Let me show you what’s happening in the consulting market right now.
If you’re a senior consultant, fractional, or advisor with five to fifteen years in your domain, this is the most useful math you’ll see this week.
A new model is emerging. Some call it AI Micro Consulting (Digital Applied). Others call it productized AI consulting (ManyRequests, Consulting Success), or solo-tier AI consulting (Bushe). The name is still settling. The economics are not.
Start from the buyer’s side
Imagine you’re leading finance at a mid-sized company. You need a defensible recommendation by the end of the month.
The old way: you hire a large consulting firm. They assign a team. It takes four to six weeks and costs around $40,000.
The new way: one experienced operator, using AI tools, spends a focused day or two and ships a clear answer in 48 hours. For roughly $3,000.
Same defensible artifact. A tenth the cycle time. A fraction of the cost.
Traditional consulting AI Micro Consulting 4 to 6 week typical engagement 24 to 48 hour turnaround Multiple meetings and status updates One intake call, one delivery $10,000 to $50,000+ per project $1,500 to $3,000 per deliverable Requires a team and infrastructure Solo practitioner with AI tools Bills hours, not outcomes Ships artifacts, not status updates
If you’re the buyer, why pay $40,000 and wait six weeks when you can get a defensible answer in 48 hours for a fraction of the cost? You don’t, anymore. That’s the shift.
So why is this happening now?
Two shifts, working together.
AI compresses the work. Research, structuring, and first drafts that used to consume a junior team for two weeks now take a senior operator a focused day and a half. Same output. Fraction of the cycle time.
Companies are flattening layers. Meta started this with the year of efficiency in 2023, and the direction has held across multiple sectors since (Deltek 2026 Consulting Trends). The roles cut in those flattenings are the coordination layer. The work that remains is judgment.
AI handles the coordination. You handle the judgment. That’s the trade.
What does a project actually pay?
Public marketing materials and industry reports place productized AI consulting projects in 2025 and 2026 commonly between $1,500 and $3,000 for the entry tier. Here’s the breakdown by domain: