Transparent pricing.
Three engagement models. Pilots start at $5,000; ongoing partnerships are scoped to your budget. Every engagement begins with a defined outcome, not a blank-cheque retainer.
One senior hire vs. the whole team.
A senior AI engineer's base salary alone runs about $15,800 a month for a single skillset. And salary is only the start: once you add payroll tax, benefits, recruiting, and tooling, the fully loaded cost climbs to roughly $24,300 a month. A ValueStreamAI retainer is sized to your budget and covers AI, backend, ops, and infrastructure. No recruiting overhead. No equity. No notice period.
How the fully loaded cost reaches $24,300 a month
Choose your entry point.
Start with a fixed pilot. Verify the ROI. If the numbers justify it, and they usually do, we become your ongoing operations partner.
We identify your highest-ROI workflow, build the automation end-to-end, integrate it into your stack, and deliver a verified ROI report. Where a pilot lands in that range depends on the complexity of the workflow and how deep the integration goes. If the numbers don't clear the bar we define together on day one, you don't owe us the next phase.
- ✓ Single workflow automation
- ✓ Full integration into your stack
- ✓ Documentation & knowledge transfer
- ✓ 2–6 months of free post-launch support & maintenance
- ✓ ROI report with baseline vs. outcome metrics
Your ongoing AI operations partner. New automations each sprint, continuous improvement across your stack, and a team that treats your ops metrics as seriously as you do.
- ✓ Everything in Pilot
- ✓ 2–3 new automations per month
- ✓ Direct line to the team, on whichever channel you use (Slack, Teams, WhatsApp, or your choice)
- ✓ Weekly progress calls
- ✓ Monitoring & alerting on all live systems
- ✓ Priority response < 4 hrs
ValueStreamAI people embedded full-time in your operation, whatever roles the outcome actually needs: a dedicated engineer, a fractional CTO, founder-level oversight, even a fractional CMO. For complex transformations and long-term infrastructure that requires sustained bandwidth beyond just engineering.
- ✓ Everything in Retainer
- ✓ Embedded team (40 hrs/wk), scoped to the roles you need
- ✓ Fractional CTO / founder-level oversight available
- ✓ Custom model training & MLOps
- ✓ On-prem / air-gap deployment
- ✓ Executive strategy sessions
- ✓ SLA with uptime guarantee
Common questions.
What is included in the Pilot engagement?
The Pilot is a fixed-scope, fixed-price engagement: we identify the highest-ROI workflow in your operation, build the automation end-to-end, integrate it into your existing stack, write the documentation, and back it with 2 to 6 months of free post-launch support and maintenance, scaled to the size of the engagement. We also deliver an ROI report that documents baseline metrics and post-implementation outcomes. You get a finished, production-grade system, not a prototype.
How much does a pilot cost?
Pilots run $5,000 to $15,000 as a fixed-scope, fixed-price engagement. Where yours lands in that range depends on how complex the workflow is and how deep the integration into your existing systems goes. We agree the exact figure and the success metric with you before any work begins.
What happens if the Pilot doesn't deliver the promised outcome?
We define success together before we start, in measurable terms: hours saved, error rate reduced, processing time cut. If the implementation doesn't clear that bar, we don't invoice for the next phase. We'd rather part ways honestly than lock you into a retainer for results that haven't materialized.
Is there a minimum commitment on the Retainer?
No. Our retainer is month-to-month. We believe we should earn the next month every month. Most clients stay for 12–24 months because the ROI compounds as each new automation is layered onto the previous ones. But there is no penalty for stopping.
Do you work with large enterprises or only SMBs?
Both, but we work differently with each. SMBs typically start with a Pilot targeting a single high-cost workflow. Enterprises typically engage at the Retainer or Embed level, where we operate as an embedded partner across multiple departments, providing whichever roles the outcome needs, from engineering to a fractional CTO or founder-level oversight, not just one hire in one lane. The Embed model is designed specifically for large-scale, multi-system transformation.
What if the automation breaks after launch?
Every Pilot is backed by 2 to 6 months of free post-launch support and maintenance, the exact length scales with the size of the engagement, and every Retainer includes continuous monitoring with priority alerting across all live automations. Small bugs and fixes that come up after delivery are covered within that window at no additional cost. You always have full visibility into performance metrics.
Will I actually work with the founder, or get handed off to a project manager?
Our founder is on the discovery call, and stays involved through delivery, especially on the parts of a project that matter most to the outcome. We think the person who built this business is well placed to understand yours, so we don't see the value in stepping back once a contract is signed. You'll always know who you're talking to and why they're the right person for that conversation.
Thirty minutes.
We'll tell you exactly
where your ROI is.
No sales deck. No 50-page report you have to pay for before anything gets built. Just a direct conversation about which of your workflows are costing the most and whether AI can fix them. If there's no compelling answer, we'll say so. And it's a conversation with Kash, our founder, not a rep reading from a script, because the person who built this business is the one who should understand yours.