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How to compare AI implementation proposals of different scope?
Short answer
Compare AI implementation proposals for the same work result, volume and period. Keep the launch cost apart from the monthly fees and from the team's time for checking results. In the example proposal A costs €3,000 at the start and B €4,800. After 12 months, with fees and checking hours, A costs €13,176 and B €9,350, which is €3,826 less.
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
- analysis with an engineer and a free prototype
- €0
- team in ChatGPT or Claude, up to 10 people
- from €1,150
- automation, agent or application for one process
- from €3,000
We belong to the OpenAI and Anthropic partner programmes and learn through their official courses. What this means ↓
Author: Artem Lisovtsov · Co-founder · Applied AI/ML Architect · 3 min read
Statistics
Choosing an AI contractor: statistics 2026
€3,826
less after 12 months for the proposal that is dearer at the start, when it needs less checking: €9,350 against €13,176. Scenario.
40%
According to Gartner (2025), over 40% of agentic AI projects will be cancelled by the end of 2027 because of costs, unclear value or weak risk controls.
130
According to Gartner (2025), of the thousands of agentic AI vendors only about 130 offer real agentic solutions.
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 on AI (2026) ↗
48%
According to the European Commission (2026), 48% of EU SMEs and mid-caps name a lack of expertise as a barrier to AI.
Source: European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer on AI (2026) ↗
Figures checked: 22 October 2026
Agree on a shared end of the process
The order covers reading the request, a draft in the CRM and handing it to an employee for approval. A table with the content of the requests ends earlier: someone still moves the data into the CRM and checks for duplicates. If one quote ends at a file and another at a record in the system, their prices describe different scopes. This guide starts once you already have proposals. An AI implementation brief helps you prepare the request, and our guide to choosing an agency helps you judge a firm's experience.
| Point of comparison | What must be unambiguous |
|---|---|
| The result for the employee | A file, a draft in the system or an approved operation |
| Connection to the system | Its name, read or write access, access limits |
| A failed case | Who receives the exception and what they see |
| A repeated operation | How a duplicate is detected and what may be retried |
| Sign-off | Test material, expected behaviour, the person who approves |
| Work after launch | The scope of care, availability of help, the cost of changes |
| End of the contract | Handover of accounts, data and documentation |
Ask the contractors to mark which steps the price covers. Only when both proposals end at the same point in the process does the comparison help with a budget decision. Add a column with the page number of the proposal or a link to the contractor's answer. A claim in a presentation and a line in the scope can differ, and you clear up the difference before you choose.
Two quotes and a year of work
- Proposal A
- €3,000 + 12 × €150 + 12 × 20 h of checking × €34.90 = €13,176
- Proposal B
- €4,800 + 12 × €100 + 12 × 8 h of checking × €34.90 = €9,350
- Difference after a year
- €3,826 in favour of B
A lower launch price does not decide the whole cost
The proposal amounts and the checking hours are the example's assumptions, which you replace with figures from the proposals you received and with timing on comparable cases. €34.90 an hour is the EU average hourly labour cost for 2025 according to Eurostat.
If B's advantage comes only from fewer checking hours, recount both options with the same checking time. You will see how much the decision depends on that assumption. Add licences, data preparation and migration left out of the quote as separate items. The value of time means extra capacity in the team. Salaries do not fall because of it. The FinOps unit economics practice helps you count the cost per case.
Check what the stated accuracy means
- On how many cases the result was measured
- How the cases were chosen and whether hard ones were among them
- What counted as a correct result: a field or the whole document
- What happens with missing data
- Who handles cases handed to a person, and how long that takes
Handing a case to a person is often the correct behaviour, but you include that work in the calculation. Cases that could change data without consent need their own sign-off criteria. NIST describes the AI RMF as a voluntary framework for managing risk when designing, using and evaluating AI. It is neither a contractor certificate nor a scale for choosing the cheapest proposal.
When to ask for a smaller scope
Most of the price is integration
a feature of your current system
check it before the build
The tool is there, the skill to check it is missing
team training
from €1,150 a day
Even the end of the process is hard to pin down
a process audit
from €600
The scope is clear and the result measurable
automation of one process
from €3,000
Syntalith offers a process audit and automation of one process at a fixed price. As a contractor we are no neutral referee between competitors' proposals, but you can apply the table and the count to every proposal, ours included. When even the end of the process is hard to pin down, ordering a full build leaves too many unknowns, and it is better to start with an audit. The article on fixed price and time and materials compares the billing models.
