Customer service chatbot · Small business (10 to 49 staff) · Retail and e-commerce
Customer service chatbot for a small online retailer
A customer service assistant for a small online retailer that answers common questions from its own help content, hands over to a person when it should, and is tested before customers see it. Delivery, returns and product questions make up most enquiries.
Illustrative cost
£10,000 to £36,000 ex VAT
- Typical
- £19,000
- Duration
- About 10 weeks
- Effort
- 24 to 47 days
Illustrative estimate, not a quote. Real prices vary.
Worked out from UK freelance contractor day rates in job adverts, with no consultancy or agency margin added. Consultancies and agencies usually charge more.
Source: IT Jobs Watch. Rates read on ; costs computed on .
What is included
- Conversation design for the most common enquiries
- A chatbot built on a commercial language model, grounded in approved help content
- Hand-over to a person and a clear message that the customer is talking to a bot
- Testing for accuracy, tone and unsafe answers
- Launch and two weeks of tuning
Deliverables
- A live chatbot on the website or helpdesk
- A test report
- An admin guide for updating content
- A monitoring dashboard
Assumptions
- Help content exists and is broadly current
- An off-the-shelf chat widget or helpdesk integration
- Model and hosting fees are paid by the client and are not in this estimate
Not included
- Order or account actions that change customer data
- Voice and telephony
- Ongoing model usage fees
Project plan
Phases run one after another, about 10 weeks in all.
| Phase | Weeks | Main tasks |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery and design | 2 | Analyse enquiry logs; Design conversations and hand-over; Choose the platform and model |
| Knowledge preparation | 1 | Gather and tidy help content; Agree what the bot must not answer |
| Build | 3 | Retrieval and prompt design; Widget or helpdesk integration; Guardrails and hand-over |
| Test and launch | 2 | Accuracy and safety testing; User acceptance; Go live |
| Tuning | 2 | Review conversations; Fix gaps in content and prompts |
Who does the work
Person-days per role in each phase, low and high effort.
| Phase | Role | Days (low to high) |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery and design | Business analyst | 2 to 4 days |
| Discovery and design | UX designer | 1 to 3 days |
| Discovery and design | AI architect | 1 to 2 days |
| Knowledge preparation | Business analyst | 1 to 3 days |
| Knowledge preparation | Generative AI (LLM) engineer | 1 to 2 days |
| Build | Generative AI (LLM) engineer | 8 to 14 days |
| Build | AI engineer | 3 to 6 days |
| Test and launch | Test engineer | 2 to 4 days |
| Test and launch | Generative AI (LLM) engineer | 2 to 3 days |
| Test and launch | Project manager | 2 to 3 days |
| Tuning | Generative AI (LLM) engineer | 1 to 3 days |
How the cost adds up
| Role | Low (days × 25th percentile) | Typical (days × median) | High (days × 90th percentile) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business analyst | 3 × £425 = £1,275 | 5 × £500 = £2,500 | 7 × £662 = £4,634 |
| UX designer | 1 × £406 = £406 | 2 × £450 = £900 | 3 × £588 = £1,764 |
| AI architect | 1 × £549 = £549 | 1.5 × £650 = £975 | 2 × £850 = £1,700 |
| Generative AI (LLM) engineer | 12 × £417 = £5,004 | 17 × £543 = £9,232 | 22 × £825 = £18,150 |
| AI engineer | 3 × £488 = £1,464 | 4.5 × £589 = £2,651 | 6 × £863 = £5,178 |
| Test engineer | 2 × £350 = £700 | 3 × £438 = £1,314 | 4 × £588 = £2,352 |
| Project manager | 2 × £451 = £902 | 2.5 × £540 = £1,350 | 3 × £714 = £2,142 |
| Total, rounded | £10,000 | £19,000 | £36,000 |
How these estimates are worked out
Effort: for each phase we estimate how many days each role works, as a low and a high case. These are our estimates for a typical project of this kind, not measured data.
Rates: each role's daily rate comes from UK contract job adverts over the last six months, as published by IT Jobs Watch. These are freelance contractor rates as advertised, not what was paid, and not what a consultancy or agency charges.
Low end: the low-effort days at each role's 25th-percentile rate. We use the 25th percentile, not the 10th, because the lowest effort at the cheapest rates gives a floor few buyers would ever meet.
Typical: the mid-point between low and high effort, at each role's median rate.
High end: the high-effort days at each role's 90th-percentile rate.
Totals are rounded to the nearest £500 below £10,000 and the nearest £1,000 above, and exclude VAT. Phases run one after another.
Not included:
- Software licences, model and hosting fees
- Travel and expenses
- Your own staff's time
- A consultancy's or agency's margin, overheads and risk
Real prices vary with the supplier, the state of your data and systems, how much of the work your own team does, where the work happens and how much risk the supplier carries. Consultancies and agencies usually charge more than these contractor rates, and a fixed price usually costs more than time and materials because the supplier takes the risk.
Sources
Source: IT Jobs Watch: UK contract job adverts quoting a daily rate, 6 months to 15 November 2026. Each role's page was read on . Published under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
| Role | IT Jobs Watch page | Rates quoted | 25th percentile | Median | 90th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Business analyst | Business Analyst | 1,394 | £425 | £500 | £662 |
| UX designer | UX Designer | 75 | £406 | £450 | £588 |
| AI architect | Artificial Intelligence Architect | 148 | £549 | £650 | £850 |
| Generative AI (LLM) engineerIT Jobs Watch has no "LLM Engineer" or "Prompt Engineer" title with daily rates; mapped to the closest title, Gen AI Engineer. | Gen AI Engineer | 30 | £417 | £543 | £825 |
| AI engineer | Artificial Intelligence Engineer | 384 | £488 | £589 | £863 |
| Test engineer | Test Engineer | 245 | £350 | £438 | £588 |
| Project manager | Project Manager | 1,226 | £451 | £540 | £714 |