Most online cost guides give you a number without context. This page does the opposite: it explains what the number depends on, shows you the actual ranges by project type, and gives you the methodology behind the benchmarks.
The ranges on this page come from 100+ projects delivered by RaftLabs between 2019 and 2025. They reflect full project delivery, discovery, UX/UI design, development, QA, and one round of post-launch support. They do not include third-party API fees, cloud hosting costs, or ongoing maintenance retainers.
Every project differs. These ranges are a starting point for budget conversations, not fixed quotes. But they're a better starting point than anything else you'll find in a Google search.
These cost ranges come from real RaftLabs project data across clients in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and the UAE. Project types include AI chatbots, RAG pipelines, voice AI agents, SaaS platforms, mobile apps, and custom ERP/CRM builds. The clients range from early-stage startups to enterprise teams at companies like Vodafone, T-Mobile, Energia, and Aldi.
We model costs using a lean delivery pod: one senior engineer, part-time project management, and part-time QA. A lean pod costs $12,000--$15,000 per month. Larger projects scale to two or three people, which increases the monthly cost but reduces the timeline. The planning rate we use is $1,500 per person per week.
Every estimate on this page includes:
Discovery and scoping, technical requirements, architecture design, integration mapping
UX/UI design, wireframes, component library, user flows
Development, full implementation including backend, frontend, and AI/ML integration
Quality assurance, functional testing, integration testing, UAT support
Deployment, production setup, CI/CD pipeline, environment configuration
Post-launch support, one round of bug fixes after go-live
Not included: third-party API usage fees (OpenAI, Anthropic, ElevenLabs, etc.), cloud hosting costs, or ongoing maintenance and support retainers.
Complexity tiers used throughout this page:
Simple, 1–3 integrations, one user role, standard UI, limited custom logic
Standard, 4–8 integrations, 2–3 user roles, custom workflows, moderate data complexity
Complex, 9+ integrations, compliance requirements (HIPAA, SOC 2, GDPR), multi-tenant architecture, enterprise data pipelines
The category of AI matters less than the scope within that category. A simple customer support chatbot trained on a help center ($30,000--$45,000) is a fundamentally different build from a multi-channel enterprise support agent with CRM integration, custom escalation logic, and analytics ($65,000--$80,000). Naming the project type is step one. Defining the scope within that type is what determines the price.
Each integration, connecting to a CRM, helpdesk, database, or third-party API, adds one to three weeks of development time. A project with eight integrations costs significantly more than the same project with two, even if the AI component is identical. Data readiness matters too: if your data exists in clean, structured form, the team can move directly to building. If it needs extraction, cleaning, or structuring, that adds two to four weeks before the AI work can begin.
Offshore development rates are 30–50% lower than US or UK rates at the hourly level. At the project level, the difference is typically 20–35% once coordination overhead is factored in. RaftLabs operates with offshore development and onshore project management, clients get near-shore communication quality with offshore cost efficiency. Time-and-materials billing suits early-stage exploration. Fixed-price billing suits scoped builds.
A standard 12-week project delivered in 8 weeks requires a larger team, which increases cost by roughly 15%. If you need something in market fast, expect to pay a compression premium. If timeline is flexible, a longer runway can reduce cost by allowing a smaller team without sacrificing scope.
Using an existing AI model via API (OpenAI GPT-4o, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini) is the lowest-cost path for most projects. Fine-tuning a model on your data costs more, typically $10,000--$30,000 in additional effort, plus ongoing API or hosting costs. Building a custom model from scratch is rare for mid-market projects and usually not justified. Generative AI development covers these options in detail.
Projects in healthcare, finance, or government with HIPAA, SOC 2, or GDPR requirements add audit logging, access controls, data encryption, and documentation that are not required in standard builds. Budget an additional 15–25% of the total project cost for compliance overhead. This is non-negotiable if your industry requires it, skipping it creates liability.
The table below shows cost ranges across complexity tiers for the most common project types we build. Use these as starting benchmarks before getting a scoped estimate.
| Project Type | Simple | Standard | Complex | Timeline |
|---|
| AI Chatbot / Support Agent | $30K--$45K | $45K--$65K | $65K--$80K | 8–12 wks |
| RAG Pipeline / Doc Intelligence | $40K--$60K | $60K--$90K | $90K--$120K | 8–14 wks |
| Voice AI Agent | $50K--$75K | $75K--$110K | $110K--$150K | 10–16 wks |
| SaaS MVP | $60K--$90K | $90K--$120K | $120K--$150K | 10–16 wks |
| Custom Software MVP | $40K--$60K | $60K--$80K | $80K--$100K | 8–14 wks |
| AI Mobile App | $50K--$70K | $70K--$100K | $100K--$120K | 10–14 wks |
| Business Process Automation | $30K--$45K | $45K--$65K | $65K--$80K | 6–12 wks |
| ERP / CRM Custom Build | $80K--$120K | $120K--$160K | $160K--$200K | 14–20 wks |
Ranges reflect USD pricing for full project delivery. They do not include ongoing hosting, API usage fees, or a post-launch maintenance retainer.
Internal links for specific project types:
A UK-based energy retailer with 500,000+ customers needed to reduce inbound call volume. The existing IVR handled only the simplest queries. We built an AI chatbot trained on the company's policy documents, billing FAQs, and 18 months of support ticket history, integrated with their Salesforce CRM and Zendesk helpdesk.
Project cost: $62,000. Timeline: 11 weeks. The chatbot now handles 65% of tier-1 queries end-to-end, with escalation to human agents carrying full conversation context.
A US-based legal services firm processed 400+ contracts per month manually, analysts spent 3–4 hours per contract on clause extraction and comparison. We built a RAG pipeline that ingests uploaded contracts, extracts key clauses, surfaces anomalies against a standard template, and generates a summary report.
Project cost: $78,000. Timeline: 13 weeks. Contract review time dropped to under 30 minutes per document. See our portfolio for additional case studies.
A US-based FinTech startup needed a working SaaS product to raise their seed round, two user roles (advisor and client), a portfolio tracking dashboard, a document vault, and Stripe billing. We used a lean two-person pod.
Project cost: $72,000. Timeline: 12 weeks. The product launched to 50 beta users 3 weeks after development ended. The startup raised $2.1M Series A with the product live.
A mid-size e-commerce operator was manually processing supplier invoices, 200+ per month, copy-pasted into their ERP system. We built an automation that ingests invoice emails, extracts line items using document AI, validates against purchase orders, and posts to their ERP automatically. Exceptions are flagged for human review.
Project cost: $41,000. Timeline: 8 weeks. Manual invoice processing dropped from 3 hours per day to 20 minutes. Error rate went from 4% to under 0.5%.
Generic quotes don't help you plan. Here is how RaftLabs scopes and prices a project.
Step 1, Discovery (2 weeks, $5,000--$10,000): We map your requirements, define the technical architecture, identify all integrations, and produce a full product specification. This removes ambiguity before development starts. The discovery cost is credited toward the full build.
Step 2, Fixed-price quote: After discovery, you receive a line-item project quote with a guaranteed total cost and delivery timeline. No open-ended billing. If scope changes, we price the change before building it.
Step 3, Delivery (8–20 weeks): A dedicated pod delivers the project in fortnightly sprints with working software at every milestone. You see progress before you pay for it.
The discovery phase is the single best investment you can make before committing to a full build. It tells you exactly what you're buying and exactly what it costs. Start with a product discovery engagement if you're not yet ready to commit to a full build.