Project Costs & Investment ​
Period: August 2025 -- March 2026 (8 months) | Last updated: 16 March 2026
This document tracks the total investment in SpektraBot from inception to date, including pro bono founder time, infrastructure, and third-party services. All figures are estimates based on published pricing unless otherwise stated -- adjust where you have exact invoices.
Summary ​
| Category | Estimated Total to Date | Monthly Run Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Founder time (pro bono) | ~£80,000 | ~£10,000 |
| Infrastructure & hosting | ~£640 | ~£160 |
| AI services (Azure OpenAI) | ~£160 | ~£40 |
| Developer tooling & subscriptions | ~£1,600 | ~£200 |
| Domains, compliance & registration | ~£55 | Negligible |
| Total | ~£82,455 | ~£10,400 |
Key takeaway
Over 97% of the investment to date is founder time donated pro bono. The cash outlay for infrastructure and tooling is under £2,500 for a production-grade, UK-sovereign AI platform. This needs to change: founders must be compensated for SpektraBot to be sustainable.
Project Timeline ​
SpektraBot has been through three development phases across three repositories:
| Phase | Repository | Period | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Planning & Architecture | spektrabot-pilot-plans | Aug -- Sep 2025 | Architecture design, Terraform IaC, system prompt, evaluation framework, AWS planning |
| 2. First Implementation | spektrabot-pilot | Sep -- Nov 2025 | Initial build (AWS SageMaker + Mistral 7B + Open WebUI). Abandoned in favour of current approach |
| 3. Current Platform | pilot | Nov 2025 -- present | Full rebuild: LangChain + Azure OpenAI + Next.js + Azure Container Apps. 1,495 commits to date |
The shift from Phase 2 to Phase 3 was a deliberate architectural pivot -- moving from a self-hosted fine-tuned model on AWS to a RAG-based approach with Azure OpenAI. This decision improved accuracy, reduced infrastructure complexity, and enabled UK data sovereignty through Azure UK South.
1. Founder Time (Pro Bono) ​
All founder time has been contributed without pay. The notional market-rate values below represent what this work would cost if commissioned externally, and the minimum that should be recouped through revenue or grant funding.
Joel Merrick -- Technical Lead & Developer ​
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Role | Full-stack development, DevOps, AI/ML, infrastructure, security |
| Period | August 2025 -- March 2026 (8 months) |
| Estimated hours/week | 25--35 (avg ~30) |
| Total estimated hours | ~960 |
| Market day rate (senior full-stack / DevOps) | £500/day |
| Notional value | ~£60,000 |
Work delivered across all three phases: architecture design, Terraform IaC, two full implementations (abandoned plus current), Node.js API, Next.js frontend, LangChain RAG pipeline, pgvector knowledge base (451K chunks), Azure Container Apps infrastructure, CI/CD, monitoring, backup systems, crawler infrastructure, evaluation framework, and full documentation. 1,495 commits on the current repo alone.
Rachel -- SEND Domain Expert & Co-Director ​
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Role | SEND domain expertise, content strategy, school engagement, user testing, business development |
| Period | August 2025 -- March 2026 (8 months) |
| Estimated hours/week | 10--20 (avg ~15) |
| Total estimated hours | ~480 |
| Market day rate (SEND specialist / education consultant) | £350/day |
| Notional value | ~£21,000 |
Work delivered: SEND domain research and knowledge curation, system prompt development with trauma-informed practice, school pilot coordination, Lancashire engagement, SEND legal content review, user acceptance testing, business development, strategy and outreach.
Combined Founder Time ​
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Total hours contributed | ~1,440 |
| Total notional value | ~£81,000 |
| Cash received | £0 |
Sustainability
Over 8 months, founders have contributed over 1,400 hours of unpaid labour valued at ~£81,000 at market rates. A single LA contract at £9,999/year would not cover two months of this investment. Early revenue or grant funding is essential to make this sustainable and to compensate founders for the work already contributed.
2. Infrastructure & Hosting ​
Azure Container Apps (Production) ​
| Item | Specification | Est. Monthly Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Container Apps | spektrabot-api, -web, -worker, -docs (UK South) | ~£60 |
| Postgres Flexible Server | pgvector + tsvector | ~£50 |
| Azure Cache for Redis | Managed | ~£15 |
| Azure Blob Storage | Backups and KB assets | ~£5 |
| Subtotal | ~£130/month |
Estimated total to date (migrated to ACA from Civo in early 2026, ~3 months): ~£390
Why Azure Container Apps?
