On this page
- 01Why is there no single price for a knowledge assistant?
- 02The five things that move the cost
- 03Three separate costs: build, usage and support
- 04When a cheaper off-the-shelf tool is enough
- 05Why citations and review are worth the extra
- 06What are the repeated questions worth? Do the sum
- 07Frequently asked questions
Why is there no single price for a knowledge assistant?
The assistant is only as good as the documents behind it, and nobody can judge those from a sales call. So the order is fixed: a range first, the audit second, a fixed price third.
The paid audit costs £3,000 plus VAT (US $5,000) and produces a written report within 10 working days. It looks at where your knowledge lives, who asks for it and where answers get stuck. The fee is credited against the build when the build deposit is paid within 14 days of the report.
The written scope then lists the document sets, the access rules, the actions allowed and the review points. It carries one fixed price and an agreed timeline. We give no build time before that.
The five things that move the cost
| Cost driver | What it means | Effect on the price |
|---|---|---|
| How many documents, and how tidy | Policies, price lists, procedures and past answers. Three versions of one policy have to become one before the assistant can be trusted. | Lower for one current, well-kept set. Higher when sorting and retiring old files comes first. |
| Access controls by team and role | The assistant answers a new starter from different documents than it uses for a director. HR and finance files stay with the people cleared to see them. | Lower when everyone may see everything. Higher with each role and restricted set. |
| Source citations | Each answer links to the document and section it came from, so a person can check it. | Lower without. Higher with, and we advise paying for it. |
| Actions it may take | Answering is one thing. Creating a task, updating a record or drafting a reply is another, and each action needs its own limits. | Lower for answers only. Higher with each action. |
| Review before anything is sent | A person approves drafts before they reach a customer. | Lower for internal answers. Higher when approval screens are built in. |
Our guide to getting accurate answers from a knowledge assistant goes further into the first driver, because tidy documents are what make answers reliable.
Three separate costs: build, usage and support
- Build, paid once. £5,000 to £20,000, 50% upfront and 50% on launch. It is built in your accounts. You own the code, the data and the documents.
- Usage, paid to providers. AI usage, hosting and software are billed to your own accounts by the providers. AI usage rises with the number of questions asked, so we estimate it with you from your team size in the scope.
- Support, if you choose it. Run & Improve at £1,000, £2,000 or £4,000 a month. Someone has to keep the documents current, and that can be your team or ours.
The third cost is the one buyers forget. An assistant reading last year's price list gives last year's prices.
When a cheaper off-the-shelf tool is enough
Do not commission a custom assistant if any of these fit:
- Your knowledge sits in one place, and the search in that tool already finds it.
- A general AI chat subscription, with a few documents uploaded by each person, covers what your team asks.
- Everyone may see everything, so role-based access is not needed.
- The documents do not exist yet. Write them first. An assistant cannot answer from what was never written down.
The cheaper tools fall short on access rules, citations and actions inside your own systems. If you need none of those, save the money. The wider trade-off is covered in custom software versus subscription software.
Why citations and review are worth the extra
A business is responsible for what its AI tells people. In Moffatt v Air Canada (2024), a tribunal held the airline liable for incorrect fare information its website chatbot gave a customer. Its argument that the chatbot was responsible for its own actions was rejected.
That is why we limit an assistant to approved information and have it say when it does not know. It hands over to a person, and it never gives medical, legal or financial advice.
The solution you would be buying is an AI knowledge assistant: your team asks a question in plain words and gets an answer from your own documents, with the source shown. Our knowledge assistant page for business teams goes further into the fit. If customers will be the ones asking, that is a chatbot, with its own pricing page.
What are the repeated questions worth? Do the sum
The leak: "The same questions land on the same senior person all day, and new starters take weeks to stop asking." This is the time back lever, so the answer has to end in pounds.
The mechanism: a team member asks the assistant first. It searches the documents their role may see, answers with a link to the source, and says so when the answer is not written down. Only those gaps reach the senior person, who can then add the answer to the documents.
| Line | Example sum | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| Interruptions a day | 15 questions × 4 minutes | 1 hour a day |
| Over a week | 1 hour × 5 days × £40 an hour | £200 a week |
| Over a year | £200 × 48 working weeks | £9,600 |
| New starters | 2 a year × 20 hours of senior time × £40 | £1,600 |
| Total | £9,600 + £1,600 | £11,200 a year |
Example figures. Swap in your own. They are invented to show the method. An assistant will not remove every question.
What to count: for one week, have your most-asked person tally each question whose answer is already written down somewhere. Note the minutes each took and what their hour costs. Add the senior hours your last new starter used. Then work out your own figure with our ROI calculator and bring it to the call. The audit report prices each problem.
Frequently asked questions
How much does an AI knowledge assistant cost for a business?
The build falls in our scoped range of £5,000 to £20,000. There is no separate band for assistants. Documents, access rules and actions decide the figure.
What will the AI usage bill be each month?
It depends on how many questions are asked, and it is paid to the provider from your account. We estimate it in the scope and do not quote provider prices here.
Can it give a wrong answer?
Yes, any AI system can. Limiting it to approved documents, showing the source and testing on real questions before launch reduce the risk. They do not remove it.
Will staff see documents they should not?
Access is set by team and role in the scope, and we test it before launch. The assistant only answers from documents that person may open.
Who keeps the documents up to date?
A named person on your team, or us under a support retainer. Without an owner the answers go stale.
Can it send replies to customers on its own?
We advise against it. Messages sent in your name get a human check, so the assistant drafts and a person approves.
Do our documents leave our control?
The system is built in your own accounts and you own the data. Which providers process it, and on what terms, is set out in the scope for you to approve.