Why our prices are what they are

Show your working.

For each thing we sell, here's what it would cost you to do the same thing some other way — freelance, hiring someone, a big consulting firm, a Bloomberg Terminal. Every number on this page comes from a public source you can check.

Last updated 26 May 2026.

Capability proof · Phase A complete

An open algorithm that reproduces 95% of paid-feed-equivalent stock screening on free data.

We built three open factor proxies (Relative Strength, Technical, Fundamental) on free inputs, blended them via regression on 800 paired observations, and validated head-to-head against a publicly-visible third-party scoring benchmark. Two out-of-sample snapshots both came in above 94% top-100 overlap. The algorithm is documented; the data inputs are free. This isn't a product yet — it's evidence that the firm's AI agents produce output at the level of paid incumbents.

Top-100 overlap · 2026-05-22

95.8%

Top-100 overlap · 2026-05-12

94.9%

Regression R²

0.859

Monthly data cost

Option	Cost	Notes
Empirica Score	$0 / month data	Open methodology, three factor proxies blended via regression. 95% top-100 overlap with a third-party scoring benchmark across two out-of-sample snapshots.
Bloomberg Terminal	$2,000 / month	Gold standard for live data + screening. Closed methodology. About 24× our cost on a yearly basis — $24,000/yr vs $0 in data.
FactSet Workstation (institutional seat)	$1,000 – $2,000 / month per seat	Institutional equity research workstation. Closed scoring. 12-24× our data cost per analyst per year.
Refinitiv Workspace	$1,800+ / month per seat	Same category as FactSet. Closed methodology. ~$22,000/yr per seat.
Retail screening service (Finviz Elite, similar)	$25 / month	Closed scoring methodology. Similar monthly cost — but you can't see how the score is built, audit it, or use it as a benchmark.
Build it yourself	$50,000+ engineering + paid data feed	A senior quant + data engineer for a quarter, plus an ongoing feed subscription. The version we built took 6 weeks on free data.

See the methodology, the validation, and what's coming next

Subscription

$29 a month buys roughly $1,836 of research you'd otherwise gather yourself.

$29/month is the lowest price that still keeps our research agents running. Anyone who reads more than a few pieces a month saves far more than they pay — compared to hiring a freelance researcher, paying for a Bloomberg Terminal, or hunting down papers across six fields by hand.

What it would cost you another way

Option	Cost	Timeline	Notes
Empirica Subscription	$29 / month	Continuous (weekly digest + daily picks)	About 50 new research pieces a month — works out to roughly $0.58 per piece.
Hire a freelance research analyst	$75–$200 per hour	1–2 weeks to get something back	At a typical $95/hr, one piece of research costs you about $95 — roughly 150 times what we charge per piece.
Bloomberg Terminal	$2,000 / month	Real-time + archive	Different tool — the gold standard for live market data. Costs about 69 times what we do.
An industry analyst seat (Gartner, Forrester, IDC)	$2,500–$12,500 / month	Quarterly briefings	One person's access to a general analyst. Costs 86–431 times what we do.
A single academic journal (institutional)	$200–$2,500 / year	Issue by issue	One field, one publication. We cover six-plus fields plus how they connect.
A premium individual newsletter (Stratechery, Pragmatic Engineer)	$144–$300 / year	Weekly	Similar price — but one writer can't match what our research agents produce around the clock.

What you'd expect to get out of it

Light reader

About $1,102 of research value per month

That's $1,102 of value for $29 — about 38 times what you pay.

Typical reader

About $1,836 of research value per month

That's $1,836 of value for $29 — about 63 times what you pay.

Heavy reader

About $2,955 of research value per month

That's $2,955 of value for $29 — about 102 times what you pay.

We ran the numbers 5,000 different ways

Light reader (monthly)

$1,102

Typical reader (monthly)

$1,836

Heavy reader (monthly)

$2,955

How we worked this out

Each piece works out to $29 ÷ 50 pieces we publish a month = about $0.58. We then ran 5,000 simulated readers with different reading habits and time-values to see how much research value you'd get for your $29. We picked low numbers throughout so the result is hard to argue with.

Sources for the numbers above: Freelance research analyst rates, Public subscription prices, Industry analyst subscription prices, U.S. wage data — research analysts (BLS)

Reports

70–95% cheaper than McKinsey, Bain, or BCG — and built from the same evidence.

Every report we send has the full list of sources so you can check it line by line. We can charge less because our research agents do the heavy lifting, with a human researcher curating and quality-checking — not because we cut corners on the work.

