Your own AI engineer,
without the hiring.
A senior engineer joins your team from $1,200 a month. Within three weeks, something is live and saving you time.
- Week 1
We find the task that wastes the most time
- Week 2
First version built inside your tools
- Week 3
Live for real customers, tested on real data
- Week 4
Time saved, written down. Next task starts
Three plans. No discovery fee, no contract.
Something real, working for your customers.
One click. Full refund inside the first week.
Built in your accounts. The code stays with you.
Most businesses come to us with one of these.
You know what you want built, but hiring someone has taken months.
You tried an AI pilot. It looked great in the demo and never reached a customer.
You’ve been told to “do something with AI” and nobody has said what.
A consultancy quoted $40,000 and delivered a slide deck.
Three steps. No jargon.
One senior engineer, working inside your business every week. Here is what happens.
We find the task worth fixing
Already know what you want? We start building. Not sure? We spend week one looking at how your team works and find where AI saves the most time.
We build it in your tools
Inside the systems you already use. Tested on your real data, with a person in the loop whenever the AI isn’t sure. Live for customers within three weeks.
You see the saving every month
Hours saved, written down against what it was before. Then the next task starts. Keep going as long as it pays; stop whenever you like.
How we decide what to build first
We list every repetitive task in your business and ask two simple questions: how much time does it waste? and how easy is it to automate? That gives four boxes.
You get a ranked list, in plain English.
- Two or three tasks worth doing, with how long each takes to build
- What each one should save you, in hours a month
- What not to build yet, and why
- A 45-minute call to walk through it together
Already have a list from your own team? Send it. We start building in week one instead. How the scoring works →
Then the same engineer builds it.
No handoffs, no account manager. The engineer who looked at your business is the one who writes the code, sits in your group chat and answers your questions.
- You see the actual work, not a summary of it
- A live count of hours used, from day one
- Tested on your real data before customers see it
- You always know what is being built next
Rolled out behind a flag. Escalates to a human whenever confidence drops below the threshold we set with your team.
Ingested and deduplicated the archive. Paired with Victor for an hour on the latency work; it came out of my day, not yours.
120 real questions with known-good answers. If a change makes answers worse, the build fails before anyone sees it.
Your first 30 days, week by week
One engineer, a fixed number of hours every week, learning your business as they go.
Getting to know you
Know what you want? You get a build plan. Not sure? You get the ranked list by Friday.
We pick one thing
A 45-minute call. You choose what comes first; we tell you plainly how long it takes.
It gets built
Inside your tools, tested on real data. Live for customers within three weeks.
Measure, then repeat
Did it save what we said? We write it down, then start the next task.
Four things we do really well
If what you need is outside these, we will say so and point you to the right people.
Answers from your own documents
An assistant that answers questions from your help docs, contracts and past work, and knows when to hand over to a person.
Work that runs itself
Repetitive jobs done automatically: call notes into your CRM, first drafts of quotes, chasing invoices. With safety rails.
Calls answered and made
AI that answers your phone, books appointments and makes calls, with a transcript and a score for every one.
Proof it keeps working
Automatic checks so that if the AI starts giving worse answers, we know before your customers do.
What is included, and what is not
The second list still gets done; we just quote it first so there are no surprise invoices.
Included in every plan
- The opportunity map, and rescoring it each month
- Building and shipping in your agreed systems
- Accuracy testing and monitoring
- Training your team on what we built
- Code review and documentation
- Weekly calls, and daily async in a shared chat
Quoted separately first
- A whole new product or service to run
- Integrations outside the agreed systems
- SOC 2, HIPAA or audit-driven work
- Infrastructure, DevOps and on-call
- Data cleanup beyond what a build needs
- Fixed deadlines inside five working days
Three plans. No call required to hear the price.
Every plan gets a senior AI engineer leading the work, the opportunity map in week one, and the same way of working. The difference is how much of their week is yours, and the more of it you take, the less each hour costs you. No discovery fee, no contract, cancel in one click.
40 hours a month. About two hours every working day. One workflow at a time: the map, then one build, then the next.
- The opportunity map in week one
- A senior AI engineer leading your work
- Daily work log with linked changes
- Shared group chat, one call a week
- Full IP transfer, written in
- Cancel in one click, no notice
A first project, or one clear workflow to fix.
80 hours a month. Half of a senior engineer’s week, so two or three workflows move at once.
Save $300 a month vs Starter rates (12%)- Everything in Starter
- Two to three workflows in parallel
- Two calls a week, and daily async
- Accuracy monitoring kept running month to month
- Priority on fixed deadlines
- Pause for a month at any time
A stalled pilot with a deadline, or more than one thing live this quarter.
160 hours a month. A full-time senior AI engineer, embedded in your team.
Save $1,200 a month vs Starter rates (25%)- Everything in Core
- Full-time, your hours where needed
- Sits in your standups and planning
- Owns the AI roadmap with you
- Helps you hire and onboard when you scale
- Quarterly review with Wope leadership
AI is becoming core to what you sell, and hiring has taken months.
