The questions we get asked most.

Balboa Insights publishes fixed-fee pricing. The AI Readiness Audit is $5,000–$10,000 depending on scope. The six-week Rapid AI Pilot is $35,000–$45,000. Fractional Data Leadership is a monthly retainer in the $5,000–$10,000 range. Nonprofits often pair the Audit with grant-funded follow-on work to stay inside restricted-funds rules.

Same public pricing across audiences: $5,000–$10,000 for the AI Readiness Audit, $35,000–$45,000 for the six-week Rapid AI Pilot, $50,000–$80,000 for Targeted Analytics for Growth, and $5,000–$10,000 per month for Fractional Data Leadership. Pricing is fixed at engagement start so there are no surprise change orders.

Six weeks, end to end. Week 1 is discovery, Weeks 2–3 are data and design, Weeks 4–5 are build and test, and Week 6 is handoff. The cadence is fixed — if discovery surfaces something that would push beyond six weeks, we scope it as a separate engagement rather than letting the pilot slip.

An AI Readiness Audit is a 2–3 week diagnostic that answers three questions: what AI use cases would move the needle for you, what data and governance gaps need to close first, and what's the right sequence. A data strategy assessment is broader — it covers data architecture, ownership, tooling, and governance even if AI isn't on the table. The Audit is sharper, faster, and produces a roadmap; a data strategy assessment produces an architecture.

A fractional Chief Data and Analytics Officer (CDAO) is a senior data leader who serves your organization part-time — typically 8–20 hours per week on a monthly retainer of $5,000–$10,000. A full-time CDO/CDAO costs roughly $250,000–$400,000 fully loaded in the US. The fractional model fits organizations that need senior judgment on data, AI, and governance but don't yet have the volume of work to justify a full-time hire. See our full comparison.

Common pilots include customer or constituent segmentation, revenue or pipeline forecasting, marketing mix modeling, lead scoring, churn prediction, report drafting automation, document classification, and operational dashboards built on AI-generated summaries. We focus on use cases that can be shipped in six weeks and owned in-house afterward.

No. Plenty of high-value AI work runs against operational systems and modestly-sized exports. A warehouse helps when you need to combine data across multiple sources, support many concurrent users, or feed real-time decisioning. The AI Readiness Audit will tell you whether your specific use cases require one, or whether a lighter integration approach gets you to value faster.

Yes — and the smaller the team, the more leverage AI provides per hour saved. Common high-ROI use cases for small nonprofits include automating grant report drafts, summarizing case notes, structuring intake data, and producing funder-ready dashboards. The bar for success isn't "use AI everywhere" — it's "give your two-person finance team back five hours a week."

Three differences. First, a senior principal does the work — there is no junior team behind the slides. Second, scope and price are fixed up front; no change orders. Third, engagements are designed to hand off, not extend. The Big 4 model fits multi-year transformations; Balboa Insights fits organizations that want a specific outcome shipped in weeks.

Primary service area is the United States, with the firm based in San Diego, California. We've taken on engagements with US-headquartered organizations operating internationally. We don't currently take on engagements with no US footprint, but if your headquarters or primary stakeholders are US-based, reach out.

Three patterns we redirect. Organizations looking for a multi-year transformation engagement — that's a Big 4 fit, not ours. Organizations that want to staff-augment with offshore developers — we don't operate that model. Organizations with no executive sponsor for the work — fixed-scope engagements only succeed when someone inside the organization owns the outcome.

Yes. We routinely sign Data Processing Agreements (DPAs), Business Associate Agreements (BAAs) for HIPAA-adjacent work, mutual NDAs, and standard MSAs. Bring your paper or ours — we'll work to a reasonable redline turn in one to two business days.

Yes, where it's the right tool for the job — typically for code scaffolding, document summarization, content drafting, and analysis acceleration. Every engagement starts with explicit agreement on which tools may touch which data, and that agreement is written into the SOW. For sensitive work we default to enterprise-tier accounts with data-retention protections and audit logging.

Yes — through the Manage phase of our framework. After a pilot ships, clients can move into a Fractional Data Leadership retainer ($5,000–$10,000/month) for ongoing oversight, retraining, and roadmap work. We also offer time-boxed extensions for specific follow-on builds. Most of our engagements include a documented handoff so the client team can run the work in-house if they prefer.

The fastest path is to book a strategy call. We'll spend 30–45 minutes understanding the problem, ruling in or out the four engagement types, and agreeing on a scope. Most clients move from first call to signed SOW in 1–2 weeks.