The AI Audit is a one-off engagement (from 2,000 € excl. VAT) that tells you where AI creates value in your business and delivers a roadmap; the AI Partnership is a monthly subscription (399 or 699 € excl. VAT, no commitment) that executes that roadmap over time. Start with the audit when the direction is unclear, with the partnership when it's clear — and very often you do both, one after the other.
A French SME leader who wants to get serious about AI in 2026 quickly runs into the same question: “Where do I start? A one-off Strategic AI Audit, or a monthly AI Partnership that supports me over time?”. On paper, the two offers seem to address the same need. In reality, they serve entirely different situations.
This article compares Codito's two offers honestly — duration, price, deliverable, ROI, who each is for — and gives you a clear decision framework to know which one (or both) to choose depending on your SME profile.
The Codito AI Audit: what it's actually for
The Codito Strategic AI Audit is a one-off engagement of 2 to 6 weeks that answers one precise question: “Where are the real AI opportunities in my company, and how much can they be worth to me?”.
In concrete terms, it includes:
- A half-day strategic scoping session with the CEO and the executive committee
- 2 to 15 people interviewed in the field with line-of-business managers to map the Information Trinity (the information itself, its medium, how it circulates)
- A visual map (Miro) of flows and frictions, quantified in time and euros lost
- An AI Maturity Score across 6 dimensions (data, infrastructure, skills, governance, culture, security)
- 3 to 12 custom AI solutions, each scored by effort × triple ROI (time, quality, scalability)
- A costed roadmap for the next 6 months, prioritized into Quick Wins / structural projects
- A 60-to-80-page .docx deliverable + a 2-hour presentation to the executive committee
The 4 Codito packs cover every company size:
- Express Pack (micro-businesses/SMEs < 20 FTEs) — 2,000 € excl. VAT, 2 weeks, 2 people interviewed
- Focus Pack (SMEs, 20-50 FTEs) — 5,000 € excl. VAT, 3 weeks, 5 people interviewed
- Essential Pack (SMEs, 50-150 FTEs) — 7,500 € excl. VAT, 4 weeks, 10 people interviewed + premium mapping
- Max Pack (mid-caps, 150+) — 10,000 € excl. VAT, 4-6 weeks, multi-site possible
The Audit is the framing investment. You do it once, and you walk away with a surgical view of your company seen through the AI lens. It's the best first euro to spend in 2026 if you don't yet have a structured AI roadmap.
The Codito AI Partnership: what it's actually for
The monthly Codito AI Partnership is the logical mirror of the Audit: a dedicated AI partner, shared across several SMEs, who comes back every month. Not a one-off deliverable — a long-term relationship that embeds AI durably into the business.
In concrete terms, every month you get:
- A 1.5-hour meeting with your dedicated Codito consultant (a single point of contact for the entire duration of the Partnership)
- An actionable monthly report of 8-12 pages, delivered within 72 hours, with your top 3-5 AI priorities scored by effort × impact
- A direct WhatsApp/Slack channel with your consultant (response within 24 business hours)
- Monthly tracking of your AI Maturity Score across 6 dimensions
- Installation of simple, standalone AI agents (Premium) + team training (Premium)
Two tiers, no commitment, cancellable by email:
- Essential — 399 €/mo excl. VAT: the leader structures their AI thinking one-on-one
- Premium — 699 €/mo excl. VAT: adds a monthly team session (up to 6 people) + standalone AI agent installation + training calibrated to your business tools
The Partnership is the sustainability investment. It's what makes the AI roadmap hold up month after month, gets teams to truly adopt the tools, and ensures the right decisions get made in real time.
Audit vs Partnership: the honest comparison
To decide quickly, here are the two offers side by side:
| Criterion | AI Audit | AI Partnership |
|---|---|---|
| Duration | 2 to 6 weeks | Monthly, no commitment |
| Format | One-off engagement | Long-term partnership |
| Deliverable | 60-80-page .docx report + Miro mapping + costed roadmap | 8-12-page monthly report + tracked Maturity Score + agents installed (Premium) |
| Price | 2,000 to 10,000 € excl. VAT (one-off) | 399 to 699 €/mo excl. VAT (recurring) |
| Best for | SMEs with no AI roadmap that want a diagnosis and to know where to invest | SMEs that already have a roadmap (or want to execute it without drifting) and a clear course |
| Measurable ROI | 10x to 30x from year one (depending on execution) | 5x to 15x/year, especially over time |
| Commitment | Scoped engagement | None — cancel by email |
3 typical SME profiles, and which offer to choose
Here are the three cases we encounter most often in meetings at Codito — and the right answer for each.
