What drives the cost
These are the things that make one employee cost more than another, whoever builds it:
- How many distinct tasks the job has. Each task is a written skill with steps, inputs and checks.
- How many tools must connect. Every connection needs access, permissions and testing. Two is simpler than six.
- How much knowledge it must learn. A tidy price list is quick. Years of unwritten policy is not.
- How complex the approvals are. Always-ask is simple. Conditional approvals by amount or customer take design.
- Volume and schedule. More runs means more monitoring and, with some providers, more usage fees.
- How much improvement you want. A static employee is cheap. One that is reviewed and tuned monthly costs more and drifts less.
Four ways to get an AI employee
We have not run a market survey, so we are not going to quote market price ranges. Instead, here is how the four routes differ in the shape of what you pay, so you can ask for real quotes and compare like with like.
- DIY on an agent platform. Usually a subscription. Your time does the rest: designing, connecting, testing, watching and fixing. Cheapest in money, most expensive in attention.
- A freelancer or agency build. Usually a project fee, then maintenance billed separately or not at all. Ask who monitors it after launch.
- A managed service. A setup fee plus a monthly fee that includes monitoring and improvement. This is our model. The cost is predictable, and you pay for someone else to carry the work.
- A human hire. Salary plus overhead. The right comparison for the part of a person's week that is repetitive, not for their whole job.
Our plans, exactly as priced
| Plan | Setup | Per month | For |
|---|---|---|---|
| StarterOne AI Employee | $495 | $195 | For one focused job. |
| ProYour Managed AI Employee | $1,500 | $595 | For a meaningful recurring business function. |
| WorkforceBuild an AI Department | From $3,500 | From $1,500 | For businesses that want several coordinated AI employees. |
The blueprint is free and stays yours. Subscriptions to your own tools, such as a CRM, are separate. See the full plan details.
Run your own numbers
Enter the hours, the hourly cost and your review time. Everything is yours. Change the plan to “My own numbers” to compare any other route.
The math, line by line
What this task costs you today
10 h x $30 x 48 wks
$14,400/yr
Handed to the employee
10 h x 50%
5 h/wk
Minus your review time
5 h - 1 h
4 h/wk
Value of the net time
4 h x $30 x 48 wks
$5,760/yr
Running cost (Starter)
($195 + $0) x 12
$2,340/yr
One-time setup
$495
Year 1 net
value - running - setup
$2,925
Every year after
value - running
$3,420
Break-even
2 months
| Share handed off | Net hours/wk | Year 1 net | After year 1 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25% | 1.5 h | -$675 | -$180 |
| 50% | 4 h | $2,925 | $3,420 |
| 75% | 6.5 h | $6,525 | $7,020 |
Assumptions, in plain sight
- Every figure is yours. We add no benchmark and no industry average.
- Plan prices are the current prices on our pricing page (setup plus monthly).
- Net time saved is worth money only if you use it on something else, or avoid a hire. The calculator values it at your hourly cost.
- It does not count quality gains, faster replies or missed work, because those are hard to measure honestly.
The defaults are placeholders so the page is not blank. They are not a benchmark and not typical of anything.
Questions to ask for any quote
- What exactly is included in the setup, and what is not?
- Who monitors the employee after launch, and how will I know it went wrong?
- What is billed monthly, and what does it cover? Are there usage fees on top?
- What happens to my data and my configuration if I stop?
- Can I read its instructions and approve its rules?
- How many tools and tasks does the price cover, and what does a change cost?
How we wrote this
We build AI employees for a living, so we have a point of view. Where a point favors us, we say so. We have no customer results to publish yet, so we publish none: every claim on these pages is either reasoning you can check, a fact about how our own product works, or a clearly labeled example.
Spotted a mistake or something unclear? Tell us through the contact form and we will correct it and update the date above.
Free blueprint in about five minutes.