How Much Does It Cost to Build an AI App?
A production AI application typically costs $25,000 to $120,000+. The model API is rarely the main cost - the real work is data ingestion, retrieval quality, guardrails, evaluation, and the surrounding product.
Typical cost ranges
AI feature in an existing app
$15k-$40k
A copilot or smart search bolted onto a product you already have.
Standalone AI app (RAG)
$40k-$90k
Document ingestion, retrieval, chat UI, evaluation.
Enterprise AI system
$90k-$200k+
Multi-source data, agents, governance, scale, and compliance.
Typically 5-14 weeks depending on data and evaluation needs.
What drives the cost
RAG pipeline: ingestion, chunking, embeddings, vector store
Retrieval quality and evaluation harness
Guardrails, safety, and human-in-the-loop review
Volume, latency, and cost optimization
Surrounding product (auth, UI, integrations)
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Frequently asked questions
Isn't AI cheap now that model APIs are cheap?
The API call is cheap; making answers accurate, safe, and grounded in your data is the work. Most of the cost is data, retrieval quality, guardrails, and evaluation.
Do I need a vector database?
If you're grounding answers in your own content (RAG), yes - though pgvector inside your existing Postgres is often enough to start.