An agency quotes twelve hundred for a client assistant because the setup takes an afternoon. The client agrees immediately, which should have been the first warning.
The content takes five weeks of chasing. Two topics are added. An integration is requested. Testing takes two rounds. After launch the client emails every fortnight with changes.
Six months later the agency has spent perhaps forty hours on a twelve hundred pound project and quietly stopped offering the service. The price was wrong because the scope was never priced.
What the work actually consists of
Six components. Discovery and scoping, content gathering and writing, configuration, integration, testing and launch, and a tuning period. The configuration is the smallest of them by a wide margin.
Component 1: discovery and scoping
Understanding the business, agreeing the topic list, deciding escalation rules and defining success. Typically several hours and it determines whether everything afterwards goes well.
Component 2: content gathering and writing
The dominant cost. Extracting answers from a client who is busy, writing them properly and getting them approved. Budget considerably more than feels reasonable, which is the ground in scoping a client assistant project properly.
Component 3: configuration
The part clients imagine is the whole job. Real, necessary and usually the smallest line on the estimate.
Component 4: integration
Booking systems, inventory, forms or a records system. Quoted separately every time, because access delays are outside the agency's control.
Component 5: testing and launch
Against real past enquiries, with client review, plus the launch itself. Always needed and frequently omitted from estimates.
Component 6: the tuning period
Thirty days of reviewing transcripts and adjusting. Bounded, included and stated, or it becomes indefinite.
A worked example
Discovery four hours, content sixteen hours, configuration six, testing six, launch and training four. Thirty six hours at a hundred pounds is three thousand six hundred, before any integration. The twelve hundred pound quote was not a discount, it was a mistake.
What the retainer covers
Content updates, new topics, seasonal changes, transcript review and reporting. Two to four hours a month at a stated rate, which is what keeps the assistant accurate and the relationship alive.
Why the retainer matters more than the build
An assistant with answers from eighteen months ago is a liability. Without a maintenance arrangement it decays, the client blames the tool, and the agency loses the account and the reference.
Price the content gathering as a variable
Where a client supplies answers promptly, it is cheaper. Where they do not, it costs more. Saying so in the proposal changes client behaviour immediately.
Offer a lower tier honestly
A smaller topic set at a lower price is a legitimate product. An underpriced full build is not, and it is what agencies usually offer instead.
Charge for the change requests
Named, priced and in the proposal, which is what turns scope creep into revenue rather than into resentment, as covered in agency retainer clients asking the same update questions.
Price on outcome where you can
A client who understands what an answered enquiry is worth will accept a higher number. That conversation is easier with the chatbot ROI calculator in front of them.
Decide the model before the first proposal
Project plus retainer, or an ongoing monthly service, which is the same choice described in retainer versus project questions from new pr clients and the delivery model in how marketing agencies use chatbots for their clients. See pricing, and the sector view sits under agencies.