Compare
Seats, a shop, a program, or an install.
Buy seats when people will drive a governed assistant. Hire a chatbot shop when the job is a widget. Hire a national SI when you need board cover. Hire Helixfield when one named loop needs a production agent, a fact graph, and a human who can reject the draft.
Typical 2026 bands below are market observations, not quotes from named firms. Helixfield prices are the published rate card.
Doors
Which buy matches the job
| Buy | When it fits | Typical 2026 cost | What you get | What you still lack |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seats only | People need a governed assistant and will drive it themselves | Vendor list price — often $20–$200 per seat / month | Access. No shared graph, no named loop, no evaluation. | The work still starts from a blank page after week two |
| Chatbot / automation shop | You want a widget on the website or a Zap that fires | Often $5,000–$25,000, or a monthly bot rent | A conversation or a trigger. Sometimes a logo wall. | No owner, no institutional memory, no refusal path |
| National SI / Big Four | You need board cover and a multi-year program | Commonly $150,000–$500,000+ and six to twelve months | A program office, vendor selection, and slides | Speed and a mid-market unit cost |
| Helixfield | You can name the repeating work and appoint an owner | Survey $9,500; install $24,000–$48,000; Circuit $6,800 / mo (3-month min) | One production loop, a fact graph, instruction, optional operate | Invented case studies, a phone number, or a guaranteed DSO cut |
Helixfield is vendor-neutral. The survey may recommend OpenAI Astra, Grok, Claude, Gemini, Cursor, BYO, or what just shipped. Loop & Graph is the method we install now — not a forever lock-in.
Questions
Direct answers
Unsure which buy?
A Field Survey is $9,500 and exists to answer this before you buy a year of seats or a chatbot you cannot govern.