Ask a vendor what an AI agent costs and you will usually hear "it depends". That is true, but you cannot build a budget on it. Below are the actual numbers and how we calculate them. More importantly, you will see what the price is made of, so you can compare quotes from other companies too.
All prices exclude VAT. We wrote this for Czech companies, so we also show amounts in Czech koruna. For the conversion we use a rounded rate of 25 CZK per euro because it is easy to work with. The real rate sits close to that, so the koruna figures may differ by a few percent.
What you actually pay for when you order an AI agent
The price has three parts. One-off development, meaning design, connecting to your systems and testing. AI model usage, which you pay by consumption directly to a provider such as OpenAI or Anthropic. And operation, which covers hosting, monitoring and small changes. In the first year, development makes up most of the budget.
An AI agent is a program that gets a task, reads the input on its own, decides what to do and writes the result where it belongs. For example, it takes an invoice from an email, pulls out the data and prepares an accounting entry. A chatbot only answers questions. An agent does the work. That is why its price depends mostly on how many systems it has to touch and how many exceptions it must handle.
Development cost: three typical sizes
The cheapest option is an agent for one task with one input and one output. With us it starts at 5,000 EUR as a fixed price. Once the agent works across several systems or deals with many exceptions, we bill by the hour. The rate is 25 to 49 EUR per hour depending on the type of work.
| Agent type | Example task | Estimated hours | Price in EUR | Price in CZK (rate 25) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One agent, one task | Sorting inquiries from email and logging them in the CRM | fixed price | from 5,000 | from 125,000 |
| Agent connected to 2 or 3 systems | Invoices from email, checked against orders and prepared as entries in Pohoda or Money S5 | 200 to 350 | 5,000 to 17,150 | 125,000 to 428,750 |
| Several agents for one process | The full order path from inquiry to quote to invoice in ABRA Flexi | 400 to 700 | 10,000 to 34,300 | 250,000 to 857,500 |
The hours in the table are our estimate for a typical project, not a promise. The range is simple to reproduce. The low end is the lowest number of hours times 25 EUR, the high end is the highest number of hours times 49 EUR. You get an exact figure after the first call.
What pushes the price up
- Old systems without an API. If the accounting program or ERP has no interface, data has to come through exports or straight from the database. That is extra work.
- Exceptions. An agent that handles 80% of cases and passes the rest to a person is cheap. An agent expected to handle nearly everything is expensive.
- Personal data. Here you deal with GDPR, where the data lives and who can access it. Sometimes that means your own server instead of the cloud.
- Approvals. Every step where a person has to confirm something needs a screen and notifications.
What keeps the price down
Above all, a clearly described task. If you can say "the agent takes this, does this and puts the result here", the project can be estimated precisely and nobody needs to add a buffer for the unknown. Software with an open interface helps too. Pohoda has the mServer XML interface and ABRA Flexi offers a REST API, so connecting to them is usually straightforward.
The fixed price from 5,000 EUR: what is included
The fixed price fits one agent for one clearly defined task. It starts at 5,000 EUR, roughly 125,000 CZK excluding VAT, and the agent is live within 30 days. You know the cost up front. If the work takes longer, that is our problem, not yours.
- A free 30 minute scoping call. We go through what the agent should do and which systems it touches.
- A fixed quote within 3 working days.
- Development, integration and testing on your real data.
- Go live within 30 days.
AI model usage is not included. You pay it directly to the provider, so you see exactly what the agent consumes and nobody adds a margin on top. Details are on the fixed price AI agent page and in our AI project pricing overview.
The smallest project we take on is 5,000 EUR. Small jobs such as a single script or a one-time data export are not something we do on their own.
Running costs after launch
After launch you pay for two things. AI model usage based on how many tasks the agent processes, and maintenance. For a single task agent we estimate maintenance at 4 to 10 hours a month, which is 100 to 490 EUR (2,500 to 12,250 CZK). Add hosting if the agent does not run on your own server.
AI model usage
Providers charge by the amount of text the model reads and writes. It is measured in tokens, and one token is roughly a piece of a word. Prices are listed publicly, for example by OpenAI and Anthropic. The math is simple: tasks per month times average input and output length times the price per token. On the first call we work it out with your numbers.
Two tips that save money. Set a monthly spending limit with the provider so a bug in the agent does not surprise you with a bill. And not every step needs the strongest model. A cheaper model handles simple sorting, and the expensive one only needs to run where decisions are made. We cover this in more detail in our post on how to cut AI costs.
Maintenance
An agent is never finished for good. A supplier changes its invoice layout, Pohoda gets an update, the model provider releases a new version. Plan for a developer to spend a few hours a month on the agent. It is calculated the same way as development, hours times the rate.
Is it worth it? A simple payback calculation
An agent pays off when it saves more work in a year than it costs. You can work this out yourself in five minutes. All you need is how many hours a week the task takes now and what an hour of an employee's time costs you, including payroll taxes.
Here is an example to show the idea. Replace the numbers with your own. An accountant spends 10 hours a week retyping invoices, and an hour of that work costs the company 400 CZK including payroll taxes. That is 4,000 CZK a week, about 200,000 CZK a year. The agent takes over 80% of the work, so it saves around 160,000 CZK a year.
On the other side are development at 125,000 CZK and maintenance. At 5 hours a month and 25 EUR an hour, that is about 37,500 CZK a year. The first year comes to roughly 162,500 CZK plus model usage, so it is close to break even. From the second year you only pay for operation and the savings stay.
If you find the task takes two hours a week, an agent will not pay off. That is a useful answer too, and it saves you money.
What to ask when you compare quotes
Ask about three things first: whether model usage is included, who owns the code and how maintenance is billed. Quotes that look cheap often hide operating costs in a monthly flat fee or a markup on tokens.
- Is AI model usage included, or do you pay it separately? If it is included, what is the markup?
- Who owns the code and the account with the model provider?
- What happens when the agent makes a mistake? Who fixes it and at what cost?
- Where is the data stored? For personal data you want to know which country.
- Are you paying for a finished agent, or for hours without a cap?
Security is its own topic. An agent with access to your accounting needs narrow permissions and a log of every step. We sum up what to watch in our post on AI agent security.
Frequently asked questions
How much does the simplest AI agent cost?
With us it starts at 5,000 EUR as a fixed price, roughly 125,000 CZK excluding VAT. That covers one agent for one clearly defined task, live within 30 days.
Is AI model usage included in the price?
No. You pay usage directly to the provider, for example OpenAI or Anthropic. That way you see exactly what the agent costs and nobody takes a margin on it.
What is your hourly rate?
25 to 49 EUR per hour excluding VAT, depending on the type of work. At 25 CZK per euro that is about 625 to 1,225 CZK per hour.
How long does it take to build an AI agent?
A fixed price agent is live within 30 days. Larger projects with several systems take longer, and the timeline is stated in the quote.
Can an AI agent connect to Pohoda, Money S5 or ABRA Flexi?
Yes, connecting to Czech accounting and ERP software is routine work. The price depends mainly on which interface your system has and which version you use.
How fast do I get a quote?
After a free 30 minute scoping call, we send a fixed quote within 3 working days.
Who wrote this
Buinsoft is a Prague based company working on AI and software development. We have delivered more than 130 automations and more than 45 IT projects for partners in 13 countries. Our prices are in the AI project pricing overview, and you can read more about us on the AI development in Prague page. Write to info@buinsoft.com or use the contact form.
