Pricing for Custom AI Assistants: What a Small Team Pays for Setup, Running Costs and Changes

BOTrento Team19 October 20267 min read

The four cost lines of a custom AI assistant

Whatever the vendor calls it, every quote can be sorted into these lines:

1. Setup – analysing your process, connecting the mailbox or importing data, writing the rules and templates.
2. Monthly fee – the platform, hosting, support and monitoring.
3. AI usage – what the language model consumes when it reads enquiries and drafts replies.
4. Changes – new product lines, a new language, a different approval flow, a new data source.

A quote that shows only one or two of these is not cheaper. It just hides the rest until later.

Setup: what a fair fee should cover

Setup is where "custom" usually hides the most variation. Ask for a written scope, not a day rate. A fair setup covers:

• mapping how enquiries really arrive (shared inbox, web form, phone notes in a spreadsheet);
• connecting your mailbox or importing your history from a CRM such as Pipedrive or HubSpot as CSV or XLSX;
• your quote structure, tone of voice and the languages you reply in;
• who approves what before anything goes to a customer;
• a test on your real enquiries, not on demo data.

Be wary of open-ended hourly setup with no end date. Our article on AI consulting costs for small businesses covers the pricing models and how to stop a project from running on.

Monthly fee: what is inside and what is not

The monthly fee should be predictable. Check these points before comparing numbers:

• Users and mailboxes. How many people and inboxes are included?
• Volume. Is there a limit on cases per month, and what counts as a case?
• Support. Who fixes a broken process, and how quickly?
• Exit. Can you export your data and outputs if you leave?

Be careful with tools that replace parts of your stack. An assistant that handles enquiries and quotes does not need to replace your CRM or your accounting in Xero or QuickBooks. If a quote implies it should, you are paying for scope you did not ask for.

AI usage: flat, capped or pay-as-you-go

There are three common ways to charge for the model behind the assistant:

• Included with a limit. Predictable, but you need to know what happens at the limit.
• Pay-as-you-go. Flexible, but the bill moves with your busiest month.
• Your own API key (BYOK). You pay the model provider directly and see exactly what is processed.

None is automatically cheapest. The right choice depends on how many sales cases you handle and how long your emails are. For the arithmetic, see how to estimate AI costs in advance and what your own API key costs and when it pays off. For a shorter overview, there is an answer page on what an AI sales assistant costs a small business.

Changes after launch: the cost nobody budgets

Your business will change: a new service, a new price list, a new language, a second person approving quotes. Decide upfront how changes are handled:

• Which changes are covered by the monthly fee (small wording edits, for example)?
• Which are billed separately, and how is the price set – per task or per project?
• Who owns the process description if you leave?

An event or production company with seasonal peaks will change its quote structure more often than a company selling one standard service. If that is you, ask for the change price in writing before signing.

Budget checklist: seven steps before you sign

1. Count your cases. How many enquiries turn into an actively handled quote in a typical month? Use your inbox, not a guess.
2. List your inboxes and users. Note who needs to approve drafts.
3. Ask for the four lines separately. Setup, monthly fee, AI usage, changes.
4. Ask what happens at the usage limit. Does work stop, or does a surcharge appear on the invoice?
5. Ask what the assistant cannot do. If it sends emails on its own, ask who is accountable for what it says.
6. Ask about data. Where is it stored, who processes the text, and is it used for training? Our GDPR checklist for AI sales tools helps; for your own case, talk to a lawyer.
7. Test on your own data first. A demo proves little. Your last month of enquiries proves a lot.

A short message you can send to any vendor:

Hello, we handle roughly [number] sales cases a month across [number] mailboxes with [number] users. Please send a written quote that separates: one-off setup, monthly fee, AI usage (and what happens at any limit), and the price of changes after launch. Please also confirm whether anything is sent to customers without human approval, and how we can export our data if we leave.

How BOTrento prices it

BOTrento Chief of Staff is a managed process for enquiries, quotes and follow-ups, not a build-from-scratch project. It watches your mailbox and uploaded data, shows a daily Today overview on working days, and prepares draft replies, quotes and follow-ups in four languages. Nothing is sent without a person approving it. You can see the flow in the process demo.

On cost lines, it works like this:

• Monthly plans, excl. VAT: Core €79 (1 user, 1 mailbox or import, 100 cases), Team €159 (5 users, 3 mailboxes, 300 cases, team work and approvals), Managed €399 (5 users, 5 mailboxes, 300 cases, standard process with service, 2 hours of setup included, own server possible). Enterprise is priced individually. One case is one sales case actively handled in the month. Details are on the pricing page.
• AI usage: included in the plan with a monthly limit. You get a warning at 80%; at 100% new work pauses until next month. There is no automatic surcharge, and a higher limit or larger plan is agreed individually.
• Own API key: optional. Today only Anthropic (Claude) is supported. You pay the provider directly with no markup from us. See the help page on API keys.
• Changes and extra work: an optional add-on of AI expert work, from €19 per task or from €119 per week for a project.

Rather than ask you to take our word for it, we let you judge the process on your own enquiries. You can try it free for 14 days on your own data, with no card and no API key. The 14 days start with your first successful data upload, and you have 7 days to prepare. Afterwards you keep read-only access and export for 30 days. A person from our team contacts you within 24 hours on working days to help connect the mailbox. To learn more about who we are, see what BOTrento is.

One caveat: it does not replace your CRM or accounting, does not read attachments, and connects Gmail and Microsoft 365 by forwarding or import for now.