The verdict in three sentences
For a Berlin mid-sized company that wants 500 employees to query procedures, standard contracts and the support knowledge base, a general assistant licence at about 30 EUR per user per month comes to 180,000 EUR a year with no guarantee on the quality of domain answers. A custom RAG built by Kolonell for 6,100 to 10,670 EUR (4 to 7 M FCFA), plus 200 to 1,500 EUR a month of inference, answers only from your documents and respects your access rights. The real issue is not the model, it is source governance and continuous evaluation of answers.
General licence vs custom RAG: 2026 costs
Orders of magnitude for 500 users in 2026. Kolonell lines follow our custom application grid (mid tier); licences and inference costs are market estimates.
| Item | Licensed general assistant | Custom Kolonell RAG |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Rollout and configuration, 5,000 to 20,000 EUR via an integrator | 6,100 to 10,670 EUR (4 to 7 M FCFA) |
| Recurring cost | About 30 EUR per user per month, i.e. 15,000 EUR a month | 200 to 1,500 EUR a month of inference depending on usage |
| Hosting | Vendor cloud, EU region depending on contract | Server and vector database in the EU, 80 to 300 EUR a month |
| Maintenance | Included | 180 EUR a month (120,000 FCFA, Premium tier) |
| Document scope | Everything the user can see in the office suite | Selected, versioned sources |
| Source citations | Variable | Systematic, with a link to the document |
| Timeline | 2 to 6 weeks | 6 to 10 weeks |
Over three years, the licence for 500 people exceeds 540,000 EUR. The custom RAG, with 1,000 EUR of inference, 200 EUR of hosting and 180 EUR of maintenance a month, stays under 60,000 EUR. The two tools do not do exactly the same job: the licence also helps draft emails and summarise meetings. Many companies combine a RAG for everyone with a few licences for heavy writers.
The four decisions behind a reliable RAG
| Decision | Recommended option | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Sources | Quality procedures, standard contracts, support base, HR FAQ, validated versions only | An outdated document produces a wrong but confident answer |
| Access rights | Inherit Entra ID or Google Workspace groups, filter before retrieval | A sales rep must never see an employment contract |
| Hosting | Model and vector database in the EU, no training on your data | GDPR compliance, contractual clauses, works council and DPO sign-off |
| Answer evaluation | Set of 150 to 300 reference questions, relevance score, monthly review | Measure quality instead of assuming it |
| Updates | Automatic daily indexing of source folders | Procedures change, the index must follow |
| Traceability | Anonymised question log, unanswered questions surfaced | Spot documentation gaps |
On a well-built question set, a carefully designed RAG commonly reaches 80 to 90 % of answers rated correct and sourced. The rest should end in "I cannot find this information" rather than an invention, which is set in the model instructions and checked at every evaluation.
Typical 6 to 10 week plan
| Weeks | Deliverable |
|---|---|
| 1 to 2 | Scoping with IT, DPO and business teams, source inventory, question set |
| 3 to 4 | Ingestion, chunking, indexing, rights filtering |
| 5 to 6 | Web or Teams interface, citations, log |
| 7 to 8 | Evaluation on the reference set, tuning |
| 9 to 10 | Pilot with 50 users, then rollout to all 500 |
Mini case study
Markus, CIO of a 500-employee services company in Berlin, sees internal support receive 1,200 questions a month on procedures that are already documented, at an average of 10 minutes each: 200 hours a month. If the RAG absorbs 60 % of those questions, 120 hours are freed, worth 5,400 EUR a month at a loaded 45 EUR an hour. Recurring costs: 1,000 EUR of inference, 200 EUR of hosting, 180 EUR of maintenance, so 1,380 EUR. Net gain: about 4,000 EUR a month. A 9,000 EUR project pays for itself in just over two months.
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FAQ
Are our documents used to train the model?
No, the RAG queries your documents at question time without sending them for training. The API contracts we select exclude that use, and hosting stays in the EU for 80 to 300 EUR a month.
Can we use it inside Teams?
Yes, the assistant can be exposed in Teams, on the intranet or as a web widget. Teams integration adds about 1 to 2 weeks to the plan.
How many documents can be indexed?
Tens of thousands of pages without technical difficulty. Initial indexing cost stays low, often under 100 EUR for 20,000 pages.
How do you prevent made-up answers?
The model must cite its sources and answer "I don't know" when no relevant passage exists. The set of 150 to 300 reference questions measures that behaviour after every change.
Which language model do you use?
We choose based on your policy: a commercial model via API in an EU region, or an open-source model hosted on your servers. The inference cost gap can range from 1 to 3 depending on volume.
Let's scope your project. List your document sources and user count: we will price your RAG assistant between 4 and 7 M FCFA (6,100 to 10,670 EUR) with a 6 to 10 week plan, through our free quote request. Detailed quote within 48 h. WhatsApp +221 77 596 93 33.
Mohamed Bah
Fondateur, Kolonell
Passionate about digital and entrepreneurship in Africa, Mohamed has been helping Sénégalese businesses with their digital transformation since 2020. Founder of Kolonell, he believes every SME deserves a professional and accessible online présence.
