Ease AIYou are about to spend between $3,500 and $35,000 on something you cannot see until it is built. That warrants caution.
Most buyer's guides list softball questions. This one includes the uncomfortable ones: what happens if you are unavailable, what happens if the project fails, and whether you should spend the money at all.
I run Ease AI alone from Burlington. These questions matter to me as much as they do to you.
1. Do you publish your pricing?
Five of the ten AI agencies I reviewed in Ontario publish no pricing at all. That is not a good sign.
Ease AI's rates are on the pricing page. A single chatbot or workflow costs $3,500 to $8,000 and takes two to three weeks. Multi-workflow builds run $8,000 to $20,000 over four to six weeks. Multi-department programmes cost $20,000 to $35,000 and take eight to twelve weeks.
For comparison, ChatGPT.ca charges $3,500 to $25,000, Kaxo charges $5,000 to $25,000, and Builts AI charges $8,000 to $30,000 for the build plus $500 to $2,500 per month ongoing.
If an agency will not tell you the range before the first call, assume the high end is higher than you want to pay.
2. Are you one person or a team?
Single-person agencies move faster and cost less. They also create single-person risk.
I am one person. If I am unavailable, your project waits. If I am hit by a bus, your project stops. That is the trade-off for working with someone who answers their own emails and writes their own code.
Ask any agency: who will actually build this? If the answer is vague, you are buying a project manager who will outsource the work.
3. What happens if it does not work?
Not every project succeeds. Sometimes the data is messier than expected. Sometimes the workflow does not fit the tools. Sometimes the business changes direction halfway through.
Ask what the agency does in that case. Do they refund the deposit? Do they deliver what they have built so far? Do they bill hourly after the fixed quote runs out?
I work in fixed-price phases. If a phase fails, you keep what has been built to that point and you do not pay for the next phase. That is fair.
4. Do you offer monthly support, and is it optional?
Some agencies require a monthly retainer. Builts AI charges $500 to $2,500 per month. Ease AI offers $500 to $2,000 per month, but it is optional and month-to-month.
Ask whether support is bundled or separate. Ask what happens if you cancel. Ask how fast they respond when something breaks.
If the agency built it well, you should not need much support. If they insist on a mandatory retainer, they may be pricing the build low and recovering margin on the backend.
5. Can I afford this without a grant?
Ontario businesses can access up to $15,000 through the Digital Modernization and Adoption Plan (DMAP) at 50% match, meaning you pay half and the province pays half. The programme explicitly funds hiring an external consultant to produce a digital adoption plan. Ontario added $5 million to DMAP on 20 May 2026.
The Retail Modernization Project Grant (RMPG) offers up to $5,000 at 50% match for direct-to-consumer retailers with a physical storefront, one to fifty employees, at least one year operating and $100,000 or more in revenue. You cannot combine RMPG with DMAP.
The Technology Demonstration Program (TDP) offers up to $50,000 at 50% match, but requires a completed DMAP and $750,000 or more in revenue. The Ontario Centre of Innovation's page shows a deadline of 10 August 2026 while still listing the stream as open. Confirm directly with OCI before applying.
I have written a longer guide to Ontario AI grants.
But here is the important part: if you cannot afford the project without a grant, you probably should not do it. Grants take time to process. Applications can be rejected. Budgets run out. CDAP, the federal predecessor to DMAP, closed fully subscribed on 19 February 2024 after running out of money.
Treat a grant as a discount on a project you were going to do anyway, not as the reason to start.
6. What platforms and tools do you use?
Some agencies build everything custom. Some agencies install no-code tools. Both are fine, but you need to know which you are buying.
Ask what platforms they use. Ask whether you will own the code. Ask whether the tools require ongoing subscriptions and what those cost.
Ease AI builds custom AI applications when needed, including products like ASIScan, a static analysis security scanner for AI agent codebases, and Acado, an AI study companion for college and university students. Both are live and shipped. But most small business projects use a combination of Make, Zapier, Voiceflow, OpenAI and Anthropic. That keeps costs down and makes the system maintainable.
7. How long will this take?
Two to three weeks for a single build. Four to six weeks for multiple workflows. Eight to twelve weeks for a multi-department programme.
Anyone promising faster than that is either very small in scope or very optimistic. Anyone quoting longer than that may be juggling too many clients.
Ask for a timeline with milestones. Ask what happens if the timeline slips.
8. Have you shipped a product yourself?
Most agencies build for clients. Few have built and shipped a product of their own.
That matters. Building a product that has to work in production, for real users, with real money on the line, teaches you things that client work does not.
I have shipped two: ASIScan and Acado. Both are live. Both are checkable. That does not make Ease AI better than an agency that has not, but it does mean I have debugged my own code at two in the morning when users in a different timezone report a bug.
9. What is your service area?
Ease AI serves Burlington, Oakville, Milton, Hamilton, Grimsby, St. Catharines and the wider Niagara Region, London, Mississauga and Toronto in person, plus anywhere in Canada and the United States remotely.
The Ontario grants above are for Ontario businesses only. If you are outside Ontario, you cannot claim DMAP, RMPG or TDP.
Ask whether the agency works in person or remotely. Ask whether they understand your industry. Ask whether they have worked with businesses your size.
10. Should I wait?
Sometimes the answer is yes.
If your processes are not documented, document them first. If your team is not trained on the tools you already have, train them first. If you are not sure what problem you are solving, figure that out first.
AI automation works best when it accelerates something that already works manually. If the manual process is broken, automating it makes the problem faster, not better.
The ROI calculator on this site will tell you whether a project is likely to pay for itself. If the numbers do not work, do not do it.
Next step
If you are ready to proceed, the scorecard will help you assess whether your business is a good fit for AI automation. If you have a specific project in mind, email info@easeaiworks.com and I will respond within one business day.