Cost guide
Last updated: October 2026
What AI automation costs a UK business in 2026
Published UK prices for a first AI automation build run from £8,000 to £13,500, and the paid planning steps before it from £595 to £5,000. Large consultancies sell by the day instead: £237 to £3,150 a day on the government's G-Cloud 15 framework. Running costs for model usage, hosting and upkeep come on top and depend on volume.
AI Workflow Teardown: £595 · 3 business days
Map not delivered within 3 business days of agreed scope and inputs, full refund.
The short answer
Most UK firms do not publish a price for AI work, so a fair comparison starts with the few that do. On 17 October 2026 we found three that publish prices for a first project, and the day rates large consultancies list for public sector buyers.
- A paid plan or assessment first: £595 (ours, 3 business days), from £1,500 (Softomate) or £5,000 (SpotDev).
- A first working build: £8,000 for a first agent in production (SpotDev) or £9,500 to £13,500 for our two-week PoC.
- A usable pilot with AI inside a real workflow: our four-week MVP sprint, £19,000 to £26,500.
- Sold by the day: G-Cloud 15 rates from £237 (Made Tech) to £3,150 (Faculty), including £1,576.80 for a Faculty data scientist.
What each budget buys from us
These are fixed prices agreed before work starts, from our published UK price list. You can stop after any step, and you own the project code at handover.
- £595, 3 business days from agreed scope and inputs: a one-page plan for one manual task, with the tools, the data and a rough cost to automate it. Late, and it is refunded in full; go ahead, and the fee is credited.
- £4,500, 1 week: a readiness audit when the scope is still unclear, with process maps, the monthly cost of the manual path and a phased plan.
- £9,500 to £13,500, 2 weeks: one narrow workflow automated end to end as a working prototype, with a demo each week.
- £19,000 to £26,500, 4 weeks: a usable internal app or workflow with AI inside it, deployed for a real pilot.
- £30,000 to £42,000, 6 weeks: a production workflow with several system integrations, an admin view and training.
- £7,500 to £9,500 a month: ongoing improvement once something is live.
What moves the price
The model is rarely the expensive part. Five things decide which of those budgets a project lands in.
- The state of the data: clean rows are cheap; scanned PDFs and inconsistent spreadsheets are where the days go.
- How many systems it touches: each integration is its own contract and its own failure to handle.
- Whether a person approves the output: a review screen and an audit log are real product work.
- Demo or production: something that survives real users and edge cases costs several times a clean-sample prototype.
- What you own at the end: code, setup notes and tests handed over, or a service you rent.
Running costs after launch
Ask for the monthly cost in writing before you approve a build. It has three parts, and none of them is a licence fee to us.
- Model usage, billed per token by the provider you choose. Our model pricing pages list current prices for the main providers.
- Hosting and storage, often on an account you already pay for.
- Upkeep: fixing what breaks when a supplier changes a format or an API. Small for one workflow; plan for it anyway.
VAT, IR35 and contracts for UK buyers
Urbano DX is a Poland-based company invoicing UK businesses under the VAT reverse charge, so no VAT is added on top of the quote. Each project runs on a fixed-scope statement of work, with IR35 treatment confirmed per engagement, and UK GDPR-aligned data terms you can read before any work begins.
When to spend less, or nothing
A custom build is the wrong answer when a product already does the job.
- Standard invoice capture or bookkeeping that your accounting software already handles: switch it on.
- Connecting two common apps with low volume: Zapier or Make is cheaper than custom code.
- Your team mainly needs to learn the tools: a course costs less than a build.
- You need a supplier on G-Cloud or someone on site in the UK: we are not on G-Cloud and work remotely from Poland, one hour ahead of the UK.
Sources
Published by Urbano DX on 26 October 2026. Prices for other firms come from their own pages and G-Cloud 15 listings, read on 17 October 2026: spotdev.co.uk/blog/how-much-do-ai-agents-cost-uk, softomatesolutions.com/ai-consultancy-uk/, and G-Cloud 15 services 131817891829821 (Faculty) and 272941848211990 (Made Tech) on applytosupply.digitalmarketplace.service.gov.uk. G-Cloud rates are offered to public sector buyers, so private quotes can differ. Our prices come from our UK price list on /packages.
Published UK prices for a first AI project (read 17 October 2026)
| Criteria | Urbano DX | SpotDev | Softomate | Faculty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First paid step | One-page plan, £595, 3 business days | Readiness assessment, £5,000 | AI assessment and roadmap, from £1,500 | No project price found |
| First build | Two-week PoC, £9,500 to £13,500 | First agent in production, £8,000 | Fixed price agreed after a free discovery call | No project price found |
| How it is priced | Fixed price per step, agreed before work starts | Prices published on its own blog | Fixed price after discovery | Day rates: £918 to £3,150 on G-Cloud 15 |
Prices as each firm shows them on its own page or G-Cloud 15 listing on 17 October 2026. Other UK firms may publish prices too; these came up when we searched for fixed-price AI work for UK small businesses.
Buyer FAQs
How much does AI automation cost a UK small business?
Published UK prices for a first working build run from £8,000 (SpotDev) to £13,500 (the top of our two-week PoC range), read 17 October 2026. A paid plan before it costs £595 with us, from £1,500 at Softomate or £5,000 at SpotDev. Running costs for model usage and hosting come on top.
What do AI consultancies charge per day in the UK?
On the government's G-Cloud 15 framework, read 17 October 2026, Faculty lists day rates from £918 to £3,150 and Made Tech from £237 to £1,632. Those rates are offered to public sector buyers, so quotes to private companies can differ.
What is cheaper, a fixed price or day rates?
A fixed price is cheaper when the scope is small and clear, because overruns land on the supplier. Day rates suit open-ended work where nobody can say yet what done looks like. If you cannot describe the result in a page, pay for a plan first.
Do your UK prices include VAT?
We invoice UK businesses from Poland under the VAT reverse charge, so no VAT is added on top of the quote.
Get a fixed price for your first workflow
Name one task your team does by hand. The £595 plan gives you the tools, the data and a rough cost to automate it in 3 business days, and the fee is credited if you go ahead.
Get your plan for £595