What AI consulting costs a benefits agency, and what you get for it

How does DoBetter price AI consulting?

DoBetter prices AI consulting in four steps:

1. An intro call. It takes 30 minutes on Zoom, and there’s no fee. We cover what’s taking too long, who it’s taking it from, and what you use AI for today.
2. A $1,500 discovery session. Two to three hours with me and the people who do the work.
3. A fixed fee build. Quoted from the discovery findings.
4. Optional monthly support. Also scoped after discovery.

Nothing is billed by the hour. Hourly rewards taking longer. I’m Chris Cordon, a 17 year benefits producer, and I run every discovery session myself.

What do I get for the $1,500 discovery?

The $1,500 discovery session gets you three things, in writing, within one week:

• A one page map of how work moves through your agency.
• The first one or two connections worth making, what each gives back, and what it takes to build.
• A straight answer on whether I can help.

Half of the $1,500 comes off your first month if you continue. If I say I can’t help, you get a full refund. You keep the map either way.

In the session I look at who’s on staff, how the data flows, who touches the information, what you do to bring business in, and how that’s structured. I draw it live on a whiteboard, and you can watch it fill in from your screen.

What makes the work after discovery cost more or less?

The biggest driver is how many systems a process runs through. Connecting email to one spreadsheet is a smaller job than one process that runs across your agency management system, a carrier portal, and a shared inbox.

Other things that move the price:

How messy the data is.

A clean census moves easily. Five versions of the same spreadsheet don’t.

How many people use it.

One producer’s workflow is simpler than a whole service team’s.

Off the shelf or custom.

Setting up a product you already pay for usually costs less than building from scratch.

Training.

A team session on your own tasks is a separate, smaller piece of work.

How much support you want after.

I’d rather teach someone at your agency to have their AI agent fix what breaks. That keeps the monthly piece small.

What does it cost to skip it?

Skipping it costs the hours your team already spends retyping. The line on my site is “Somebody on your team is spending 15 minutes on a task that should take 2 seconds.” Manual data entry is the most common thing discovery turns up. “It’s shocking how many agencies are still typing things in by hand.”

Those minutes never show up on an invoice. On the whiteboard, every person card carries hours per week and salary, so each handoff gets a number. Owners usually know the work is slow. Seeing what one retyped form costs over a year is what changes the conversation.

The other cost is the AI you already pay for. If your team has ChatGPT or Claude seats and uses them like “a glorified Google search,” you’re paying for a worker and getting a search box.

Quick answers

Is there a refund?

Yes. If discovery shows I can’t help, the $1,500 comes back.

Why isn’t the build price on the site?

It depends on your systems and your data, which discovery sorts out.

Can I start small?

Yes. One connection is a common first build.

Is there a retainer?

Only if you want ongoing support. It’s scoped after discovery.

Do you charge hourly?

Never.