# What does an AI department really cost?

Momo Maximilian Feichtinger · Companies and AI · planted 2026-08-14, last grown 2026-09-03 · 5 min · https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/ki-department-kosten

**The honest comparison is not the price of a tool. It is the role you would otherwise create. And that role costs more than the contract says. An ki-department costs 4,800 euros net per month, everything included, cancellable at any time.**

Whoever needs newsletters, blog posts, social media and presentations every week eventually hires someone. On paper 3,800 euros gross. For the company add employer contributions, holidays, sick leave, onboarding and the laptop. Counted honestly, that is well over 5,000 euros a month for one person with 38 hours who may leave after a year.

A department costs 4,800 euros net per month. The price is guaranteed for the first twelve months. It can be cancelled at any time, and whoever leaves gets everything that was built handed over.

![Lever: one role on the short side, the department tasks on the long side](https://zukunftbilden.eu/assets/denken/hebel-department-stelle.webp)

*The mental model: the role sits on the short side of the lever. The tasks stack up on the long side, with the guardian of the brand on top.*

## What the monthly price covers

### One price, six parts

- Leading the department, plus a weekly standing meeting with you.
- Every strategy meeting and every workshop, with no day rate on top.
- A machine in your office or cloud compute, plus servers, hosting, tool licences and API costs.
- As many agents as make professional sense, with no surcharge per agent.
- Building and maintaining the knowledge about your brand.
- The approval platform where every draft waits, including the learning loop from your feedback.

Two rules keep that price honest. Normal operation is fully included, and only unusual production volumes, a large batch of videos for example, get planned together in advance and are then passed on at cost, with no markup. Every additional brand costs 1,500 euros net a month, because it gets its own knowledge library and its own approval owners. In the running mandate there are three brands.

## Why the comparison still limps

One person can do one thing at a time. A department with eleven agents can do eleven. But a person can take responsibility, and no agent can. That is exactly why approval stays with you: nothing leaves the building before a human clicks approve.

I asked more than 200 people whether they wanted the full-time role at MyGym. Nobody did. People who truly understand AI leverage do not take a job for 3,000 to 5,000 euros a month. That is no reproach, that is the market. The long version is in the note on [why nobody applied for that role](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/wer-versteht-laesst-sich-nicht-anstellen).

So the comparison sits at the beginning of every mandate, out in the open. A mandate only starts when the department is plausibly the better deal in exactly that comparison. If your own role is the smarter answer, I say so in the first conversation.

*An interactive tool sits here on the page: https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/ki-department-kosten*

![Drawing of two sheets on a desk, on the left densely ruled lines with many side items, on the right a single blue line above a row of small symbols.](https://zukunftbilden.eu/assets/denken/ki-department-kosten-2.webp)

*The honest comparison is the extra position with all its side costs.*

## The first month

The first money goes into building, and the building follows a week plan.

### The setup month

1. Week one: we collect your knowledge. What you say, how you sound, what you would never claim.
2. Week two: rules and connections. The guardian of the brand is built first, then the systems you already work in.
3. Week three: the first drafts wait for your approval.
4. Week four: your feedback turns into rules, and from there the checks run on their own.

From your side this needs one contact person with about four hours a week. That person approves, answers questions, and brings us the knowledge that exists only inside your company. That person writes no texts.

When you commission a department, I set up a personal AI workplace for the management once: a preparation call, email drafts in your own voice, the company knowledge as a second brain, phone and assistant connected. That is openly my own interest. A managing director who uses AI every day works with us at eye level.

## What came out of three months

Three months in, the department ran across three brands. The presentation agent built a real trade fair keynote, 36 slides, 389 shapes, 75 images, for FIBO 2026. How deeply something gets checked depends on the format: a newsletter runs through up to 21 automatic checks, a blog post through 48 content checks and 26 platform checks. All of it sits inside the same monthly price. You can read all of it in the approved case study on the mandate.

### From the running mandate

- Eleven agents built, three brands connected
- A dedicated approval platform in production
- Up to 21 automatic checks per draft before a human sees it
- 48 content checks and 26 platform checks per blog post
- The first blog post was produced fully automatically, with all checks
- 520 club app items, 3,542 Canva designs, Odoo and Teams connected

Source: DSB-ONE / MyGym, Salzburg. Agreement of 22 May 2026, case study, status 13 August 2026.

The way in is always the same. A strategie-workshop costs 1,800 euros net, takes one day and puts every recurring process on the table. If you commission a department afterwards, it is credited in full. It then counts as the first working day. What a department does is on [the AI implementation page](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/ki-umsetzung), how to begin is under [the entry points](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/ki-umsetzung#einstiege).

Download: [Department worksheet](https://zukunftbilden.eu/assets/denken/downloads/department-rechenblatt-en-2026-09-03.pdf) · PDF · A4, 1 pages, 41 KB

### Sources and links

- [AI implementation: services, case study, prices](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/ki-umsetzung) · The offer page, with the approved case study on the first department.
- [The strategy workshop as the way in](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/ki-umsetzung#einstiege) · 1,800 euros net, credited in full on commissioning.
- [Note: the first agent is always the guardian of the brand](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/waechter-der-marke)
- [Note: whoever understands AI leverage does not take a job](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/wer-versteht-laesst-sich-nicht-anstellen)
- [Note: what an open job ad reveals](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/die-offene-stelle)
- [Leverage as a mental model](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/hebel)

## Margin notes

- **Randnotiz** I quote two numbers for the same role. 5,315 euros come from the calculation below, around 6,000 euros is what I say in conversation once all the extra costs are counted honestly. One number is the derivation, the other is the one you remember.
- **Verknüpft**  [The first agent is always the guardian of the brand.](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/waechter-der-marke), [Why nobody applied for the full-time role](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/wer-versteht-laesst-sich-nicht-anstellen), [What an open job ad reveals about the real need](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/denken/die-offene-stelle), [AI implementation for companies](https://zukunftbilden.eu/en/ki-umsetzung)
- **Beleg** Offer and agreement DSB-ONE / MyGym, signed on 22 May 2026. Case study, status 13 August 2026. Package scope, price guarantee and the compute cost rule from the offer template of 14 August 2026.
- **Rechenweg** 3,800 times 1.30 is 4,940. Plus 4,500 divided by 12, which is 375. Together 5,315 euros a month. Enter your own numbers in the calculator.

## How this note grew

- 2026-09-03: Grown: the six parts of the monthly price, the compute cost rule, the week plan of the setup month, the four hours of the contact person, more evidence from the case study, a source list.
- 2026-09-02: Calculator added, price set to 4,800 all-in, margin note on the workshop credit.
- 2026-08-22: Paragraph on the full-time role sharpened after a partner conversation.
- 2026-08-14: Planted from the case study.

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