Pricing
What it costs, and what the money does not buy.
Four rungs. Every one is a fixed price for a fixed scope. All prices are in Australian dollars and exclude GST.
01 · The four rungs
The prices.
Two numbers give you the shape of this market. A competitor publishes a benchmark of A$120,000 to A$400,000 for a Big 4 AI scoping engagement in Australia, before a line of code is written. sandlabs.com.au ↗ That is their published figure about somebody else, and we cite it as that, not as an audited number. The second one is firmer. Contract AI engineers in New South Wales run A$800 to A$1,150 a day. Robert Walters Salary Guide 2026 ↗
At the top of that day rate, our A$4,500 diagnostic is about four days of one contractor's time, excluding GST. Our A$9,000 build is about eight. We publish the numbers so you can work out whether to call us without calling us.
| Engagement | What you get | Time | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where it fits | Ranked shortlist of five to eight opportunities, written report, 90-minute readout, fixed quote for the top one | 2 weeks | A$4,500 |
| One workflow, live | A single workflow built end to end, one system integration, tested and documented | 2–3 weeks | A$9,000 |
| Implementation sprint | One measurable outcome, several integrations, a test suite you keep, handover and training | 3–6 weeks | A$12,000–28,000 |
| Run it with us | Monthly monitoring, tuning, model upgrades, re-testing, office hours, quarterly review | ongoing | A$3,500–7,500/mo |
The diagnostic fee comes off the build. Start a build within 90 days of the readout and you pay A$4,500 less for it, excluding GST. That makes the diagnostic free to anyone who goes ahead, and honest for anyone who does not. There is no clawback if you walk away.
02 · Scope
What is in, and what is not.
A fixed price only works if both sides can see the edge of it. Here is where each edge sits. Read the second list on each rung more carefully than the first.
Where it fits – A$4,500, two weeks, excluding GST
In scope
- A half-day workshop with whoever runs the work.
- Three to five sessions sitting with the people who actually do it, on site or on a call.
- A look at the systems you already run and, with your permission, a sample of real records – quotes, jobs, invoices, emails, call notes.
- A ranked shortlist of five to eight opportunities, each scored on hours saved, cost to build and how likely it is to break.
- A written report and a 90-minute readout with your team.
- A fixed-price quote for the top item, valid 90 days.
Not in scope
- Any build. Nothing is written, installed or connected during these two weeks.
- A privacy, security or financial audit. We are not auditors and we do not sign off on anything.
- Buying software or licences on your behalf.
- Travel outside greater Sydney, which we bill at cost and agree in writing before booking.
The honest limit. Two weeks is long enough to learn your workflow and not long enough to learn your trade. If your business runs on judgement that takes ten years to acquire, the shortlist comes back shorter, and we say so in the report rather than padding it.
One workflow, live – A$9,000, two to three weeks, excluding GST
In scope
- One workflow, built end to end.
- One integration with a system you already run.
- Written acceptance criteria, agreed with you before any work starts. A number you can check, in words you would use yourself.
- Testing against real records from your business.
- A written procedure and a walkthrough video.
- Two weeks after go-live to fix anything that misses the agreed criteria, at no extra cost.
Not in scope
- A second workflow, or a second integration.
- Model, hosting and third-party licence fees, which you pay directly to the vendor.
- A mobile app, a customer-facing website, or new hardware.
- Staff training beyond one handover session.
- Cleaning up your data before we start.
Where this gets awkward. One workflow means one. Three that look similar from the office are usually three different jobs once you sit with the people doing them. The second one is a new quote, and we will tell you that during the first one rather than at the end.
Implementation sprint – A$12,000 to A$28,000, three to six weeks, excluding GST
In scope
- One measurable business outcome, named and numbered before we start.
- Several integrations, counted and listed in the quote.
- A test suite that stays in your repository, so the next firm can run it.
- Monitoring switched on at handover, with alerts going to your people.
- Written procedures, a walkthrough video per workflow, and a training session.
- A short written update every week, whether or not there is good news.
Not in scope
- Scope added after the quote is signed. It gets quoted separately, at the same fixed-price basis.
- A data cleanup project. If your records need one, we quote it as its own piece of work.
- Ongoing model, hosting and licence costs.
- Replacing a core system. We connect to what you already run. Moving you off it is a different job.
The trade. The band is wide because integrations are where the money goes, and we quote nearer the top when the count is still uncertain. A fixed price means you carry no risk if we misjudge the effort. It also means we do not refund the difference when the work goes quickly. That is the trade, in both directions.
Run it with us – A$3,500 to A$7,500 a month, excluding GST
In scope
- Monthly monitoring against the measure we agreed at build time.
- Tuning when the numbers drift.
- Model upgrades, and re-testing when a vendor ships a change or switches something off.
- Keeping the written record of what your AI does and where it runs. The National AI Centre's implementation guidance asks organisations to keep an up-to-date inventory of every AI model and system they run. ai.gov.au ↗
- Office hours, and a quarterly review with a written note of what we did.
Not in scope
- New workflows, which are quoted as builds.
- A help desk for your staff, or 24-hour on-call.
- Incident response for systems we did not build.
- Vendor licence and usage fees.
When to cancel it. A retainer is not insurance. If your system is stable and your business is not changing, cancel it. We will say so when we think that point has arrived, and the quarterly note is there so you do not have to take our word for it.
03 · Payment
How and when you pay.
