Straight answers before you book
Most people ask me the same things first: what it costs, what happens to their data, and why their own IT team can’t simply do it. Here are my answers, in plain English.
What it costs, and how I charge
How much does it cost?
I put my prices on the site because you shouldn’t have to book a call to find them out. Every step is a flat fixed fee in US dollars.
- AI Data Health Check, 30 minutes on ZoomFree
- 2-Week Data Readiness Audit$3,500 to $5,000
- Phase 2 Remediation, four weeks$8,000 to $45,000+
- MCP / Data Governance Retainer$2,500 to $5,000 per month
You’ll find what each step includes on Services and pricing.
Do you charge by the hour?
No. I don’t work on hourly rates. Each step has a flat fixed fee, so you know what you’re paying for before the work starts, and the bill doesn’t grow while the clock runs.
How do I know which remediation tier fits us?
Remediation is priced by the size of your company:
- Small Business, 20 to 50 people$8,000 to $12,000
- Mid-Market, 50 to 250 people$15,000 to $25,000
- Upper Mid-Market, 250 to 500 people$30,000 to $45,000+
The audit shows what needs doing first. The tier then follows the size of your company.
Why is there a monthly retainer after the remediation?
Because data decays. New records arrive, new documents land in Google Drive and Notion, and your database schema changes as the business grows. Clean data doesn’t stay clean on its own.
The retainer, at $2,500 to $5,000 per month, covers monthly data quality audits, tagging and indexing new documents, and updating your MCP tools (the connectors your AI uses to read your systems) as your schema evolves. It’s there if you want it, once the clean-up is done.
What happens to your data
Do you really need our data?
Yes. I can’t make data ready for AI without seeing it, and the project only succeeds if we’re open with each other about what’s there. Transparency is part of the work.
Do we have to give you access to our systems?
No. You don’t have to give me direct access to your systems or your chats. What you do need to do is supply the data from every system involved, whether that’s Salesforce, Stripe, Zendesk, Google Drive, Notion, Slack or a SQL database.
Will you sign an NDA?
Yes, upfront. Signing a non-disclosure agreement is the first thing I do, before the work begins.
How do you handle sensitive information?
Carefully, and from long practice. I spent 26 years in banking, working with extremely sensitive personal and company information, and I’m fully conversant with data privacy and confidentiality.
The regulatory tax reporting functions I built have reported to the tax authorities on time, without a single penalty or fine, for the past 10 years. I bring that same discipline to your data.
Protecting data is also part of the job itself. One remediation workstream covers role-based access control (who can see what), a pipeline that redacts customer personal data and card details, and a sandbox for testing what your AI agents can change before they go live.
“Why can’t our IT department do it?”
Can’t our own IT team do this?
It’s a fair question, and the honest answer is yes, your IT department can do it.
So why have they not done it yet?
That question usually tells you more about your data than any report. If the answer is time, focus or experience with this kind of work, that’s where I come in.
Will you work with our IT team?
Very willingly. I’d simply need one or two dedicated people from your IT team for the length of the project, so the work moves at a steady pace and the knowledge stays in your company afterwards.
Where to start, and what to expect
What happens on the free Health Check?
It’s a 30-minute Zoom call. I ask five discovery questions that show how ready your company really is for AI. For example: “If an agent pulls your customer list today, which database is the absolute truth?”
There’s no fee and no obligation. You leave with a clearer picture of where your data stands.
When can I book a call?
I take calls Monday to Thursday, 14:00 to 19:00 Cape Town, South Africa time. You pick a slot on the Book a call page and the Zoom meeting is created for you automatically.
Our data is a mess. Is that a problem?
Not at all. When I open a company’s data, I usually find duplicated records, entries made in a hurry or incorrectly, and fields left blank. That’s normal, and it’s why I exist.
I start from where your data is today, calmly and without judgement. The point is where it goes next.
Can you promise our AI will stop getting things wrong?
I won’t promise a specific result, and you should be wary of anyone who does. What I can tell you is that AI works from the data you give it. Structured, complete, de-duplicated data gives it far less room to make things up.
Will this make us compliant with GDPR or POPIA?
I don’t certify compliance. I’m an AI Data Readiness Consultant. What clean, contained data with proper access controls does is reduce your risk under regimes such as GDPR, POPIA and CCPA/CPRA.
Where are your clients?
I’m based in Cape Town, South Africa, and work remotely with clients across South Africa and the rest of Africa, Great Britain, Ireland, Wales, the USA and Western Europe.
If you can answer it with confidence, your data may already be in good shape. If you can’t, that’s worth a conversation.
What is the single most embarrassing or dangerous thing your AI could tell a customer?
Ask me on a free 30-minute call
Bring the question this page didn’t answer. We’ll look at where your data stands today, and you’ll know whether the next step makes sense for you.