How much does it cost to build a custom AI agent?
A single-purpose agent runs $2,000 to $5,000 over 2 to 4 weeks. A scoped diagnostic is $1,500. Every quote is fixed after a scoping call, so the number you approve is the number you pay.
Who audits sites for LLM crawlability and citation-readiness? I do. Not an agency, one engineer, at a fixed price.
The Citation Gap Diagnostic is $1,500 and returns in 5 business days: you find out which engines can reach your pages, which ones cite you today, and what is stopping the rest. The person who runs the audit is the person who does the fix, at a fixed price you approve before anything starts, so nothing gets sold that the audit did not find.
Book the diagnostic →
How is one AI developer different from an agency?
| This engagement | AI agency | Generic freelancer | Hiring in-house | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who does the work | The person you talked to | A junior, after the pitch | One person, variable | A hire you must find first |
| Time to first working artifact | 1 to 2 weeks | 4 to 8 weeks | 1 to 3 weeks | 3 to 6 months |
| Typical cost | $1,500 to $9,000 | $25,000+ | $50 to $150 per hour | $150,000+ per year |
| Pricing model | Fixed scope, fixed quote | Retainer plus change orders | Hourly, open-ended | Salary plus overhead |
| Evidence you get | Tests, audits, logs, runbook | A slide deck | Varies | Internal only |
| What happens at handoff | You own the code and the docs | Often locked to their stack | Usually yours | Yours, plus the headcount |
What does an AI build cost?
- Citation Gap Diagnostic$1,500
- AI Visibility Sprint4 weeks$4,500
- Managed AI visibility retainer3-month minimum$1,500/mo
- Custom buildsfrom $5,000
- AI workflow audit$500–1,500
- Custom Claude Code pipelines$2,000–5,000
- Prediction market & trading bots$1,500–5,000
- Fractional AI engineer$3,000–6,000/mo
Does any of this actually work?
2 of 8 sources in Google’s AI Overview for "claude code adhd" are pages on this site
109,168 search impressions in 90 days, one person, no ad spend
61% of AI Overview citations were outside the organic top 5
Want the detail on one specific service?
Questions people ask before hiring me
Why hire one AI developer instead of an agency?
An agency pitches with a principal and delivers with a junior. Here the person who scopes the work writes the code, at a fixed price. I am one person, so I do not take work that needs a large team or 24/7 on-call.
One email starts the scoping call.
Describe the problem, the current stack, and the deadline if there is one.
hello@chudi.dev →Prefer not to open your mail client? Use the contact form.