What does an AI employee cost in India?

Assistant costs ₹1,999 a month ($29), with extra hours at ₹60. Specialist costs ₹4,999 ($69), with extra hours at ₹150. Lead costs ₹11,999 ($149), with extra hours at ₹350. Each grade includes 40 working hours a month.

Within the allowance, that works out to about ₹50 an hour for an Assistant, ₹125 for a Specialist and ₹300 for a Lead. Extra hours cost a little more than the included ones. Prices are in rupees with GST invoices, and USD pricing is available.

Hours beyond the allowance are billed at the grade's hourly rate. If an Assistant works 60 hours in a month, the bill is ₹1,999 plus 20 extra hours at ₹60 (₹1,200), a total of ₹3,199. A Specialist working 60 hours costs ₹4,999 plus ₹3,000, or ₹7,999. A Lead working 60 hours costs ₹11,999 plus ₹7,000, or ₹18,999.

You can also add a coffee, which tops up 10 hours at once. It is useful for a known busy period, such as month-end or a sale.

A salaried employee costs more than the salary. Add statutory contributions where they apply, a desk, a laptop and software licences, recruitment time, training, leave cover and the manager's time. Write down your own numbers for a role you know well; that is the only honest comparison.

Then compare hours. A full-time role is paid for every working hour, whether or not there is work. A staffer's salary buys a fixed block of 40 hours, and you pay for more only when the work is there.

Finally, compare work, not headcount. An AI employee is not a like-for-like replacement for a person. It is strong at frequent, well-defined tasks and weak where judgement, relationships or physical presence matter. The fair question is how many hours of your team's week go on work a staffer could do, and what they would do instead.

Say your support team spends much of its day answering order status questions on WhatsApp. You hire one Specialist support staffer to take those questions. In a busy month it works 70 hours: ₹4,999 plus 30 extra hours at ₹150 (₹4,500), a total of ₹9,499.

You add an Assistant to send overdue payment reminders, which fits inside its 40 hours, for ₹1,999. The month costs ₹11,498 for both. Set that against the hours your team gets back, and what they can spend those hours on instead: complaints, refunds that need judgement, and customers who want to talk to a person.

Choose the grade by the work. Assistant fits short, repetitive exchanges: front desk replies, reminders and simple lookups. Specialist fits work that needs more context, such as support with order lookups, sales development or writing. Lead fits roles that coordinate other staff or handle long, complex tasks like research.

If you are unsure, paste the job description into Job Fit. It proposes which staff, or which team, would cover the job, how much of it they cover and a plan for the rest.

Plan for three other costs. Your own setup time: writing the knowledge base, choosing approval rules and reviewing the first weeks. The tools the staffer uses, such as your Google Workspace or HubSpot plan, which those providers bill you for. And the few minutes a day a manager spends on approvals, which is the price of staying in charge.

Channel providers such as WhatsApp may also charge for messages on their side. Check your provider's terms for the number you connect.