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How much does an AI agent cost? From €3,000
Short answer
At Syntalith, an AI agent for one process costs from €3,000 net, and larger rollouts usually up to €17,500 net. The build takes 6 to 16 weeks. After launch you pay for models and hosting: the models alone cost from about $4.50 to $450 a month at 10,000 calls. You get a fixed price before the contract and pay half after acceptance.
How we workDetails ↓
- 01Call30 minutes with an engineer, free
- 02PrototypeA working system on your process and data, free
- 03ImplementationTarget and fixed price in the contract; 50% at signing
- 04Acceptance50% once the agreed target is met
- net per agent for one process, build paid once
- from €3,000
- from signing the contract to acceptance
- 6–16 weeks
- free prototype on your cases
- €0
We belong to the OpenAI and Anthropic partner programmes and learn through their official courses. What this means ↓
Author: Syntalith · 7 min read
Statistics
AI costs in companies: statistics 2026
2 mo.
the payback of a €3,000 agent at 1,000 invoices a month: the manual work costs €1,745, and with the system €266, checking and the model included. Scenario.
20.0%
According to Eurostat (2025), 20.0% of EU enterprises with at least 10 employees used AI.
$30 → $2
According to Artificial Analysis (2026), a million input tokens cost $30 on GPT-4 in March 2023 and $2 on GPT-6.1 Sol in September 2026.
Source: Artificial Analysis (2026) ↗
50%
According to the European Commission (2026), half of EU SMEs and mid-caps name high investment costs as a barrier to AI.
Source: European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer 578 (2026) ↗
14–56%
According to Anthropic (2025), studies with a control group found that AI cut task time by 14% to 56%.
Figures checked: 22 October 2026
How much does an AI agent cost? Prices by stage
At Syntalith, an AI agent for one process costs from €3,000 net. Larger rollouts usually fall between €3,000 and €17,500 net. You pay once for the built system, and AI models and hosting are billed separately. The first two steps cost €0, so you know the cost of the manual work before you sign a contract.
Process analysis
30 min, written plan within 2 working days
€0
An engineer counts the cost of the manual work and shows what to do first.
Test on your process
5 working days
€0
The system runs on 20 to 100 cases your team has already handled. We compare the result with the team's work.
Audit
5 working days
from €600
A process map, the architecture and a fixed price for the build. If you order the build, we credit the fee towards it.
AI automation
2–6 weeks
from €3,000
A process with fixed steps: inbox, documents, CRM, reports.
AI app
4–10 weeks
€3,000–7,000
A tool for the team, for example search across documents that names the source.
AI agent
6–16 weeks
€3,000–17,500
Does the routine steps on its own, hands exceptions to a person and records every action in a history.
Maintenance after launch is priced separately, by the scope of support. All price steps are on the AI implementation pricing page.
What the price of an agent covers
The price covers the whole road from a description of the work to a running system. The code is only one of the items.
- 01Description of today's workThe inputs, the steps, the exceptions, the person responsible and a result that can be checked.
- 02Connections to systemsEmail, documents, CRM and the other tools the team already uses.
- 03Access and approval rulesWhat the agent may read, what it writes on its own and where it waits for a person's decision.
- 04Tests on the team's casesA test set built from real types of cases. You accept the system on it.
- 05Action history and error handlingEvery step of the agent is recorded. After a failure the system stops and reports the problem.
- 06Handover to the teamDocumentation and preparation of the people who will take over the exceptions.
Most projects do not need their own model. The data, the integrations and safe error handling usually take the most work.
What decides whether an agent costs €3,000 or €17,500
Five factors push the price towards the top of the range. Each row shows what makes a project cheaper.
| Factor | Closer to €3,000 | Closer to €17,500 |
|---|---|---|
| Integrations | One modern API | An old system with no API, a shared inbox, spreadsheets sent by email |
| Data | Consistent numbers and names in one place | Gaps, conflicting customer names, separate access rules |
| Right to act | The agent prepares a draft for approval | The agent sends a message, changes a record or starts a payment on its own |
| Number of cases | A few dozen a day | Several thousand a day, queues and retries |
| Cost of an error | An employee corrects a wrong internal draft | A wrong price at a customer or a wrong accounting entry |
Know the cost of an error before the quote. It decides how many tests and approvals the system needs.
How much an AI agent costs a month
After launch you pay for models, hosting, any outside APIs and the maintenance you agreed. The models are often the smallest item.
