Why we charge for the assessment (and why you should too, if you're hiring one)
Free AI audits sound generous. They're usually a sales funnel in disguise. Here's why we charge $999, and what that buys versus a free 'discovery call'.
If you've spent any time researching AI consultancies in Australia in the last twelve months, you've probably seen the same pattern: book a "free strategy call" or a "complimentary AI audit". One in three of them turn out to be a pre-built slide deck, a generic checklist, and a closing pitch for $5k–$25k of implementation work.
There's nothing wrong with free discovery calls when you're selling a piece of software. But for genuine consulting — where the value is the thinking, not a tool licence — a free intro call has structural problems for both sides.
What a free intro call actually rewards
When the only revenue downstream is the implementation contract, the consultancy has to:
- Optimise for closing, not for figuring out the right answer.
- Skip nuance — there's no time budget for the boring 30 minutes spent understanding your team's actual workflow.
- Recommend whatever has the best margin for them, which usually means the largest implementation package.
You end up with consultants who know their stuff but can't afford to sit in the messy parts of your business long enough to find the genuinely cheap, genuinely high-impact wins.
What a paid assessment changes
When the assessment itself is the deliverable, the incentive flips.
We can spend forty-five minutes with no script, asking honestly stupid questions about how your invoicing actually works. We can spend half a day after the call mapping the workflow before we write a single tool recommendation. We can recommend a $0/month free tool — or no tool at all — without it costing us anything.
About half of our assessment clients implement nothing through us. They take the report, hand it to their existing team or a different implementation partner, and execute it themselves. That's a successful outcome for us. It means we got paid fairly for clear thinking, and you got an asset you can use however you want.
What you actually get for $999
A 45-minute discovery call, conducted personally — not by an AI agent.
A written, branded, five-section report delivered within 48 hours, covering:
- Executive summary — the pain points we identified, ranked by impact and effort.
- Effort vs Impact matrix — every opportunity plotted visually so you can see what to do first.
- Specific tool recommendations — not "you should use AI for that", but "use Smith.ai at $285/mo because…". Names, costs, and why.
- 4-day quick-win plan — a literal day-by-day checklist for the first wins, designed so you or your team can implement without us.
- Financial impact — hours saved per month × your hourly rate, vs the assessment fee. We back the maths into the report.
Plus a 30-minute walkthrough call where we screen-share the report and answer everything.
The honesty tax
Charging $999 means we filter our incoming pipeline. If you're not yet at the point of being willing to pay for clarity, we're probably not the right people to be talking to — yet. The first quick win we find usually pays the assessment back inside 4–6 weeks anyway.
If we don't find at least three actionable opportunities for your business, you get a full refund. No questions.
That's the deal. It's not the only way to run an AI consultancy, but it's the one that produces work we're happy to put our name on.
Want a plan tailored to your business?
Book a 45-minute discovery call. We’ll deliver a written report with specific tools, costs, and a 4-day quick-win plan within 48 hours.