What to Ask an AI Agency Before You Sign
Twelve questions, what a good answer sounds like, and our own answers next to them so there is something to compare against.
Ask these in writing
Not because anyone is trying to deceive you, but because vague answers are much easier to give out loud. Our own answers are in the last column so there is something to compare against — including where ours is a caveat rather than a boast.
| Ask | A good answer sounds like | Ours |
|---|---|---|
| What is the minimum term? | A number, in months, with a notice period | One month. Cancel anytime. |
| What does it cost, all in? | One figure covering build and run | $2,500/month, model and infrastructure costs included |
| Who pays for model usage? | Either answer is fine, but it must be explicit | We do. That variance is ours, not yours. |
| Who owns the code and prompts? | You, or a clear licence you have read | You do |
| Whose accounts hold the credentials? | Yours wherever technically possible | Yours wherever possible |
| What do we get if we leave? | A named list, in a named format | Everything, documented |
| What happens if it does not work? | A number and a date, not a paragraph | The payroll-savings guarantee below |
| Who owns it after launch? | A named role that maintains and monitors | We do, for as long as you are a client |
| What access will it have? | Scoped and read-only wherever possible | Scoped list, write access only where named |
| What will you say no to? | Actual examples of work they turned down | Volumes too low to pay back; undocumented processes |
| How long until something runs? | Weeks, with what could delay it | Weeks, gated on the audit |
| Can I speak to a client who left? | Yes, or an honest reason why not | Ask on the call |
The three answers that should end the conversation
- “It depends on usage” as the whole answer on cost. A usage-based bill is legitimate. Refusing to model a bad month is not.
- Vagueness about ownership. If nobody can say in one sentence what you keep when you leave, you already know the answer.
- No examples of work they turned down. Every operator who has been doing this a while has said no to something. An agency that has never declined a project is describing a sales process, not a delivery one.
One to ask us specifically
“What would make us a bad fit?” Our honest answer: not enough repetitive volume to clear the fee, or processes nobody has written down and nobody intends to. Both are common, both are findable in the audit, and in both cases the right outcome is that we tell you rather than build anyway.
$2,500/month. Month-to-month. Cancel anytime. Our customers see the equivalent of at least $100,000 in payroll savings within six months. We guarantee it — or we refund every dollar, no questions asked.
Where these numbers come from. No external statistics are used on this page. The comparison column is our own commercial terms, quoted from our contract and pricing page, and it goes stale the moment those change — which is a reason to ask rather than to assume.