You know exactly what you are building, what it will cost, and when it ships. We run a 2-week discovery sprint to lock scope before committing to a price. No surprises, no runaway budgets.
Fixed-price is not a magic formula. It is a commitment that only works when the scope is genuinely understood before work begins. Most fixed-price AI projects fail because they skip this step: a vague spec gets priced, ambiguity becomes scope creep, and the budget blows out.
Our model is different. Every fixed-price engagement starts with a 2-week paid discovery sprint. By the end of week 2, we have a technical architecture document, a data flow diagram, a risk log, and a detailed scope. Only then do we issue a fixed-price proposal.
The result: you get budget certainty backed by genuine scoping, not an optimistic estimate. We get a clear spec that lets us deliver efficiently. Everyone wins.
A real example
A logistics company wanted an AI chatbot to handle carrier queries. Initial estimate from another agency: "probably 3-4 months." After our 2-week discovery sprint, the spec revealed 3 critical integrations and 2 edge-case document types that added complexity. We priced those in upfront. Final delivery: 9 weeks, on budget, no surprises.
Four phases from first conversation to production handover. Every milestone has defined deliverables and a payment gate.
Discovery Sprint
2 weeks
We map your data, define the architecture, write the technical spec, and identify risks. You get a full document at the end. Only then do we issue a fixed-price proposal.
Milestone 1: Foundation
2-3 weeks
Core infrastructure: data pipeline, model integration, evaluation harness. Deployed to staging. First demo at the end of this milestone.
Milestone 2: Core Features
2-4 weeks
Primary user-facing features built and tested. Retrieval tuning, response quality benchmarks, integrations with your existing systems.
Milestone 3: Production Ready
1-2 weeks
Performance tuning, security review, monitoring setup, documentation, and knowledge transfer. Delivered to your production environment.
Fixed-price is powerful when requirements are stable. Here is how to know if it is the right model.
Not sure? Our discovery sprint will tell you. If after 2 weeks we believe the scope is too volatile for fixed-price, we will say so and recommend the right model.
The sprint produces a complete technical spec and fixed-price proposal. You keep the spec regardless of whether you proceed with us.
Book a Discovery SprintThree engagement models, three different risk and flexibility profiles. Here is how to choose.
| Dimension | Fixed-Price | Time-and-Materials | Outcome-Based |
|---|---|---|---|
| Budget certainty | Exact — agreed upfront | Variable — tracked monthly | Conditional — tied to results |
| Scope flexibility | Low — change orders for additions | High — can pivot anytime | Low — success metric locked in |
| Best for | Known requirements, MVP builds | Exploratory work, evolving specs | ROI-driven deployments |
| Risk allocation | Shared — spec must be solid | On client (time spent = billed) | Mostly on Kovil AI |
| Payment structure | Milestone-based (30/40/30) | Monthly invoicing | Upfront + performance fee |
| Discovery required | Yes — 2-week sprint first | Optional | Yes — metric definition critical |
A fashion e-commerce company needed to generate SEO-optimised product descriptions for 40,000 SKUs. Scope: ingest their product catalogue (CSV + images), generate descriptions in 3 tone variants per SKU, human-review workflow for flagged outputs, and Shopify push integration.
After a 2-week discovery sprint, we scoped the image-captioning pipeline (which they had not initially requested but turned out to be critical for accuracy), added it to the spec, and issued a revised fixed-price proposal. The project ran 8 weeks and delivered within the revised scope.
A fixed-price AI project is a software engagement where the scope, budget, and delivery timeline are agreed upfront before work begins. You pay a fixed amount and receive a defined set of deliverables by a defined date. This model works best when requirements are clear and stable — typically after a discovery sprint that nails down exactly what will be built.
We run a 2-week paid discovery sprint before every fixed-price engagement. This sprint produces a detailed technical spec, wireframes where relevant, data architecture, and a risk-flagged scope document. Only after the discovery sprint do we issue a fixed-price proposal. This process catches the ambiguities that cause scope creep before any code is written.
Fixed-price works well for: AI chatbot builds with defined channels and integrations, RAG pipelines over a known document corpus, OpenAI or Claude API integrations into existing products, document extraction and classification systems, and MVP builds with well-understood user flows. It works less well for open-ended research, novel model development, or products where the requirements are likely to change during build.
Scope changes are handled via a change order process. Any request outside the agreed spec is scoped, priced, and approved before work begins. Minor adjustments that fall within the original intent of a feature are absorbed. Significant additions or pivots are priced separately. This keeps the project predictable while remaining flexible for genuine priority changes.
Timeline depends on scope. A focused AI chatbot integration takes 4-6 weeks. A RAG pipeline with evaluation infrastructure takes 6-10 weeks. A multi-agent workflow system takes 10-14 weeks. The 2-week discovery sprint happens before these timelines and produces the spec that makes the fixed price possible.
You do. All code, model weights, prompts, evaluation datasets, and documentation are delivered to you at project completion. Kovil AI retains no ongoing rights to what we build for you. You can modify, extend, or hand off to another team without restriction.
Fixed-price gives you budget certainty and accountability for delivery. Time-and-materials gives you flexibility to change direction. For AI projects where the requirements are known and stable, fixed-price is usually the right choice because it aligns incentives: we are motivated to ship efficiently, and you know exactly what you are committing to. For exploratory or research-heavy work, time-and-materials is often more appropriate.
The 2-week discovery sprint delivers: a technical architecture document, data flow diagrams, API specifications, prompt engineering approach, evaluation criteria, risk log with mitigations, a prioritised feature list with effort estimates, and a fixed-price proposal for the full build. This document is yours to keep regardless of whether you proceed with Kovil AI.
Related engagement models and services
Tell us what you want to build. We will run a 2-week discovery sprint, hand you a full technical spec, and give you a fixed-price proposal you can plan around.
Get a Fixed-Price Proposal