Profile 1 — The SME that has never touched AI
Symptoms: the CEO reads the articles, sees competitors starting to talk about AI, knows something has to be done, but doesn't know where to start. No process mapping. No data inventory. No AI agents deployed.
Right answer: an AI Audit first, no hesitation. Starting a Partnership before an audit is like hiring a personal trainer before getting a health check-up — you lose 3-4 months discovering what an audit would have diagnosed in 3 weeks. Pick the pack that fits your size (Express, Focus, Essential, Max), then move on to a Partnership if the audit roadmap shows a monthly partner will be useful.
Profile 2 — The SME that has already done an audit (with us or elsewhere) or is mature
Symptoms: the CEO already has an AI roadmap (built in-house or by a consultancy), knows which priorities to tackle, and may have already deployed 1-2 tools. The risk isn't choosing wrong — it's losing the thread over 6-12 months and watching the roadmap drift into day-to-day firefighting.
Right answer: go straight to the monthly AI Partnership. Essential at 399 €/mo if all you want is strategic direction and a monthly sparring partner. Premium at 699 €/mo if you also want to bring your team along (calibrated training + standalone AI agent installation). No need to redo an audit — what you need is execution.
Profile 3 — The SME with one specific AI project to frame
Symptoms: the CEO has identified one major use case (automating quotes, deploying an internal chatbot, structuring the CRM database with AI), wants to get it right, and has a budget. But they don't know whether it's technically feasible, what it will cost, or how to integrate it for the long haul.
Right answer: a Focus or Essential AI Audit + a Premium AI Partnership in parallel. The audit frames the project, sizes the development required, and calculates the ROI. The Partnership handles everything else — team adoption, adjustments along the way, and the AI opportunities that surface as the months go by. It's the most profitable combo over 18 months for an SME that already has a clear course.
Why it's almost never one OR the other
Let's be honest: among the SMEs that launch a serious AI initiative with Codito, the typical journey combines both offers, in the following order:
- Month 0: AI Audit (2-4 weeks) → diagnosis, costed roadmap, 3-10 prioritized use cases
- Months 1 to 12: monthly AI Partnership (Essential or Premium) → execute the roadmap, install the first agents, train the teams, adjust month after month
- Along the way: if a Custom Development project emerges (an agent integrated into your IT systems, a business web app, an AI-powered ERP), a separate quote with priority access to the Codito dev team
The audit alone has one limit: 50 to 70% of audit roadmaps are never fully executed. Not because the diagnosis lacked quality, but because the CEO goes back to the daily grind and has no one to push, adjust, and unblock things month after month. That's exactly what the Partnership solves.
The Partnership alone has a limit too: without a prior audit, you start blind. Your Codito consultant will have to run a mini-scoping exercise over the first 2-3 months anyway, which slows down value creation. An audit compresses that work into 3 weeks and provides the systemic vision a monthly engagement would otherwise lack.
The Audit + Partnership combo isn't a commercial cross-sell. It's the format that produces the most value. Real-world case: VLT Notaires (a 26-person notary firm in Grasse) started with an Essential Pack AI Audit (10 frictions identified, 527,000 €/year in documented hidden costs, a roadmap of 12 solutions in 3 phases), then moved on to a monthly Partnership while the first solutions were being developed. In the words of Jean-Philippe Vouillon, partner notary: “The Codito Ergo Sum team is highly skilled.”
The criterion that settles it in 30 seconds
If you're still hesitating between the two, ask yourself this simple question:
“Today, at 10pm on a Sunday night, could I explain to my executive committee in 5 minutes my company's 3 AI priorities for the next 12 months, their estimated ROI, and their deployment order?”
- If no → you need an AI Audit first. It's the structuring investment that gives you that clarity.
- If yes → you need a monthly AI Partnership. You have the course; you need a partner to turn it into execution, month after month.
And if you want to dig deeper into the logic of choosing between a Partnership and other formats (one-off consultant, in-house hire), we wrote a detailed comparison between a 399 €/mo Partnership and a 6,000 €/mo consultant that answers exactly that question.
How to get started
Whatever your profile, the process is deliberately simple: a 30-minute scoping call with Emile. We look at your context together and point you toward the right offer (audit, partnership, combo — or even another agency if you're outside our scope, without hesitation). No sales pitch, no pressure. Just an honest scoping conversation.
The Audit and the Partnership serve the same goal: making AI a measurable business lever for your SME, at last. The right choice is the one that matches your current maturity. Not the one the salesperson cold-calling you happens to sell best.
Still on the fence?
Book 30 minutes with Emile to scope the right offer for your situation.