Ask five vendors what an AI agent costs and you will get answers from a few hundred dollars to several hundred thousand. Both can be honest. A demo that answers questions from a PDF and an agent that processes refunds inside your order system are very different projects. This guide explains what drives the cost, so you can compare quotes properly.
Prototype vs Production
A prototype proves an idea works on sample data. It can take days. A production agent handles real users and real data, connects to your systems, fails safely, is measured, and is maintained. Most of the cost is in the second part.
| Stage | What you get | Typical effort |
|---|---|---|
| Proof of concept | Working demo on sample data | Days to two weeks |
| Single production agent | One workflow, a handful of integrations, evaluation, monitoring | Four to ten weeks |
| Multi-agent system | Several coordinated agents across departments | Several months, often phased |
What Drives the Price
1. Integrations
Every system the agent reads from or writes to (CRM, helpdesk, ERP, store, email, databases) needs authentication, error handling and testing. Integrations are usually the single biggest cost driver.
2. Actions vs answers
An agent that only answers questions is lower risk than one that takes actions such as issuing refunds, updating records or sending emails. Actions need permission controls, approval steps and audit logs.
3. Knowledge and retrieval
If the agent needs your documents, products or policies, those must be cleaned, structured and kept current through a retrieval (RAG) system. Messy source content makes this take longer.
4. Evaluation
You need a test set of real scenarios and a way to score the agent against it before launch and after every change. Skipping this is the most common reason agents behave well in demos and badly in production. See our AI safety and evaluation work.
5. Guardrails and security
Protection against prompt injection, limits on what data the agent can see, and human hand-off when it is unsure.
6. Interface
A chat widget, a Slack bot, an email responder or a background job with no interface at all. Background agents are often cheaper and more valuable than chatbots.
Running Costs
- Model usage: charged per token by the model provider. Varies with model choice, prompt length and volume; for many business workflows it is modest compared with the staff time saved, but it should be estimated from real volumes.
- Hosting and infrastructure: servers, vector database, logging.
- Maintenance: models change, your systems change, and edge cases appear. Budget for ongoing improvement, not just a one-off build.
Choose the model per task. Not every step needs the most capable model. Routing simple classification or extraction steps to smaller, cheaper models can cut running costs substantially without hurting quality.
What Kyne Charges
All our engagements start with a paid discovery sprint so we understand the workflow before building. A single production agent build with up to five tool integrations, logging and an evaluation framework starts from around $19K per project. Our AI retainer for ongoing agent development starts from around $7,600 per month. Details are on our agentic AI page.
How to Get a Useful Quote
- Describe the workflow step by step as a person does it today
- List every system involved and whether the agent needs to read or write
- Estimate volumes: requests per day, documents, users
- Say what a wrong answer or wrong action would cost you
- Define success: time saved, tickets resolved, response time
If you would like a straight answer on whether an agent is worth building for your workflow, book a discovery call. Sometimes a simple automation is the better answer, and we will say so.
FAQ
How much does it cost to build an AI agent?
A proof of concept can be built in days, but a production agent that connects to your systems, takes actions safely and is properly evaluated is a larger project, typically four to ten weeks. Kyne's single production agent builds start from around $19K, with ongoing development retainers from around $7,600 per month.
What are the running costs of an AI agent?
Running costs include model usage charged per token by the provider, hosting and infrastructure such as a vector database and logging, and ongoing maintenance as models and connected systems change. Model costs depend on volume and model choice and should be estimated from real usage.
Why do AI agent quotes vary so much?
Quotes differ mainly in scope: how many systems the agent integrates with, whether it takes actions or only answers questions, how much knowledge preparation is needed, and whether evaluation, guardrails and monitoring are included. Low quotes often cover a demo rather than a production system.
How long does it take to build an AI agent?
A focused single-workflow agent typically takes four to ten weeks from discovery to production, including integrations and evaluation. Multi-agent systems covering several departments usually take several months and are delivered in phases.