Projects are half up front and half on acceptance. The first invoice goes out when you sign, the second when the work meets the acceptance criteria we wrote down before starting. Invoices are due in 14 days. All prices exclude GST, and GST is added on the invoice.
Retainers are billed monthly in advance. There is a three-month minimum, because a month is not long enough to see whether a system drifts. After that you can leave on 30 days' notice, in writing, for any reason or none.
There is no setup fee and no exit fee. The code sits in your repository and the credentials sit in your accounts, so leaving costs you nothing but the notice period.
04 · Why fixed price
We do not sell days.
A day rate pays us more for working slowly, and it puts the risk of our own estimate on you. We would rather carry that risk ourselves. If a build takes twice the days we expected, the price does not move and that is our problem. What it costs you is rigidity. The scope has to be written down before we start, and anything added later gets quoted separately. Some buyers find that inflexible. It is inflexible. It is also what lets us put a number on a public web page and stand behind it.
05 · Small businesses
Under 20 people, skip the diagnostic.
A twelve-person business does not need A$4,500 of looking. You already know which part of the week is the problem. One call, then a fixed quote for one workflow, excluding GST. If it is not worth building, we say so on the call and it costs you nothing.
Before you pay anyone, use the free help. The federal Digital Solutions program gives businesses with fewer than 20 full-time equivalent staff, and sole traders, up to five hours of one-on-one digital advice from a business adviser. Workshops and webinars are free. The one-on-one advice carries a small fee, and AI is listed among the topics. business.gov.au, checked 8 August 2026 ↗ Those advisers cannot build the thing. Five hours of near-free advice is still five hours of near-free advice, and it costs us nothing to tell you about it.
06 · What moves the price
Why one build costs three times another.
The AI part is rarely the expensive part. Four things move a quote, and we can usually tell which ones apply after one call.
How many systems it has to touch.
One integration is a known quantity. Four costs more than four times as much, because every pair of systems can disagree about the same customer. Count the systems before you read the price bands above.
Whether your systems have an API.
Xero, MYOB, ServiceM8 and Microsoft 365 have proper interfaces and behave predictably. A twenty-year-old job management system with a nightly CSV export does not. When the way in is a file drop or a screen scrape, the work doubles and the thing breaks more often afterwards. We will tell you that before you sign, not during.
The state of your data.
If the same customer is in the system four times under three spellings, most of the build is cleaning, and cleaning is slow. This is the single most common reason a quote comes back higher than the owner expected. It is also worth doing whether or not you ever buy AI.
How much compliance review sits behind it.
Handling health records, financial advice or children's data means a privacy assessment, written controls and someone signing off. Some industries add a regulator. That work is real and we quote it separately so you can see what it costs.
07 · Funding
Money you may be able to get back.
We are not tax advisers and none of this is tax advice. It is a starting point with links, so you can put a real question to your accountant. Checked 8 August 2026.
The R&D Tax Incentive.
If a company has an aggregated turnover under $20 million and is not controlled by income tax-exempt entities, the offset is refundable and set at the company tax rate plus an 18.5% premium. ato.gov.au ↗ Above $20 million it is non-refundable and the premium is smaller.
Two dates and one floor matter. You must register within 10 months of the end of the income year in which the activities took place, which is 30 April for a 30 June year end. business.gov.au ↗ There is a $20,000 minimum on eligible R&D expenditure, with exceptions for companies using registered Research Service Providers. business.gov.au ↗ The government has announced changes from 1 July 2028, and says the current rules run until then. business.gov.au ↗
Now the part that costs us work. Eligibility turns on the activities, not on who sent the invoice. Most of what we build is assembling known parts in a new order, which is engineering and usually not experimental. If your project does involve a genuine unknown outcome, say so to your tax adviser early, because the record-keeping has to start when the work does.
The instant asset write-off.
We cannot give you a current figure for this one honestly. The ATO table lists a $20,000 limit for businesses with aggregated turnover under $10 million, for assets first used or installed ready for use between 1 July 2023 and 30 June 2026. As at 8 August 2026 that table showed no row for the year starting 1 July 2026, and we do not know whether a new limit has since been legislated. Check the ATO page rather than trusting a number on a consultant's website. ato.gov.au, checked 8 August 2026 ↗
One more thing worth knowing before you get your hopes up. The write-off applies to depreciating assets. Consulting fees and monthly software subscriptions are generally something else, so do not assume our invoice qualifies. Ask your accountant what our invoice actually is.
We do not write grant applications and we do not take a percentage of one.
08 · Asked and answered
The four things people ask first.
The first call is free.
Half an hour, no charge, no deck. You describe the slow part of your week and we tell you whether there is anything in it. If there is not, we say that on the call and you have lost thirty minutes.
Stop after the diagnostic and you keep the report.
It is yours. Act on it yourself, hand it to another firm, or put it in a drawer. The A$4,500, excluding GST, buys the report and the quote, and nothing about it obliges you to build anything with us.
We do not bill by the hour.
No hourly rate, no day rate, no time sheets to argue about at the end of the month. If an hourly arrangement is what your procurement process requires, we are the wrong firm and it is better to find that out now.
What the price never includes.
Two things. Scope added after the quote is signed, which we re-quote at the same fixed-price basis. And ongoing licence and usage fees – model APIs, hosting, third-party software – which you pay directly to the vendor, in your own account. That way you see the real bill and you can switch it off without asking us.
All prices on this page are in Australian dollars and exclude GST.
Tell us what's slow.
Describe the part of your week that takes too long. You will get a reply from a person, usually the same day.
Or email hello@westringia.com directly.