Cost guide · 2026
AI tool budget calculator for consulting firms
Consulting firms typically give everyone a chat assistant, a research tool to analysts, and coding assistants to a small tech team. Enter your headcount to estimate the budget.
Lean rollout
$950/month
$11,400 / year
- 30 × OpenAI Business Standard @ $25
- 10 × Perplexity Pro @ $20
Lowest cost
Standard consulting stack
$2,045/month
$24,540 / year
- 50 × OpenAI Business Standard @ $25
- 15 × Anthropic Pro @ $20
- 20 × Perplexity Pro @ $20
- 5 × GitHub Copilot Business @ $19
Full rollout
$3,402/month
$40,824 / year
- 50 × OpenAI Business Standard @ $25
- 50 × Anthropic Pro @ $20
- 50 × Perplexity Pro @ $20
- 8 × GitHub Copilot Business @ $19
List prices from the AIFinOps Vendor Database, checked daily against official pricing pages. Excludes taxes and usage overages.
What budget owners should know
- Overlapping chat assistants (ChatGPT + Claude for everyone) are the most common source of waste.
- Research tools are used heavily by analysts and rarely by partners — assign seats by role.
- Track client-billable AI usage separately so it can be recovered in fees.
FAQ
How much should a consulting firm budget for AI tools?
Typical seat-based stacks land between roughly $20 and $80 per employee per month, depending on how many overlapping tools each person gets.
Which AI tools do consulting firms use?
Most combine a chat assistant (ChatGPT or Claude), a research tool such as Perplexity, and coding assistants for internal tech teams.
How can we reduce AI tool spend?
Remove duplicate assistants, assign premium seats by role, and review inactive seats before each renewal.