The prices below cover a clearly defined piece of work and are agreed in writing before we begin.
All prices are in pounds sterling. Stride Consultancy Partners Limited is not registered for VAT, so no VAT is added to any price on this page. If we register for VAT, VAT will be charged on top of the prices shown and this page will say so first.
If the scope changes, we agree a revised price before carrying out any additional work, never afterwards. There is no day rate because you are paying for a defined outcome, not an open-ended number of days.
Two weeks. Fixed. Credited in full against any build you start within sixty days.
You get:
If we cannot find £15,000 of recoverable annual value, we will tell you, you keep the report, and we will not pitch you.
Why not free? The audit is paid work. It maps the agreed processes, tests feasibility and gives you a written price for a first build. It takes two and a half senior days and produces the number the whole engagement turns on.
Three to four weeks.
Six to ten weeks.
Scoped after the audit. The fixed price follows the scoping and is agreed in writing before the work.
First Agent and Agent Team are fixed prices, not estimates. Agent Operations starts from £45,000 and becomes a fixed written price once it is scoped. The audit is what makes that possible.
An agent is not a website. It needs watching, tuning and occasionally stopping. Here is what that costs, published, so you can put it in a budget before you commit to the build.
| Feature | Agent Care£450 a month | Agent Partner£1,450 a month | Agent Ops£3,500 a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monitoring, alerting and break-fix | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Monthly performance report | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Changes included | Up to 2 hours | Up to 8 hours | Unlimited minor |
| New agent or major upgrade | Not included | One per quarter | Monthly build cycle |
| Prompt and evaluation tuning | Not included | Yes | Yes |
| Named contact | Not included | Yes | Named ops lead |
| Response SLA | Two working days | One working day | Four hours |
You will also pay the underlying providers directly. Nobody marks these up and nobody hides them.
For a typical small business running one or two agents, that is £40 to £200 a month. We will estimate yours in the audit, and we would rather you saw the number now than in month three.
Losing a £6,500 build is better than selling you one that cannot pay for itself. Some audits will end this way, and it is better said here than discovered together in month four.
To be clear about what that means: the audit fee is not refunded. You keep the report and the ranked list, and we do not pitch you a build we cannot stand behind.
a week. What UK SMEs using AI say they save: more than half a day.
OpenAI research by Opinium, 1,000 UK SME decision-makers, February to March 2026, published by Enterprise Nation, 25 March 2026.
of UK AI adopters report improved productivity. Only 12% report higher revenue.
DSIT AI Adoption Research, 3,500 UK businesses, published January 2026.
of agentic AI projects are forecast to be cancelled by the end of 2027.
Gartner, June 2025.
So we price against hours and cost, never against revenue, and we publish the cancellation forecast on our own pricing page, because cost, value and risk need to be discussed before a build starts. Every figure on this site has a named source and a date. If we cannot source it, we do not print it.
A first agent is a fixed £6,500, live in production in three to four weeks, after a £1,500 two-week audit that is credited in full against any build you start within sixty days. Running it costs from £450 a month, plus £40 to £200 a month paid directly to the automation and model providers. We are not VAT registered, so no VAT is added.
The audit is paid work. It maps the agreed processes, tests feasibility and gives you a written price for a first build. It takes two and a half senior days, produces the number the whole engagement turns on, and is credited in full against any build you start within sixty days.
If we cannot find £15,000 of recoverable annual value, we tell you, you keep the report, and we will not pitch you. The audit fee is not refunded; the report and the ranked list are what it buys.
No. You are paying for a defined outcome, not an open-ended number of days. If the scope changes, we agree a revised price before carrying out any additional work, never afterwards.
You pay them directly and nobody marks it up: an automation platform at £20 to £80 a month, model usage at £5 to £150 a month depending on volume, and telephony or messaging at cost, only if your agent uses them. For a typical small business running one or two agents that is £40 to £200 a month.
Agent Care is £450 a month, Agent Partner £1,450 and Agent Ops £3,500. All three include monitoring, alerting, break-fix and a monthly performance report. The difference is the hours of changes included, prompt and evaluation tuning, a named contact, and the response time, which runs from two working days to four hours.
You do. You own the agent, the prompts, the configuration and the code, on every build.
You do not need to know what an agent is, how it works, or which one you need. Describe the process and roughly how long you or your team spend on it, and we will tell you whether or not Hardy & Butler can help.
£1,500, credited in full against your first agent.