Bureau of Verified Intelligence / Pricing Schedule
Pricing Is Scoped to the Engagement
Podesta doesn't sell seat-count SaaS. Every engagement is scoped by what you run, how you deploy it, and how deeply we verify. Below is what drives the quote — and what every engagement includes regardless.
Monthly compiled workflow runs, parallel task concurrency, and retention of execution traces. Higher throughput and longer traces cost more.
Pages indexed, chunk count, and embedding refresh cadence. Larger, more volatile corpora drive higher ingestion and reindex cost.
Concurrent sessions, message throughput, and tool-call depth per turn. Heavy tool use and long conversations cost more than short exchanges.
Fast / Standard / Full. Fast runs a quick NLI pass; Standard adds source retrieval; Full adds multi-source cross-checking. Most customers mix per workflow.
Shared multi-tenant, dedicated single-tenant, or customer-controlled cloud. Isolation and compliance requirements drive infrastructure cost.
90 days (standard), 1 year (extended), or 7 years (regulated-industry). Longer retention means more verified-evidence storage and replay capacity.
The quote is a blend of these factors — not a sum. A low-volume workflow with Full verification on a dedicated tenant can cost more than a high-volume workflow with Fast verification on shared infrastructure.
Included in Every Engagement
These are not upsells. Every customer — POC through dedicated — gets this floor.
Managed uptime
Infrastructure provisioning, scaling, monitoring, and incident response handled by the bureau — not by your team.
Full audit trails
Every decision, tool call, and token logged and replayable.
Provider-agnostic
OpenAI, Anthropic, Google — swap models without rewriting workflows.
Tenant isolation
Data never crosses boundaries. Per-project caches. Per-conversation rate limits.
Type-safe pipelines
Akribes workflow definitions are compiled, not scripted. Errors surface before execution.
Real-time, not batch
Streaming responses, live verification, instant workflow triggers.
Not tiers. Each shape is a different commitment model; the factors above determine the final price within any shape.
Single workflow, single knowledge base, one deployment environment.
30–60 days
Teams evaluating whether rigor-first AI infrastructure fits their pipeline. Flat-priced by design.
Multi-workflow, production SLA, full audit trails, all four services available.
6–12 weeks to first workflow live
Teams running AI in customer-facing systems. Volume discounts apply.
Isolated tenant or customer-controlled cloud, 7-year audit retention, SOC-2 Type II evidence.
8–16 weeks with compliance review
Finance, healthcare, legal, and regulated government. Includes on-prem option.
Q·01
Is there a free tier?
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Is there a free tier?
No. Podesta is institutional AI infrastructure — every engagement gets scoped planning time, which rules out self-serve free tiers. If you need to evaluate the platform, start with a Proof-of-Concept engagement.
Q·02
Is there a trial or proof-of-concept?
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Is there a trial or proof-of-concept?
Yes. Proof-of-Concept engagements run 30–60 days with one workflow and one knowledge base. They're flat-priced, include full Lumen verification on the scoped workflow, and are designed to answer one concrete question: does rigor-first AI infrastructure fit your pipeline?
Q·03
Do you charge extra per model provider?
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Do you charge extra per model provider?
No. Model-provider token costs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, etc.) are passed through at the rate the provider charges. Podesta's platform fee covers workflow compilation, parallelization, audit, and verification — not the underlying inference.
Q·04
How is Lumen's verification priced?
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How is Lumen's verification priced?
By depth. Fast verification runs a quick NLI pass and is the cheapest mode. Standard adds concurrent source retrieval. Full adds multi-source cross-checking and evidence scoring. Most customers mix modes per workflow — fast for low-stakes checks, full for regulated output.
Q·05
Are there volume discounts?
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Are there volume discounts?
Yes, on Standard Production and Dedicated Infrastructure engagements. Proof-of-Concept engagements are flat-priced by design — the point is a clean evaluation, not a pricing negotiation.
Q·06
Do you offer self-hosted or on-prem deployment?
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Do you offer self-hosted or on-prem deployment?
Yes, under the Dedicated Infrastructure shape. Podesta ships signed container images and the Akribes compiler toolchain; your operations team runs them in your cloud account or on-prem. Audit, verification, and compliance evidence stay with the bureau.
Q·07
What's a typical engagement timeline?
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What's a typical engagement timeline?
Proof-of-Concept: 30–60 days to a production-shaped result on one workflow. Standard Production: 6–12 weeks to first workflow live across multiple teams. Dedicated Infrastructure: 8–16 weeks depending on compliance review (SOC-2 Type II evidence, regulated-industry audits, etc.).
Q·08
Can I pay in EUR or another currency?
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Can I pay in EUR or another currency?
Yes. USD is the default quoted currency; EUR, GBP, and CHF are available for Standard Production and Dedicated Infrastructure engagements. Proof-of-Concept engagements quote in USD.
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