How much a custom AI setup costs can only be half answered in advance. The first item is the subscription, and you can look that up on a price list in a minute. The second is the hours of work on your computer and your tasks. You can’t add them up in advance, but they move with a few predictable things.
I see how big the difference can be with the people I set Claude up for. For one business owner who sells online, an installation with more than ten skills (the instructions Claude works by) was done in a single evening. For the owner of an online community, on the other hand, I keep adding to her skill library, and her Claude pulls the new versions on its own. The same number wouldn’t fit both of them.
A Claude setup has two items, and the price list shows only one
For a Claude setup, you pay for two different things: the Anthropic subscription and the hours of the person who sets it up with you.
According to Anthropic’s pricing as of October 11, 2026, the Pro plan costs $20 a month, or $17 billed annually, and Max costs $100 or $200 a month, all US prices excluding tax. Claude Code and Cowork (the versions of Claude that do the work directly) aren’t on the free plan, so count on at least Pro. I break down the plans in my article on what Claude costs.
If you have Max or Team, you get monthly API credit, meaning credit for developer access billed by usage. You can’t use it for regular work in Claude Code, though. On Pro, Max, and Team, once you hit the limit, you can turn on paid extra usage (usage credits) at API prices, which is billed separately.
You’ll find the hourly rate right on my website. But you decide much of the number of hours yourself, before we even start.
The subscription alone gets you a model and an empty window. The instructions, materials, connections, and safeguards, meaning the harness around the model, you either build yourself or pay for in hours. Building a system for a whole business has a different budget, and I cover the cost of AI implementation separately.
Configured environment
Claude on your computer and in your account. It knows who you are, knows your recurring processes, and can see into the tools you work in. The hours pay for Claude learning your work, not for a lecture on what it can do in general.
What learning AI costs in the Czech Republic through other routes
Learning to work with AI in the Czech Republic can cost anywhere from nothing to tens of thousands of crowns, depending on the format. The ranges below come from a survey of Czech trainers’ websites on October 10, 2026, deliberately without names.
| Format | Price on the website | What you pay for |
|---|---|---|
| Video course | CZK 0 to about 4,800 (about €200) incl. VAT | once, for the videos |
| Open workshop | CZK 2,500–12,000 (about €100–490) | per participant |
| Community | CZK 0–3,750 (up to about €150) | monthly, for membership |
| Corporate day | CZK 24,900–40,000 (about €1,020–1,640) | per day for a group of up to 15 people |
| Personal mentoring | the survey found no public price | for a series of personal sessions |
The prices are as they appeared on the websites: some include VAT, some don’t, and some don’t mention VAT at all. Converted, a corporate day works out to about CZK 3,100–5,000 (about €130–210) an hour, but for the whole group. These formats sell learning, while a custom setup sells hours of work in your own environment.
What pushes the hours up
Tasks and tools add the most hours. Each task has to be written up, tested on real work, and fine-tuned. Each tool needs a connection and rules.
- Number of tasks. Each recurring job is one skill. If you work both on claude.ai and in Claude Code, you need the skills in both places: according to Anthropic’s documentation as of October 11, 2026, they don’t sync between the two.
- Number of tools. Email, calendar, and CRM are connected through a connector or MCP (a way to connect Claude to another app). For each one, we agree on what Claude can do on its own.
- State of your computer. The tools on your computer have to work first, Python for example (the language part of the connections runs on). If it’s outdated or misconfigured, the connections fail. That’s why checking the environment at the start saves you from hunting for bugs later.
- Slow decisions. A session stalls when you’re waiting for a colleague with a password or for a decision on whether Claude can write to customers on its own.
Skill
A folder with the written-down process for one recurring job: the steps, the tone, and what to check. Claude loads it on its own when it fits, based on a short description. Anthropic recommends that each skill do one job, which is why the number of tasks moves the number of hours so much.
What brings the hours down
What reliably cuts hours is whatever you bring ready-made: examples of finished work, access at hand, and clarity on what Claude must not do.
Three replies to clients that turned out well say more about tone than a long description. Have access to your tools at hand, but enter passwords yourself, never into a message or an AI chat.
If you’re switching from ChatGPT, bring your memory over to Claude ahead of time with the official import: Settings › Memory › Start import, on the web or in the desktop app. Anthropic still lists it as an experimental feature, so check what Claude picked up after the import. I describe how to transfer your memory separately.
And decide in advance what Claude can send out on its own.
An estimate on one sheet of paper
Divide a sheet of paper into three columns. In the first, write the tasks for Claude; in the second, the tools with their materials; in the third, the people who make decisions about them. The more rows and the more names in the third column, the more hours. A sheet like that hints at the price before anyone opens a computer.
Why I bill the setup by the hour instead of as a package
With me, the setup costs €200 an hour, usually starting at five hours. The total depends on how it goes and how much you want. I don’t charge VAT, so nothing is added to the price.
A fixed-price package would assume I know in advance how much you’ll want and how it will go on your computer. I know neither. After the first tasks, one person wants Claude handling inquiries too, while another has the essentials done after a few sessions. For the same reason, I don’t give a cap on hours.
You pay for the subscription directly to Anthropic and the account is yours, so the setup stays with you even if we stop working together. I work alone, and sessions run online via screen sharing, one on one.
When a course or an evening on your own is enough
A custom setup isn’t worth it if you don’t know yet what work you’d give Claude. You can figure that out on your own with the free version and a few evenings of trying. It isn’t worth it either for a business that needs to train a whole team, because a corporate day costs less per head. And if you need to know the final amount before we start, an hourly rate won’t suit you.
The whole price in a nutshell
- A Claude setup has two items: the Anthropic subscription and hours of work.
- The subscription starts with the Pro plan at $20 a month (as of October 11, 2026).
- As of October 10, 2026, learning AI in the Czech Republic cost anywhere from zero to CZK 40,000 (about €1,640) for a corporate day.
- Tasks, tools, a neglected computer, and slow decisions push the hours up.
- Examples of finished work, access at hand, and clarity on what Claude can do bring them down.
- With me, €200 an hour, usually starting at five hours. The total depends on how it goes and how much you want.
One evening and a skill library that keeps growing are two ends of the same scale. Where you land on it is largely decided at your own desk. If you want to have Claude set up with me, see how a 1:1 setup works. Write me what you do by hand today. But fill in that three-column sheet before you do.
