What a real one covers, what it should cost, and the red flags that mean you are buying a slide deck. Written by a firm that has shipped production software for ten years and runs these engagements every month.
An AI audit for a small business is a short, fixed-scope review that shows where AI would pay for itself in your specific operation before you spend anything on building it. A qualified reviewer sits with the people doing the work, maps the workflows that eat the most hours, checks whether your data and systems can support automation, and ranks each candidate by expected return and total cost of ownership. The deliverable is a written plan: which workflow to automate first, what it will cost to build and run, what your team is missing, and an honest recommendation when the answer is that AI is not worth it yet. At Density Labs this engagement is called the Small Business AI Readiness Assessment: $1,250 fixed, two weeks, for companies with 10 to 50 employees.
If a provider skips any of these, you are getting a sales call with extra steps. A real audit looks at the work itself, not just your tooling.
Free self-assessment checklists tell you what you already know. Consultancy-run assessments commonly run from a few thousand dollars into five figures, priced for companies much larger than yours. Neither fits a 25 person business, which is exactly the company where the right first AI project changes the economics fastest.
That gap is why we hold a limited number of slots each quarter at a fixed $1,250 for businesses with 10 to 50 employees (our standard fee for this engagement is $7,500). Same depth, same written deliverable, two weeks. Eligibility is verified before any invoice is sent.
95% of AI pilots never reach production (MIT NANDA, 2025). Most of the failures were sold by someone. These four tells separate an audit from a pitch.
Maybe not. If you have fewer than 10 people, no repeatable back-office workflows, and no data to speak of, spend the money on your product instead. An audit earns its fee when hours are going into repeatable work: quoting, scheduling, document handling, support replies, reporting. If reading that list made you think of a specific person's week, that is the signal.
How long does an AI audit take?
Two weeks, fixed. Interviews and workflow observation in week one, analysis and the written plan in week two.
Do we need technical staff to act on it?
No. The plan states what your team can run as-is and where you would need help, with the cost of each path. It is written for the owner, not the vendor.
What if the answer is that AI is not worth it for us?
Then the plan says so and explains why, usually with a cheaper non-AI fix for the workflow that prompted the question. That answer has been the deliverable more than once.
The Small Business AI Readiness Assessment: two weeks, a written plan, an honest answer. For companies with 10 to 50 employees, verified before invoicing. Limited slots each quarter.
Apply for a slotRead a redacted sample deliverable first ยท Larger company? The standard AI Readiness Assessment