Every tier has a floor so we can staff you properly, a cap so your CFO can budget, and a baseline locked at signature so nobody argues about attribution six months in. All figures exclude GST.
Two hours with your leadership, and a written baseline at the end of it. Credited in full against any engagement signed within 30 days.
Extended version — two weeks, five stakeholder interviews, prioritised roadmap: ₹2,50,000 (≈$2,630). We price the audit because free diagnostics select for people who will never buy.
A fixed build, a monthly run fee, and an upside kicker when the agreed KPI lands. No downside for you.
For clients with clean data and a number somebody owns. We take a lower base and put part of it at risk against the target.
Only where the unit is countable and your system already emits it. You pay for the outcome, not the attempt.
Benchmark: a human-handled ticket costs ₹500–₹1,100. An in-house SDR meeting costs roughly ₹78,000–₹1,09,000 fully loaded.
The top of the ladder, and the one we are most careful about. A non-refundable floor covers our cost base; above that we take a tiered share of value your finance team has certified.
Trailing twelve months of your data, normalised for seasonality, volume and mix. Locked at signature, changed only by formal change control. Exogenous factors named in a schedule so neither side can argue them later.
A randomised 10% holdout wherever you can give us one. Where you can’t, a pre-agreed proxy metric decided upfront. Never last-touch.
Quarterly certification by a joint steering committee, with your finance team’s sign-off required before we raise an invoice. Shared dashboard, buyer audit rights, fifteen-day dispute window.
If the verified value reverses in the following quarter, we repay pro-rata — capped at 100% of that quarter’s outcome fee. We have not met anyone else who will write this down.
All fees are professional services fees under SAC 9983, quoted exclusive of GST, and invoiced against a defined quarterly certification date. Not tax advice; your finance team should review the contract.
| Where you are | Start here | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Never bought AI services; no clean baseline | Tier 0 → Tier 1 | Build the baseline first, then take upside only. No downside while you learn how we work. |
| You have data and a number somebody owns | Tier 2 | Lower base, real fee at risk. The cheapest way to buy accountability. |
| A countable unit your system already emits | Tier 3 | Tickets, meetings, recoveries. Nothing to argue about — the system counts it. |
| ₹1 Cr+ P&L line, CFO-sponsored, holdout available | Tier 4 | The largest upside for both of us, and the only tier where we underwrite the whole number. |
Generic AI is not worthless — your team uses it every day and it is making them faster. But it is ungoverned, unmeasured and un-auditable. All three are fixable, and the fix is what you are paying for.
Sources: MIT NANDA The GenAI Divide (2025, preprint) · Chroma Context Rot · Stanford RegLab · Gartner (June 2025) · IBM · Cyberhaven · India DPDP compliance timeline.
Eighty-five percent of agencies prefer retainers. There is nothing wrong with a retainer — but you should know what you are buying and who carries the risk.
Bring the people who own revenue, operations and data. Leave with a written baseline and three costed agents, ranked by payback — whatever you decide next.
₹75,000 · credited in full against any engagement signed within 30 days