What does an AI consultant hourly rate include?

Direct Answer

An hourly rate normally bundles research, prototyping time, stand-ups, and stakeholder syncs. The best consultants also budget for documentation and experimentation analysis so you’re not surprised by “extra” days late in the project.

Breakdown of Typical Hours

Expect 40–50% of the time to cover discovery and scoping, 30–40% to deliver the workflow or experiment, and the remainder to ship the rollout assets (dashboards, Loom walkthroughs, enablement sessions). Tooling—OpenAI usage, Optimizely seats, or analytics connectors—is usually passed through at cost unless you agree a fixed bundle.

Example Allocation

On a four-week conversion uplift engagement, we schedule Mondays for backlog review and experiment design, midweek for build and QA, and Fridays to close the loop with analytics. The hourly rate covers micro-interaction prototypes in Figma, ES5 experiment code, and the Jira/Linear hygiene that keeps your team in sync.

Takeaway & Related Answers

When comparing hourly quotes, ask how the consultant handles analysis, reporting, and iteration. The best value comes from teams who see the engagement through to measurable results instead of handing over raw code.

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