This is the satellite on pricing AI automation work. It assumes you are a senior independent consultant with 3+ years shipping production systems — not a SaaS rep with a sales script.
The trap most freelancers fall into
The trap is pricing by the hour. The market rate for a senior LATAM AI consultant is $150-200/hour. The market rate for a junior is $50-80. The market rate for a Big Four firm is $300-600/hour. When you price by the hour, you compete with the firm on the same axis (price) when you should be competing on the same axis (outcome).
The fix is to price by the value you ship. The number that closes the deal is the one the client can defend in their own head.
The three ranges that work
Use the tiers from the pricing transparency section of the site — they are calibrated to 2025-2026 LATAM market rates.
| Tier | Range | Time | What ships |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Kickstart | $4,500 — $7,500 | 1-2 weeks | 1 workflow, 1 integration |
| Automation Build | $12,000 — $25,000 | 3-6 weeks | 3-6 workflows, custom integrations |
| AI Platform | $40,000 — $80,000 | 2-4 months | multi-agent, SSO, observability |
The first one closes 80% of the deals. Most LATAM SMBs want one workflow that works, not a platform. The 20% who want the platform are the bigger contracts, but you earn them by shipping one good workflow first.
The one mistake that loses you $5k per deal
The mistake is skipping the audit. Most freelancers quote from a brief and miss the 4-5 day audit. The audit is the cheapest part of the engagement ($7-12k if you charge separately, often zero if you roll it in), and it does three things:
- It validates the scope. You discover the "oh actually, our CRM has a webhook for that" or the "we have an internal tool that already does this". 30% of the time, the scope is half what the client thought.
- It builds the client's trust in your process. They see the first value before they sign a bigger check.
- It is the first line item on the eventual proposal. The audit doc becomes the proposal's "what we found" section.
If you skip the audit, the eventual scope is wrong. The eventual price is wrong. The eventual scope-creep is worse. The deal falls apart at the second invoice. Repeat this five times and you have lost $25-50k of annual revenue to a single bad habit.
The script
Use this for the scoping call. The output is a line-item proposal with a single fixed price.
"Tell me about a workflow you do at least 20 times a week. What does it look like? Where does the data start? Where does it end? What happens if it goes wrong?"
Then listen for 15 minutes. The client will not know how to answer. That is fine. The question is not to extract a spec. The question is to see how they think about the problem.
At minute 16, say: "We do this in two steps. First, a 1-week audit — I map your stack, the workflows, the quick wins. Fixed price: $5,000. Then, the build. Once the audit lands, you have a fixed-price proposal for whichever workflows you pick. No hourly billing. The audit cost is the audit cost — you don't have to commit to the build."
Eight out of ten LATAM founders I work with say yes to the audit. Eight out of ten of those audits lead to a build.
What to do this week
If you are a senior independent consultant, this week:
- Pick the next prospect on your list. The one who has been saying "we should do something with AI" for 3+ months.
- Send them a one-paragraph email: "I do AI automation audits for LATAM SMBs. Fixed price, one week, $5,000. Reply if interested."
- If they reply, do the scoping call using the script above.
- If they don't reply, send one follow-up in 5 days. If they don't reply to that, move on to the next prospect.
The email is the entire pipeline. The rest is execution.
