How much does it cost to build an AI agent?

Short answer

A simple single-workflow AI agent starts from $2,500 with 99 Francs; typical custom agents with tool integrations and a review flow run $5,000–15,000. New Zealand clients pay NZ$1,750–17,500, with no GST added. Each phase is fixed-price and paid only after the working result is accepted.

Alexander Vinokurov · Founder · Creative Director
Updated Oct 21, 2026

The price ranges

Scope	Price with 99 Francs
Simple single-workflow agent	From $2,500
Custom agent with tool integrations, guardrails and a review flow	$5,000–15,000, depending on scope, data sources and human oversight
Comparable custom work for New Zealand clients	NZ$1,750–17,500, no GST added
Larger multi-system agents	Quoted in independent phases

A simple, single-workflow agent usually takes one to two weeks. A more complex agent, with integrations, tests, approvals and production deployment, typically takes two to six weeks.

What drives the price

Actions and consequences. Answering a question is cheaper to validate than changing a booking, issuing a quote or updating a CRM.
Integrations. Each accounting tool, CRM, database or custom API adds permissions, failure states and testing.
Data. Clean source material is cheap to connect; fragmented documents and unreliable records need more engineering.
Reliability. Provider fallbacks, evaluations, logs, retries and human review cost more than a prompt that works in a demo.
Interface. An agent that needs sign-in, approvals or history is effectively a custom web product around the model.

What the build price leaves out

Third-party model and API usage and unusual infrastructure are scoped separately and made visible before launch. If a ready-made tool can do the job for less, we say so before proposing a custom build.

The expensive end

The cost follows the consequence of being wrong. Our Polymarket trading system places orders around real money, so each strategy ran in a no-stakes paper mode before one deliberate step promoted it to live trading.

How you pay

Custom work is split into fixed-scope phases with no upfront payment. You pay only after a phase is demonstrated working and accepted; if it still misses the agreed outcome after revisions, you owe nothing for that phase.

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