What should a custom RAG development quote include?

Start with one user, one decision and representative documents

Describe who will use the system, what they need to find and what a useful answer must contain. Include examples of real questions and documents. Samples should cover ordinary material as well as difficult cases: scanned pages, tables, conflicting versions or information the system must refuse to disclose.

Agree what happens when the source material does not support an answer. “Provide a citation,” “ask a clarifying question” and “escalate to a person” are scope decisions. They give a supplier something more concrete to estimate than a promise to improve accuracy.

Separate the five parts of the build

Ask for a proposal that makes each part visible. A low headline price is difficult to assess when document preparation, access control or integration is left for a later conversation.

• Source preparation: which files or systems, how content is extracted, and how changes and deletions are handled.
• Retrieval and answers: how relevant material is selected, how sources are shown, and what happens when evidence is missing.
• Permissions: who may access which documents, including customer or department boundaries.
• Product integration: the interface, API, authentication and workflow in which the feature will be used.
• Evaluation and handover: representative tests, acceptance criteria, operating instructions and ownership of the implementation.

Give the first paid stage a bounded question

A sensible first stage might establish whether a representative document set can support one important workflow. Another might integrate an already tested retrieval approach into an existing product. The right starting point depends on what is uncertain; a prototype is useful only when it answers a decision you need to make.

Specify the inputs, deliverables and review point. At the end, you should know what was demonstrated, what remains unresolved and what the next stage would require. Avoid treating a narrow demonstration as acceptance of the complete production system.

Keep build cost and operating cost separate

Request a separate operating-cost model based on your expected usage: document volume, refresh frequency, questions per user and required availability. Ask which third-party charges you pay directly and what maintenance is included. The estimate should state its assumptions so you can see what changes when usage grows.

Also clarify who handles source changes, failed imports, access changes and quality reviews after launch. These responsibilities can matter as much as the initial implementation price.

What a first conversation with Indext covers

Bring the business workflow, a few representative questions and an outline of the available data. A free 20–30 minute call helps establish the first useful scope. We then provide a written scope and fixed price for stage one within two business days. First stages start from $5,000; this is not a price for an entire RAG product.

For an agency project, we also discuss the boundary between your team and ours, client communication and handover. That makes the proposal easier to compare against the part of the client project you actually need delivered.