The AI consultant quotes I’ve heard of in Tauranga run to thousands of dollars. The first one I heard about was $2,000, and it turned into $4,000. Since then I’ve heard of quotes from $10,000 to $16,000, and even monthly fees in the thousands.
The reality is, most tradies just need to connect their AI to the business platforms they rely on, so they can then talk directly to those platforms from within their AI of choice.
Where a ready-made connection exists, that’s work that can be done in under 20 minutes.
These days, everybody is thinking about how AI might change their world, their job, their life.
Unsurprisingly, the rise of AI (as with all new technologies) has also seen the rise of the “AI consultant”.
It’s common knowledge in the tradie community in Tauranga, where I and most of my customers are based, that the people who offer AI consultancy services are charging a lot of money. Some pay. Some can’t see the value.
I suspect this pattern is repeating up and down the country.
My take is that some of these consultants are charging high prices that are not in line with the complexity, or lack of it, of the services and systems they are selling.
Why do AI consultant prices vary so much?
It’s the wild west.
In an orderly market you can compare prices, and they settle. Here, every quote is put together differently, so it’s hard to compare one with another.
In the nineties, websites were harder to build, because we didn’t have AI to do the work.
In the midst of all this, the AI models are getting faster and smarter.
The fact that somebody knows more than you about AI doesn’t mean they know a lot about AI.
Consultants would say they price on value. Pricing on value is fair when the value is yours to measure: they work out what will change in your business, by how much, and how you’ll know.
A custom app sold to every client skips that step. So does a price with nothing measured behind it.
What moves a quote up or down:
- how many of your systems need connecting;
- whether those systems already have a ready-made connection;
- whether a team will use it, or just you;
- whether a custom app is part of the deal.
What’s in an AI consultant’s quote?
An AI quote can cover three things. It helps to know which ones you’re being sold.
1. Connecting your AI to your business software
This is where most tradies start. It works a bit like a bank feed into your accounts, except you can ask it questions.
Last week I sat down with a business owner I’m coaching to build his own AI systems, so he doesn’t have to take on staff. He was already using Claude. I showed him how to connect it to Xero, his accounting software. It went from “click here, just do these things” to “well, what do I do with it now?” I said, ask Claude to tell you something about your accounts. He did, and he was absolutely blown away.
He asked for a list of invoices for one of his services, going back to 2024. He had the answer in under a minute.
I use it myself to untangle the mess when Xero reconciles a payment to the wrong invoice, and the customer who actually paid gets a reminder to pay.
Now, how can you charge thousands of dollars for someone to do that?
On the other hand, I watched another customer use Claude to navigate the website of their business software and fill in job sheets live in the web browser.
He does it all the time now. It saves him hours a week that he can spend running the business, or doing more paid jobs.
Setting it up took some time, working out which field each value went into. After that, he could hand Claude a document with the details of the job, and it would fill in everything, accurately.
I use the same idea for feedback on web designs. My client leaves comments on the design, Claude reads through them, and it makes the changes.
2. A system around it
You may also need a bit of a system around the connection, the way I build my own: instructions so the AI does the same job the same way each time.
But the connection just gives the AI access to more information. If you don’t know what Xero, or your other software, does, or the question you want to ask, does the connection really help? What you know matters more than what the connection is doing.
3. A custom app
Some consultants build every client a custom app. I’ve seen apps built that I don’t think the customer needed.
Say you want a dashboard on a screen in your workshop. You could pay someone to build and host an app for it. Or you could put a report up on the screen. I built my own project list quickly. It isn’t pretty, but I can look at it and see what’s happening.
Is an AI consultant worth it for a tradie?
The hours some people get back are real.
A tradie I know paid a consultant to connect his AI to the business platforms he relies on. He now works in the office and runs the business. He doesn’t need to be on the tools any more. But when he was offered the next tier up, he baulked. He had what he needed: time to run the business, and to step away without worrying about things falling apart when he did.
If you’ve got a team, and they need a system to run the business, I get that. That’s fair.
If your software has no ready-made connection, paying someone to build one makes sense.
And if you never want to touch it yourself, paying someone may be the right call. Just know what you’re paying for.
Have you been sold more than you need?
Look back at how the quote was put to you.
- Were you told you’d be left behind if you didn’t act now?
- Does the quote say exactly what will be connected, or just “an AI system”?
- Is there a custom app in it that you didn’t ask for?
- Is there a monthly fee for something you couldn’t explain to someone else?
- Did anyone ask what will change in your business, and how you’ll measure it?
If you answered yes to some of those, you’re not the only one. You also haven’t lost anything yet.
What should you ask before hiring an AI consultant?
- What exactly will you connect, and is there already a ready-made connection for it?
- Could I do that part myself in under 20 minutes, if there’s a ready-made connection?
- What will I be able to do that I can’t now, and how will we measure it?
- What can the AI see in my business data, and who else can?
- Who owns what you build, and what will I pay each month to keep it?
- What happens when the AI tools change, and will I understand how it works when you’ve gone?
So what should you do?
I’ve been neck deep in AI, first ChatGPT and now Claude, for 3 years, building systems that let me run my business with Claude. I’ve learnt the hard way, and now I want to share what I know and how I did it. It’s not always easy. But when you find the path, your business life gets better, and you actually get some of the benefits AI is supposed to deliver.
You don’t need an expensive consultant. You need to be pointed in the right direction by someone who has already done it.
I work more like a coach than a consultant: I show you how, you build it, so you own it and understand it.
My rate is $150 + GST an hour. That’s how I work: take what you need, and leave when you want.
David Parrott runs Millionleaves in Tauranga, Bay of Plenty. He has built websites for local businesses since 2011, and now runs his own business with AI.