Checkout is handled by Stripe; you can change plan, update your card or cancel any time from the billing portal link on your receipt. Need more than Dedicated? We add a second engineer rather than stretching one. The saving shown on Core and Dedicated is against Starter’s hours-for-price. Billed in USD by Snakescript Solutions LLP, the company behind Wope. Charges show on your statement as SNAKESCRIPT SOLUTIONS LLP.
How that compares
The honest comparison is not the rate; it is what lands in production and how soon.
| Option | Who does the work | Time to start | Typical cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full-time senior AI engineer (US) | One person, once you find them | 4–9 months | $125k–$185k base; $340k+ all-in |
| Typical fractional AI retainer | Senior engineer, part time | 2–4 weeks | $4,000–$18,000 / month |
| AI consultancy | Strategy first, delivery team later | Weeks of scoping | $150–$500 / hour; $5k–$50k projects |
| Wope | A senior engineer, start to ship | This week | From $1,200 / month |
Market figures are 2026 published ranges from Tenth Revolution, AY Automate, Devaland, Dorian Media Group and Pareto Talent; see our cost guide for sources.
Not ready to subscribe? Tell us where you are.
We reply within one working day with a 20-minute intro call with a senior engineer. Subscribing directly is just as welcome: every plan carries a full refund inside the first week, so there is nothing to lose by starting.
The things you would ask on the call.
What is a fractional AI engineer?
A senior AI engineer you hire for part of their time each month instead of a full-time salary. At Wope that is 40, 80 or 160 hours a month, working inside your own systems.
How much does Wope cost?
Three plans, billed monthly in USD with no contract: Starter at $1,200 a month for 40 hours of senior AI engineering, Core at $2,100 for 80 hours (12% less per hour than Starter), and Dedicated at $3,600 for a full-time 160 hours (25% less). Bigger plans cost less per hour, never more. Most fractional AI engineer retainers quote $4,000–$18,000 a month; a full-time US AI engineer is $125k–$185k in base salary before recruiting fees.
We know exactly what we need. Can you just build it?
Yes, and most weeks that is what we are doing. Send the spec, the ticket or the stalled repo. Week one is a build plan with real estimates and the first commit. There is no discovery phase you did not ask for.
We do not know what we want. Is that a problem?
It is the normal case, and it is what the opportunity map is for. You do not need a brief or a spec. You need someone to look at how your business actually runs, score every workflow on cost and effort, and tell you what is worth building first and what is not.
What if the answer is that AI will not help us?
Then we say so, in writing, and you cancel with a full refund inside week one. We would rather lose a month than spend a year building something you did not need.
Do we need technical people on our side?
No. Plenty of our work is with teams who have no engineers at all. We do need one person who knows how the work gets done and can answer questions a few times a week.
Who will I be working with?
A senior AI engineer leads your engagement from day one: they run your calls, scope the work, and are accountable for what ships. There is no account manager in the middle and no handoff to a delivery team who were not in the room.
What hours do you work?
We are in India, 10:00 to 18:00 IST. That is most of the working morning for the UK and Europe and early morning for the US East Coast. If your work genuinely needs other hours we shift where we can.
Is our data safe?
We work inside your accounts and your infrastructure wherever possible. Nothing is used to train anything, and the data-handling terms are in the agreement before you sign. SOC 2 or HIPAA-driven work is quoted separately.
What if we need more hours than our plan?
You watch the hour counter all month and we flag it at 80%. Starter moves up to Core or Dedicated at any time, and if Dedicated is not enough we add a second named engineer rather than stretching one. We never run extra hours silently.
Which plan should we start on?
Starter if you have one clear workflow to fix or want to begin with the opportunity map and see. Core if a pilot has a deadline, or you want two or three things live this quarter. Dedicated when AI is becoming core to what you sell and you want a full-time engineer without a six-month search. You can move between them month to month, and higher plans are cheaper per hour.
Who owns the code?
You do. Full IP transfer is written into the agreement, and everything is built in your repositories and your accounts from day one, so there is nothing to migrate if you leave.
How do we cancel?
One click in the Stripe billing portal, effective at the end of the current month. No notice period, no exit call, and the work stays yours. You can switch between plans there too.
We build and run our own products too
Everything we bring to your project, we tried first on something of our own.
What AI actually costs, and what it pays back
Fractional AI Engineer Cost in 2026: What You Actually Pay (and Get)
Most fractional AI engineer retainers land between $4,000 and $18,000 a month. Here is what sits behind those numbers, what a good engagement delivers by month three, and the questions that separate a real engineer from a reseller.
How Much Does an AI Consultant Cost for a Small Business? (2026 Rates)
Hourly rates, fixed assessments, retainers and implementation projects: the real 2026 price ranges for AI consulting, what each one should produce, and the moment when advice stops being enough and you need someone who builds.
Why 95% of AI Pilots Never Reach Production (and the 5 Fixes That Work)
The demo worked. The pilot got applause. Then nothing reached a customer. MIT's 2025 study put the failure rate at 95%. Here are the five patterns behind that number and the fixes that actually get a pilot into production.
Wherever you are starting from, week one moves things forward.
A plan by Friday. Something live within three weeks. Full refund inside week one if we are not the right fit.
One email with real 2026 numbers: what a fractional AI engineer, a consultant, a RAG chatbot and a voice agent actually cost a small business. No sequence, no nagging.