The honest answer to the first question everyone asks, and how to tell whether a quote reflects the work or the firm behind it.
The honest range is wide, because the label covers very different jobs. A focused single-project impact estimate is a different undertaking from a full feasibility study with financial modeling, and both differ from a multi-year regional strategy. But here is the plain landscape.
National consulting firms typically price economic impact and feasibility studies from roughly fifty thousand to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and larger or more complex engagements run higher. A great deal of that number is firm overhead: offices, layers of staff, and business development, spread across every invoice. It is not a measure of how hard the analysis is.
The work does not require a large institution. It requires the right data, a sound model, and someone who knows how to use them. Analysis built on free federal statistics by a firm without the overhead of a national practice can deliver the same rigor for a fraction of the large-firm price. That is what puts a serious study within reach of a rural county or a private owner who could never justify six figures.
Ask what the number buys. A quote should map to a defined scope, a stated data source, and a specific deliverable. If a firm cannot tell you plainly what you are paying for, or if the price seems to assume you have an institutional budget regardless of the project, get a second quote. The right study is the one scoped to the decision you actually need to make, priced for the work rather than the letterhead.
Project Red Team runs this kind of analysis for governments, developers, and businesses across the interior West. Tell us about the project and we will lay out what it takes to answer it, and what it costs.
Start a conversation