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What an AI agency is, what it should do for you, and how to buy one without getting burned

An AI agency runs marketing, sales, or operations work for you using AI operators under human supervision. Here is how the category works, what separates real delivery from a chatbot wrapper, and how PQV structures it: named operators, published prices, a human review pass on everything, and an audit trail you can read.

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The four tells that separate delivery from theater

Use these on any AI agency, including PQV. A vendor that fails two of the four is selling access to tools, not outcomes.

Published prices

Real: The rate card is on the website and the same for everyone.

Theater: Every engagement is a custom quote discovered on a sales call.

Named accountability

Real: You know which operator owns your account and can reach them.

Theater: Work appears from an anonymous pool and nobody answers for misses.

Human review

Real: A person approves every customer-facing output before it ships.

Theater: Content and outreach publish on autopilot and you find the mistakes.

Audit trail

Real: A readable log of what ran, when, and who approved it.

Theater: A monthly PDF summarizing work you cannot verify happened.

Where PQV sits in the category

Fractional AI Executive: the AI agency model with executive accountability on top.

Most AI agencies automate one function, usually content or outbound. PQV runs marketing, sales, and operations as one motion under a Fractional AI Executive model: senior strategy plus an operator bench that ships the work, with every output passing a human review before it reaches a customer.

Owner-operators who want to start small begin with Get Found Locally, the local-presence tier. Businesses drowning in manual workflows start with business automation. Both roll up into the same published tier ladder.

Published pricing, same for everyone

Tier fees are published. The Discovery Sprint that precedes any tier engagement is complimentary for qualified prospects.

Get Found Locally

$750/mo

$400 setup

Content Velocity

$1,800/mo

$500 setup

Pipeline Builder

$3,800/mo

$1,000 setup

Most chosen

Revenue Operations

$6,500/mo

$2,000 setup

Custom Stack

Contact sales

Custom setup

White-Label Partnership is a separate reseller track, discussed under NDA. See full pricing.

Questions

AI agencies, answered

What is an AI agency?
A firm that delivers marketing, sales, or operations outcomes using AI operators supervised by humans, instead of billing human hours for the same work. The output is shipped work: content published, leads followed up, reports delivered. The good ones show you exactly what ran and who approved it.
How is an AI agency different from a traditional agency?
A traditional agency bills for time and headcount, so its incentive is more hours. An AI agency prices the outcome, because the marginal cost of execution is low. The difference you feel: published prices instead of custom quotes, and shipped work instead of strategy decks.
How is an AI agency different from buying AI software?
Software gives you capability and leaves the work to you. An AI agency owns the work end to end. If you cancel a SaaS tool, the work stops; if an AI agency is doing its job, what you cancel is a line item, not a function.
What should I demand from any AI agency before signing?
Four things. Published pricing, so you are not negotiating against a black box. A named human accountable for your account. A human review pass before anything ships in your name. And an audit trail: a log of what was done, when, and by whom, that you can read yourself.
What does PQV charge?
Five published tiers, month to month: Get Found Locally at $750 plus $400 setup, Content Velocity at $1,800 plus $500, Pipeline Builder at $3,800 plus $1,000, Revenue Operations at $6,500 plus $2,000, and Custom Stack scoped on a discovery call. Same number for every customer at the same tier.
Is PQV an AI agency?
PQV is a Fractional AI Executive: senior strategic leadership across marketing, sales, and operations, delivered by a named operator bench. It sits in the AI agency category the way a fractional executive sits in the consulting category: same shelf, more accountability. If you are comparing against a traditional agency, see the AI agency alternative page.
Who should NOT hire an AI agency?
If you need one human face for board meetings, hire a human executive. If your vertical is regulated, accept nothing automated without a compliance program; PQV takes regulated work only as custom enterprise scope.
AI-generated content may be incorrect, biased, or out of date. Human review on every output.