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Pricing · fixed price, NZ dollars, excl. GST

AI automation pricing in New Zealand: what it actually costs

Plain numbers for automation, AI assistants, document intelligence, custom apps, websites and fractional CTO work. Discovery is free, the price is fixed before anything is built, and every figure here is in New Zealand dollars.

DiscoveryFree, then fixed price
Typical build4 to 6 weeks
BasedAuckland, working NZ-wide

The ranges

These are the ranges most jobs land in. The bottom of each range is a real project I have shipped, not a teaser. The top is where a job stops being one job and becomes a programme of work, which I would quote in stages.

WhatTypical priceTypical timeExample
Automation across the tools you already runNZ$500 to $5,000Under a week to 4 weeksSupplier invoices read and coded into Xero; enquiries triaged and drafted; overdue payments chased automatically
Document and email intelligenceNZ$1,000 to $8,0002 to 5 weeksLicence applications read, checked and filed; contracts summarised; inbox sorted and answered in your voice
AI assistants, agents and a company brainNZ$3,000 to $12,0003 to 6 weeksA customer assistant on your site that books calls; an internal assistant that answers from your own documents
Custom apps and client portalsNZ$4,000 to $15,0006 to 12 weeksA quoting tool, a scheduler, a portal with logins, payments and reporting
Websites, built for people and for AI searchNZ$1,000 to $6,0002 to 4 weeksA fast marketing site with booking, chat and the structure Google and ChatGPT can read. See LLM-optimised websites
Fractional CTOMonthly retainer, scoped to youA few hours a weekRoadmap, vendor decisions, security, hiring, and an honest read on where AI will and will not pay off
Small jobs, fixes and advice$100 an hourAs neededA change to an existing automation, a second opinion on a quote, an hour of help
Hosting, monitoring and supportFrom $99 a monthOngoingYour systems kept running, watched, and fixed the same day during NZ business hours

How the fixed price works

  1. Free discovery call. Thirty minutes. You describe the process, I ask questions, and I tell you whether automation will help. Sometimes the honest answer is no, or not yet, and you hear that on the call.
  2. Written proposal. What will be built, what it will connect to, what it will cost, and when it will be live. Yours to keep whether or not you go ahead.
  3. Fixed price, invoiced on the milestones in the proposal. The price does not move unless the scope does, and a scope change is written down before it is built.
  4. Test mode first. Every automation runs against real data without touching anything live until you have seen it work.
  5. Handover and support. Whoever will use it is trained, everything is documented, and you choose whether I stay on.

What moves a job up or down the range

  • How many systems it touches. One tool in, one tool out is the bottom of the range. Five systems with different rules each is the top.
  • How messy the input is. Clean forms are cheap. Forty suppliers' invoice layouts, handwriting and photos of documents take more work to read reliably.
  • What happens when it is wrong. Anything customer-facing or money-moving gets human sign-off steps, audit logs and more testing, and that is time well spent.
  • Whether a system has an API. Where it does not, the automation can drive the software the way a person would, which works but takes longer to make robust.
  • Data residency and compliance. AWS Sydney in your own account is the default and costs nothing extra. NZ-only or on-premises deployments are possible and quoted separately.

Why it costs less than people expect

Two reasons. The first is that I am one senior engineer with twelve years in AI and automation, not an agency with account managers, project managers and juniors between you and the person doing the work. The second is that the models and cloud services that made this expensive three years ago now cost a few dollars a month to run at small-business scale.

The same is true of what it returns. The ROI calculator will give you a rough number for your own process in about a minute, and the case studies show what four New Zealand businesses actually got back.

Frequently asked questions

Why a range and not a price list?

Because the same words describe very different jobs. An invoice automation that reads one supplier's PDF into Xero is a few days of work; one that handles forty suppliers, matches purchase orders and routes approvals is a few weeks. The range tells you the neighbourhood, the free discovery call tells you the number, and the number is fixed before anything is built.

Is the discovery call really free?

Yes. Thirty minutes, no obligation, and the written recommendation is yours whether or not you go ahead. If automation is not the right answer for your problem, I say so and there is no invoice.

What happens if the build takes longer than you expected?

That is my problem, not yours. The price is fixed against the agreed scope. If you change the scope, the change is written down with its effect on cost and timing before it is built.

What are the ongoing costs?

Hosting, monitoring and support run on a monthly plan from $99, sized to what you are running. AI model usage is usually a few dollars to a few tens of dollars a month for a small business and is billed at cost. There is no lock-in: the code and the cloud account are yours.

Do you charge GST?

All prices on this page exclude GST. EZ-AI.NZ LIMITED is GST registered and invoices in New Zealand dollars.

Want a number for your process?

Bring the job that eats your week to a free 30-minute call. You will leave with an honest answer and, if it makes sense, a fixed price in writing.

Book a free call