint: $5,000. With the credit, the Assessment adds nothing extra.
- Twelve months of Operations: $999 × 12 = $11,988.
- Total: $5,000 + $11,988 = $16,988, before hosting and AI usage.
If the Sprint starts more than 30 days after the readout, the credit does not apply. Then the total is $1,500 + $5,000 + $11,988 = $18,488. If your team runs the workflow itself after the 30 days of fixes, Operations drops out. Then the cost is $5,000 plus hosting, usage, and your own people's time.
What costs do people forget?
Three costs are easy to miss.
- Review time. A person approves what goes out. That takes minutes per item, every day. Count it.
- Data clean-up. If your records disagree across tools, the build reads bad data. Fixing duplicates, gaps, and formats is its own job. We call it Data foundation, and it is quoted after a call, priced before work starts.
- Change over time. A vendor changes a screen, a new form type shows up, a model gets retired. Someone has to handle it, either your team or a paid plan.
How do you compare AI cost with today's manual work?
Use your own numbers. Start with the cost of the time the work takes today:
people × hours per week × 4.33 weeks × hourly cost = monthly cost of the work
Say three people each spend 10 hours a week on the task, at a loaded cost of $50 an hour. That is 3 × 10 × 4.33 × $50 = $6,495 a month, or $77,940 a year. Set that next to the first-year cost above, plus your hosting and usage estimate.
Two cautions keep the comparison honest:
- The system rarely takes the whole task. Estimate the share it can handle, and keep review time on the people side.
- Freed hours are capacity, not cash. They turn into money only when the team uses them for other work, or when you avoid a hire.
Our ROI calculator runs these numbers for you. The longer method is in how to calculate AI workflow ROI.
If you also want to know how your business shows up in search and AI answers, the free search and AI visibility report takes six questions and a website check.
What is a sensible next step?
Pick one task that costs real hours today and write down its steps. Then get a fixed scope and price before anyone builds. Our $1,500 AI Assessment does that in one week, with read access and an hour of time from the person who does the work. Nothing in your systems changes during the week. It ends in a ranked plan and a fixed Build Sprint scope, or a clear no. If you would rather talk first, book a call.