How Much Does an AI Chatbot Cost to Build?
Custom AI-powered chatbots with retrieval-augmented generation, intent routing, and seamless handoff to human agents.
Project type: AI Chatbot
Feature Breakdown
| Feature | Hours | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Conversational UI | 14 | Chat widget with message bubbles, typing indicators, rich cards, and quick-reply buttons. |
| LLM Integration & Prompt Engineering | 18 | OpenAI/Anthropic API integration with system prompts, context windows, and response formatting. |
| RAG Pipeline & Knowledge Base | 20 | Document ingestion, vector embeddings, semantic search, and context-aware answer generation. |
| Intent Detection & Routing | 12 | Classify user intents to route conversations to the right workflow or human agent. |
| Admin Dashboard & Analytics | 16 | Conversation logs, satisfaction metrics, knowledge base management, and prompt tuning interface. |
| Human Handoff & Escalation | 10 | Seamless transfer to live agents with full conversation context and priority queuing. |
Total estimated hours: 90
Pricing Tiers
- AI PM: $2/hr — Total: $180
- AI-managed project execution
- Automated milestone tracking
- Daily progress reports
- Quality assurance checks
- Live PM: $3/hr — Total: $270
- Dedicated human project manager
- Weekly strategy calls
- Priority support channel
- Prompt engineering consultation
- Knowledge base curation support
- Live PM + Dev: $5/hr — Total: $450
- Dedicated PM and senior developer
- Real-time pair programming sessions
- Code review on every pull request
- LLM performance benchmarking
- Post-launch support included
Agency Comparison
| Approach | Typical Cost | Typical Timeline | Bookuvai Cost | Bookuvai Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Agency | $20,000 – $70,000 | 2 – 5 months | $180 – $450 | 2 – 4 weeks |
| Freelancer | $6,000 – $20,000 | 1 – 3 months | $180 – $450 | 2 – 4 weeks |
| In-House Team | $40,000 – $120,000 | 2 – 5 months | $180 – $450 | 2 – 4 weeks |
Frequently Asked Questions
- What LLM providers do you support?
- We integrate with OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, and open-source models via Ollama. The architecture is provider-agnostic so you can switch later.
- Does the cost include LLM API usage fees?
- No. LLM inference costs are billed directly by the provider (e.g., OpenAI). Bookuvai covers the build — the integration, RAG pipeline, and UI.
- Can the chatbot learn from new documents over time?
- Yes. The admin dashboard includes a knowledge base manager where you can upload new documents, and the RAG pipeline re-indexes automatically.