You want to add AI to your business — a chatbot, a document search tool, something that handles repetitive admin. But before you commit, you need to know what it actually costs. This page gives you honest UK numbers: what day rates look like, what fixed-price projects cover, and how to tell whether you're being quoted fairly.
Most UK AI consultants price work one of two ways: a day rate (time and materials) or a fixed price per project. Which is better depends entirely on how clearly you can define what you want.
UK AI consultants typically charge £500–£1,500 per day, depending on experience and specialism. Large consultancies (the big four, major tech firms) charge more. Freelancers and boutique firms tend to sit in the £600–£900 range.
Day rates suit exploratory work — proof-of-concept builds, architecture reviews, or multi-phase projects where the scope will evolve. The risk is that without a defined scope, costs can expand quickly.
A fixed-price engagement defines the deliverable upfront — one feature, one sprint, a known result. You pay a set amount and know exactly what you're getting. This is better for most first AI projects because the scope can usually be defined clearly.
Fixed-price AI features in the UK typically run £750–£5,000, depending on complexity:
| Feature type | Typical UK cost | Timeframe |
|---|---|---|
| Document search (search PDFs, policies in plain English) | £750–£1,500 | 5–7 days |
| Internal AI assistant (staff Q&A over your knowledge base) | £750–£1,500 | 5–7 days |
| Customer enquiry triage / response drafting | £750–£1,200 | 5–7 days |
| Document analysis & data extraction (invoices, CVs, specs) | £750–£2,000 | 5–10 days |
| AI chatbot integrated into an existing web app | £1,500–£5,000 | 10–20 days |
| Full AI platform build (new product) | £10,000+ | Ongoing |
The biggest cost drivers are scope clarity, integration complexity, and the state of your existing system.
A well-defined brief ("I want staff to be able to search our 200-page policy manual by asking questions in plain English") is far easier to price than "we want to do something with AI." The clearer you can describe the specific workflow you want to improve, the more accurately any consultant can quote — and the less likely the project is to overrun.
Dropping an AI feature into an existing Next.js or React app is straightforward. Integrating with a legacy system that has no API, or that lives behind a complex internal network, adds cost. If your existing software is modern and has a reasonable codebase, integration is usually the smallest part of the work.
If you want the AI to search your documents, those documents need to be in a processable format. PDFs are fine. Scanned images without OCR are not. If your data is messy or poorly structured, budget for cleaning time before the AI feature itself.
An AI feature uses a model (OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure OpenAI) that charges per use. For most small business use cases — document search used by a small team, an internal assistant answering 50–100 questions a day — this is typically £10–£50/month. It's worth asking your consultant to estimate this before you commit.
Whether you're paying a day rate or a fixed price, a legitimate AI consulting engagement should include:
What it should not include: endless discovery workshops before anything is built, strategy decks that don't produce working software, or vague "AI readiness assessments" that aren't leading somewhere specific.
That depends on what problem you're solving. The clearest cases for a positive return are:
If the problem you're describing can be put in those terms, a first AI feature at £750–£1,500 will almost certainly pay back within a few months. If you can't point to a specific workflow that will improve, it's worth slowing down and clarifying the problem before spending anything.
For a well-defined first feature, yes — you know the cost upfront and the scope is locked. Day rates suit exploratory or multi-phase work where scope genuinely can't be fixed in advance.
Document search, customer enquiry triage, simple internal assistants, and document data extraction can all be delivered as a single focused feature for £750–£1,000 if the scope is clear and you have an existing system to integrate into.
No. Most AI development work is done remotely. There are good consultants across the UK — London day rates (often £900–£1,500) are not necessarily better than North West or national rates. What matters is the quality of the work and the clarity of the engagement.
Mainly the AI model API fees (typically £10–£50/month for small team use) and any hosting costs. A good consultant will give you an estimate of these before the project starts so there are no surprises.
A fair quote matches the scope. If you've described one specific feature and the quote comes back with three phases of discovery workshops before anything is built, that's a warning sign. Look for clear deliverables, a defined timeline, and a payment structure that ties to delivery milestones.
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