Key details at a glance
Prototype-to-enterprise AI builds range from $2K to $150K+ depending on complexity, eval rigor, and orchestration needs. Engineering (prompt design, evals, RAG pipelines) accounts for roughly 50% of total cost — not the AI model itself. Token costs are recurring and scale with usage — budget monthly inference separately from the one-time build cost. Production-grade AI requires an eval harness, guardrails, and fallback logic that prototypes skip entirely.