What it would cost you another way

Option	Cost	Timeline	Notes
Empirica Standard Report	$4,500–$8,000 (fixed price)	11 business days	Price agreed up front, no surprises. You get a PDF + a machine-readable version + every source we used + a walkthrough call.
Hire a freelance research analyst	$5,000–$15,000	3–6 weeks	Quality varies, timeline slips. Same scope of work — you'd pay up to 3× our price on the high end.
Pay your own analyst to do it (2 weeks)	$6,795–$11,523	2 weeks — if they're free	Salary + benefits + overhead for 2 weeks of a research analyst's time. And you have to have hired them already.
A small project from McKinsey, Bain, or BCG	$40,000–$100,000	4–6 weeks	The starting floor for a tightly-scoped analysis from a top consulting firm. 9–22× what we charge.

What you'd expect to get out of it

Small decision ($25k at stake)

You'd save about $5,000 — the report pays for itself twice over.

A short brief that sharpens a $25k call already covers what we charge.

Mid-stakes decision ($250k at stake)

You'd save about $25,000 — the report pays for itself five times over.

Standard tier is sized for decisions in the $100k–$1M range — where good information makes the biggest difference.

Big strategic decision ($1M+ at stake)

You'd save $50,000 or more — the report pays for itself 4–10 times over.

Deep tier is for board-level decisions. Even a small information edge clears the cost many times over.

How we worked this out

We compared our price against typical hourly wage data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (plus 30% for benefits and overhead) and against published rates for major consulting firms. The decision-value scenarios assume our report makes the decision 5–20% better — a range research on consulting ROI suggests is realistic when the underlying work is sound.

Sources for the numbers above: U.S. wage data (BLS), Freelance research analyst rates, Consulting firm rate cards

Engagements

4–25× cheaper than hiring Accenture or Deloitte. Twice as fast as hiring a full-time engineer — and there's no team for you to manage.

We build the same kind of AI systems we use ourselves. Most clients earn back what they paid us within a few weeks. Independent studies have measured exactly how much time and money good AI integrations save — the numbers below use the lower end of what's been published, just to stay honest.

What it would cost you another way

Option	Cost	Timeline	Notes
Empirica LLM Integration	$25,000–$45,000 (fixed price)	4 weeks live in your system	Plan → design → build → deploy. 30 days of free support after launch.
Hire a senior AI engineer (4 weeks of pay)	$27,692–$37,692	3–6 months to hire and get them productive	Just their salary + benefits for the first month. You also have to find them, train them, and pray they don't leave.
Accenture, Deloitte, or BCG-X (smallest project)	$150,000–$800,000	6–12 weeks	The starting floor for the same kind of project from a big consulting firm. 4–25× what we charge.
Hire two contract engineers for 4 weeks	$60,000–$120,000	4–6 weeks (plus the time to find them)	The closest direct comparison. 2–5× our price — and you have to manage the team.

What you'd expect to get out of it

Office team of 25

$300,000 saved per year (25 × $120k × 10%)

We modeled a 10% speed-up — the BCG/Harvard study actually measured 25–40% on similar work, so we're being cautious. You'd earn back what you paid us in 5–8 weeks.

Engineering team of 15

$840,000 saved per year (15 × $280k × 20%)

The GitHub Copilot study found developers finished coding tasks 55% faster with AI. We modeled 20% to stay defensible. You'd earn back what you paid us in about 2 weeks.

Automate a repetitive workflow

$400,000 freed per year

The most common kind of engagement. The 5 people aren't fired — they get to do more interesting work.

How we worked this out

Engineer salary numbers come from levels.fyi, plus 30% for benefits and overhead. Big consulting firm prices come from publicly available rate cards. For the savings scenarios we used the lower end of what published studies actually found (e.g. we modeled 10% speed-up where BCG/Harvard measured 25–40%).

Sources for the numbers above: AI engineer pay (levels.fyi), Consulting firm rate cards, GitHub Copilot productivity study, BCG / Harvard / MIT productivity study, Developer-AI study

Grants

For a typical $500k NIH R01 grant, hiring us puts you about $13,582 ahead on average — for a $6,500 package. Every scenario we tested came out ahead.

The math on grant writing is unusually clean: what we charge is small compared to the size of the grant, so even a small bump in your chances of winning translates to a big expected dollar return. We've used the low end of published research throughout to stay honest.

What it would cost you another way

Option	Cost	Timeline	Notes
Empirica Standard grant package	$4,500–$8,500 (fixed price)	11 business days	You get: the Specific Aims page (rewritten three times), full narrative, budget, biographies, letter templates, a mock review, and one round of revisions.
Hire a freelance grant writer	$75–$200/hr — typically ~$3,750–$10,000 for a grant this size	4–8 weeks	Quality varies, timeline slips. Similar total cost, no fixed scope.
You write it yourself (cost of your time)	~100 hours × $150–$300/hr = $15,000–$30,000	6–10 weeks around your day job	3–8× what we charge in equivalent value of your time. Worse — those hours come out of your research time.
A boutique academic-grant consultancy	$15,000–$50,000	6–12 weeks	2–10× our price.

What you'd expect to get out of it

NIH R01

On average you'd come out $20,000 ahead — about 3.1× what we charge.