Pricing
The numbers, in the open including the ones that will disqualify me.
Most consultancies make you book a call to find out whether you can afford them. That is a deliberate choice and it works — for them. It wastes an hour of your time when the answer was always going to be no.
So the floors are published. If a number below is far outside what you have, you have learned that in ten seconds instead of after two calls and a proposal, and neither of us has lost an afternoon.
Everything here is a floor rather than a quote. Large builds get scoped, because a fixed price on a scope nobody has read yet is either padded or about to go over, and both are worse than a conversation.
The short answer
Code and Proof publishes its floors: $2,500 for a five-day fixed-scope reliability audit, $2,500/mo for a fractional retainer at roughly two days a week, from $15,000 to build an AI application or MVP, from $25,000 for an agent that acts in production, and from $15,000 to rescue a feature that is already live and wrong. Large builds are scoped rather than listed, but nothing starts below these numbers.
Build something
AI application development
An AI product built end to end, by the engineer who has to keep it running.
from $15k
Scoped from what the thing actually has to do.
AI agent development
Agents that are allowed to act, because nothing irreversible happens unsupervised.
from $25k
Matches the agentic band in the published cost guide.
AI MVP development
One workflow that works end to end, rather than five that demo.
from $15k
Evals written first, so version two is measurable.
White-label AI development
You sold the AI feature. I build it under your brand and never approach your client.
Scoped
Day-rate or fixed-scope, depending on how defined the work is.
Operate, fix, or find out
Fractional AI engineering
I own the AI surface of your product, month to month, so you can ship the next one.
from $2,500/mo
Roughly two days a week. Async, no standups.
AI reliability audit
A fixed-scope read of an AI system that is misbehaving, and the shortest route to trusting it.
$2,500
Five business days. Fixed scope, fixed price.
AI project rescue
Your AI feature is live and wrong. I find out why.
from $15k
Scoped from what the audit found.
AI integration
Putting AI into a stack that already has users, without breaking what works.
Scoped
RAG and retrieval
Retrieval systems that are evaluated, not vibe-checked.
Scoped
How billing works
No hourly billing. An hourly rate is a number to negotiate down, and it penalises the thing you are actually buying — being fast should not reduce the invoice. The audit is fixed scope and fixed price, the retainer is a monthly fee, and builds are a scoped fixed price.
The retainer has no notice period. Month to month. If it stops being worth it, it stops.
Most engagements start with the audit. Five days and $2,500 buys a written list of what will break, why, and what fixing it costs — and it is deliberately cheap enough that discovering you do not need me is an acceptable outcome for both of us.
Inference is yours. Model spend runs on your keys and your account, billed by the provider rather than marked up through me. What it will cost at your volumes is worked out in the cost guide.
Common questions
- How much does an AI developer cost?
- Code and Proof publishes its floors: $2,500 for a five-day fixed-scope reliability audit, $2,500/mo for a fractional retainer at roughly two days a week, from $15,000 to build an AI application or MVP, from $25,000 for an agent that acts in production, and from $15,000 to rescue a feature that is already live and wrong. Large builds are scoped rather than listed, but nothing starts below these numbers.
- Do you work fixed-price or hourly?
- Fixed scope and fixed price for the audit, a monthly fee for the retainer, and a scoped fixed price for builds. Code and Proof does not bill hourly, because an hourly rate is a number to negotiate down and because being fast should not reduce the invoice.