AI consultancy pricing in Kuwait is usually hidden behind a discovery call. Ours is not. There are three numbers: KWD 450 for an audit, KWD 1,850 for a first build, KWD 2,500 per month for an ongoing retainer. Below is exactly who each tier is for, what lands in your hands, and what sits outside the number so you can budget for it before you sign anything.
Who each tier is for
The three prices answer three different questions, not three sizes of the same question. Choosing by budget instead of by question is the most reliable way a Kuwaiti company wastes its first AI spend. McKinsey's state-of-AI research keeps finding the same split: most organisations are piloting, far fewer have anything in production. The gap is almost never the model. It is scope chosen badly at the start.
KWD 450 - Audit. For the company that is confident AI can help but cannot yet name the process it should touch. Over two weeks we sit with the people doing the work, map where the hours actually go, and hand back a written shortlist: the three processes that are automatable now, what each would cost to build, what each would save per month, and which ones we recommend you leave alone. The document is yours whether or not you hire us afterwards. If you want the usual ranges before you commit, our breakdown of AI automation pricing in Kuwait covers them. hello@khatibdesigns.com - subject: AUDIT 450
KWD 1,850 - Build. For the company that already knows the process by name: the WhatsApp enquiries nobody answers after 6pm, the quotes typed by hand from a price list, the supplier invoices re-keyed into the accounting system. This buys one automation or one agent, in production, working in Arabic and English, connected to the system you already run on. Fixed price, fixed scope, typically four to six weeks. If the job is bolting intelligence onto software you already own rather than starting fresh, read how to add AI to an existing app first - the integration surface, not the model, sets the timeline.hello@khatibdesigns.com - subject: BUILD 1850
KWD 2,500 per month - Retainer. For the company that already has something live and has discovered the work is continuous: new edge cases every week, a second department asking for the same thing, data and prompts that drift as the business changes. Enterprise-shaped internal systems behave this way - our factory timesheets, wages and budgets build is the clearest example, where the rules kept moving because the business kept moving. hello@khatibdesigns.com - subject: RETAINER 2500
What is included
Each tier is a closed list. If something is not on it, it is not in the price.
- Audit (KWD 450): two to four interviews with your staff, a process map of the area under review, a shortlist of three automation candidates with a cost and a monthly saving against each, a data-readiness note on what you hold and where it lives, and a one-hour walkthrough of the findings with your decision-makers.
- Build (KWD 1,850): one automation or one agent in production. Arabic and English handling. Integration with one external system you already pay for - WhatsApp Business, your CRM, your ERP, your inbox. Testing against your own historical cases, not demo data. Handover documentation, an admin screen where a non-technical person can see what the system did and correct it, and 30 days of fixes after go-live.
- Retainer (KWD 2,500 per month): everything in Build, continuing. Accuracy monitoring with a monthly report you can read, prompt and knowledge-base updates as your pricing and policies change, new edge cases absorbed as they appear, one new small automation or a meaningful extension each month, and a named person who answers inside one business day.
Full scope notes for each tier live on our AI services page.
What is excluded
These are the costs that surprise people, so they are listed rather than buried.
- Model and infrastructure usage. Token and hosting costs are billed to your own cloud account, not ours, and typically run KWD 15-120 per month for a single business workflow. Published provider rates - for example Microsoft's Azure OpenAI documentation - let you model this yourself before you commit.
- Third-party licences. WhatsApp Business API messaging fees, CRM seats, and any paid connector stay on your invoices.
- Data cleanup. If your product catalogue, price list or policy documents contradict each other, someone has to resolve that. We will tell you in the audit if this is your real blocker. It usually is.
- New mobile or web applications. A customer-facing app is a separate build with its own quote. The Build tier automates a process; it does not ship a product.
- Content, media and ad spend. Not included at any tier.
- Staff training beyond handover. Handover covers the people who operate the system. Rolling it out across departments is a separate engagement.
Two things are worth saying plainly. First, if you are between the audit and the build, take the audit - KWD 450 spent on scoping is cheaper than KWD 1,850 spent on the wrong process. Second, the retainer only makes sense once something is live. Paying for continuous improvement of a system that does not exist yet is the most expensive mistake on this page.