Most owners ask two questions before they ask anything technical: how much will this cost, and when do I have to pay it? This post answers both for OrchestriAI. It covers how we set a price, the payment schedule we use for every invoice, what the 30-day warranty covers, and why we do not offer refunds. Prices were last reviewed on October 29, 2026, and the pricing page always has the current numbers.
How a price gets set
Every project gets a fixed quote before any work starts. We do not bill by the hour for builds, and the quote does not grow if the work takes longer than we expected. That risk sits with us.
The quote starts from a floor for the type of work, then moves up with the six cost drivers: the number of systems, data quality, review steps, volume, sensitive data, and how much judgment the job needs. The floors are:
- Integrations between two tools: from $2,000.
- Workflow automations: from $2,500.
- Custom tools and internal apps: from $3,000.
- The two-week readiness assessment: $3,199, credited to the build.
- MCP servers: from $3,500.
- A first AI agent, built and handed over: $4,000.
Ongoing plans have their own prices. The care plan is $350 a month. Managed agent plans run $4,000, $7,600 or $15,600 a month. The full breakdown of agent costs is in our AI agent cost guide.
The payment schedule
The size of the invoice decides how it is split. There are four bands.
| Invoice total | How you pay |
|---|---|
| Under $1,000 | 100% upfront |
| $1,000 to under $3,000 | 50% at the start, 50% at handover |
| $3,000 to under $5,000 | 25% at the start, 50% midway, 25% at handover |
| $5,000 and above | 33% at the start, 33% at 30% done, 34% at 60% done and handover |
A total that lands exactly on a boundary goes in the higher band. A $3,000 invoice is paid 25/50/25, not 50/50. A $5,000 invoice is paid in thirds.
Any work done on your own systems or in your own accounts, which we call client-side work, follows the thirds schedule whatever its size. That keeps the staged checkpoints in place when we are working inside your setup.
Local clients pay 50/50: half at the start and half at handover, whatever the total.
Why the money follows progress
Staged payments protect both sides. You never pay far ahead of the work you can see, and we never carry months of unpaid effort. Each stage has a clear checkpoint you can check: a working connection, a test run on your real data, a handover call with the documentation. If a checkpoint is not met, the next payment waits.
Describe the build and we'll send a fixed price with the payment schedule spelled out.
Three worked examples
These are sample invoices to show the rules, not real client bills.
- 1A $638 setup for a dental patient communication package is under $1,000, so it is paid in full at the start.
- 2A $2,500 workflow build is in the $1,000 to under $3,000 band: $1,250 at the start and $1,250 at handover.
- 3A $6,000 speed-to-lead setup for a real estate team is $5,000 and above: $1,980 at the start, $1,980 at 30% done, and $2,040 at 60% done and handover.
No refunds, and why
We do not offer refunds, and there is no cancellation window. That is a deliberate choice, and we would rather say it plainly here than hide it in the terms.
The reason is how the work is shaped. Most of the cost in a build is time spent mapping your process, connecting your accounts and testing on your data. Once that time is spent, it cannot be returned. Staged payments are what keep this fair: you only ever pay for the stage in front of you, and you see each stage working before the next payment is due.
If you are unsure whether automation fits your business, start with something small. The free automation audit costs nothing, a half-day planning workshop is $2,800, and the readiness assessment gives you a fixed quote with the fee credited to the build.
The 30-day warranty
If something we built breaks within 30 days of launch, we fix it at no charge. That covers bugs, failed runs and anything that does not do what the agreed scope says. New features and changes to the scope are quoted separately. We explain exactly where the line sits in what our 30-day warranty covers.
After the warranty
When the 30 days end, you choose how the system is looked after.
- Run it yourself with the handover documentation. Many teams do.
- Join the care plan at $350 a month, month to month, with 30 days' notice to stop. It covers monitoring, fixes and small changes.
- Put agents on a managed plan, where we run and improve them for you.
Model usage for AI steps, usually $30 to $150 a month, is paid by you straight to the model provider in every case.
Hourly help and blocks
Some teams want to build with us rather than hand the work over. Pair-building is $250 an hour, or you can prepay a block: 4 hours for $1,000, 10 hours for $2,500, or 20 hours for $5,000. Blocks follow the same payment bands as any other invoice, so a 20-hour block is paid in thirds.
Referral payments
If you refer a business that becomes a client, you get 30% of their first payment. There is no cap, the intro counts for 90 days, and payouts go out monthly. The referral page has the details.
Can the schedule change for a big project?
No. The bands are the same for every client, so you can check any invoice against the table above. If a quote ever splits differently, ask us why, because it should not.
If you have a project in mind, describe it below and we will reply with a fixed quote and the payment schedule that applies. You work directly with Shariq, the founder, the whole way through.
Our post on how we run automation projects shows where each payment falls in the project, and the agency pricing guide compares public prices across agencies.