Each call is 2,000 input tokens and 500 output tokens. Anthropic API rates from October 2026.
Źródło: Anthropic, API pricing (2026) ↗
An agent usually makes several calls per case, so multiply the result by the number of steps. A cheaper model handles the simpler steps, and the stronger one gets only the hard cases.
The full bill of a running system, with hosting and quality control, is in the guide what a running AI agent costs. The scope of support after launch is in the article on AI agent maintenance.
Agent, automation, chatbot or an off-the-shelf tool
An agent makes sense when the content of a case decides the next step. For many processes a simpler solution is enough. Anthropic describes the same distinction between a fixed workflow and an agent.
Customers ask in a chat and the answers are in the knowledge base
an off-the-shelf chatbot
the tool's subscription
Fixed steps with known exceptions
AI automation
from €3,000
The team looks for answers in documents
AI app
from €3,000
Every case is different and needs several tools
AI agent
from €3,000
The feature is already in your CRM
your current system
the cost of configuration
How much an AI agent for customer service costs
An agent that reads a request, checks the order status and prepares a reply for approval costs from €3,000 net. If answers from a knowledge base are enough, compare off-the-shelf chatbots first. We show the usual scopes on the AI in customer service page.
How to compare quotes from different firms
Send every supplier the same description of the process, for example following the AI implementation brief. Then check the same items in each proposal.
- The same work result and the same integrations
- The build amount and the list of exclusions
- Licences, models and hosting at the same volume
- The scope and price of maintenance
- Your team's tasks during the rollout
- How changes of scope are priced
Do not treat an amount the supplier left out as zero. A proposal for a prototype alone looks cheap until the integrations and the launch come back into the budget. Also check whether the supplier proposes a fixed price or hourly billing.
How to calculate the payback
For the count you need your own volume, the cost of an hour of work and the cost of the model. Below is an example that counts everything: the time a person spends checking, the tokens and the build price.
- Time today
- 600 × 10 min = 100 h (€3,490)
- Time with the system, checking included
- 600 × 7 min = 70 h (€2,443)
- Model: 3 calls per case, Claude Sonnet 5.5
- $16.20 (€14)
- Cost of one case
- €5.82 today, €4.10 with the system
- Saving
- €1,047 − €14 = €1,033 a month
Payback of €3,000
2.9 months
The working times and the number of calls are the scenario's assumptions. €34.90 an hour is the EU average hourly labour cost for 2025 according to Eurostat. Model: 2,000 input tokens and 500 output tokens per call at Anthropic's rates, converted at the ECB rate of 1.1205 USD per euro on 22 October 2026.
Count three versions: careful, base and optimistic. In the careful one, assume more cases for a person and a month of settling in after launch. Time given back becomes a saving when it changes a cost or lets the team take on more work. More examples are in the article on calculating AI agent ROI.
What to ask before the contract
- Which exact work result does the price cover?
- Which integrations are confirmed, and which still need checking?
- What does the agent do on its own, and where does it wait for a person's approval?
- How do you measure the result, the errors and the cost of one case?
- Who owns the code, the documentation, the API keys and the test data?
- What does maintenance cover, and what will count as a new scope?
- What does the system do when a model or an integration fails?
How to get a quote from Syntalith
Prepare one process, the monthly number of cases, the systems you use, the average handling time and the three most common exceptions. That is enough for the first call.
- 01Free analysis, 30 minAn engineer counts the cost of the process with you. A written plan within 2 working days. Sometimes the plan is an off-the-shelf tool, or the decision that a build does not pay.
- 02Test on your process, 5 daysThe system works on 20 to 100 cases your team has already handled. We agree the test set together. Cost €0.
- 03Fixed price in the contractThe quote is valid for 30 days. 50% at signing, 50% after acceptance on the test set.
For a complex process you can order an Audit from €600 net. The service is described on the AI agent development page, and the timeline in the guide AI agent implementation step by step.
Worked example · Scenario
How we count the payback: coding 1,000 invoices a month
We run the same count for your process in the free analysis: volume, minutes per case, the cost of an hour of work and the model bill.
€1,745
a month for coding 1,000 cost invoices by hand
Payback: 2 mo.
3 minutes per invoice and checking in 15% of the old time are our assumptions. €34.90 an hour is the EU average hourly labour cost for 2025 according to Eurostat, for companies with 10 or more employees. We measured the model cost of €0.004 per invoice in our invoice coding system, converted at the ECB rate of 1.1205 USD per euro on 22 October 2026.
See the full calculation →