We migrated from a Civo Kubernetes cluster to Azure Container Apps (UK South) to simplify operations, improve scaling, and consolidate around Azure OpenAI, which already hosts our models in UK South. All data stays in the UK.
Prior infrastructure (August 2025 to early 2026) ​
Early phases used local development environments and AWS services (SageMaker, S3, RDS) before migrating to Civo Kubernetes, and then onwards to Azure Container Apps. Some AWS costs were incurred during the first implementation attempt. Estimated additional infrastructure cost: ~£100 to £250.
3. AI Services ​
Azure OpenAI (UK South) ​
| Deployment | Model | TPM Limit | Est. Monthly Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chat completion | GPT-4o | 50,000 | ~£30 |
| Embeddings | text-embedding-3-large | 120,000 | ~£10 |
| Subtotal | ~£40/month |
Estimated total to date (live from ~December 2025, ~4 months): ~£160
Why Azure OpenAI?
Azure OpenAI was selected for UK data residency (UK South region), enterprise SLAs, and compliance with UK GDPR requirements. Data processed by Azure OpenAI in UK South does not leave the UK. This is a key selling point for LA procurement.
4. Developer Tooling & Subscriptions ​
Claude (Anthropic) ​
| Item | Plan | Est. Monthly Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Max subscription | Max plan ($200/month) | ~£160 |
Used extensively for development assistance, code review, documentation, and research across all project phases. Estimated total to date: ~£1,280 (8 months).
GitHub ​
| Item | Plan | Est. Monthly Cost |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub Organisation | Team plan (private repos, Actions) | ~£15 |
Three private repositories, CI/CD pipeline minutes, issue tracking, and project management. Container images are pushed to Azure Container Registry (ACR), not GHCR. Estimated total to date: ~£120 (8 months).
Cloudflare ​
| Item | Plan | Est. Monthly Cost |
|---|---|---|
| DNS & CDN | Free or Pro plan | ~£0--20 |
Used for DNS management, SSL/TLS, and CDN. Estimated total to date: ~£0--160.
Other Development Tools ​
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Docker Desktop / Orbstack | Free tier or ~£5/month |
| Various npm packages | Free (open source) |
| Parliament of Owls (multi-LLM research) | Pay-per-query, est. ~£30 total |
5. Domains: Compliance & Registration ​
| Item | Cost | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| spektrabot.co.uk domain | ~£10 | Annual |
| ICO data protection registration | £40 | Annual |
| CIC registration (Companies House) | ~£5 | One-off |
| Subtotal | ~£55 |
6. Cost Trajectory ​
Monthly burn rate (current) ​
| Category | Monthly |
|---|---|
| Founder time (pro bono) | ~£10,000 |
| Cash costs (infrastructure + tools) | ~£420 |
| Total (including pro bono) | ~£10,420 |
| Total (cash only) | ~£420 |
Projected annual run rate ​
| Scenario | Annual Cost |
|---|---|
| Cash costs only (current) | ~£5,000 |
| Cash + founder time at market rate | ~£125,000 |
| Cash + modest founder salaries (£35K each) | ~£75,000 |
Break-even analysis ​
| Milestone | LA Contracts Needed | Revenue |
|---|---|---|
| Cover cash costs | 1 | £9,999 |
| Cover cash + one modest salary | 5 | £49,995 |
| Cover cash + two modest salaries | 8 | £79,992 |
| Cover full market-rate investment | 13 | £129,987 |
7. What Needs to Change ​
Immediate priorities ​
- Recoup founder investment -- the ~£81,000 of pro bono time already contributed should be recognised as founder investment and repaid from early revenue or grant funding
- Establish founder compensation -- even modest stipends (£1,500--2,000/month each) would make the current pace sustainable
- Ring-fence infrastructure budget -- the £420/month cash cost is manageable but should be formally budgeted
Funding routes to cover costs ​
| Route | Potential Amount | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| First LA contract (direct award) | £9,999/year | Q2 2026 |
| Innovate UK Smart Grant | £100K--500K (70% funded) | 6--9 months |
| National Lottery Community Fund | £10K--500K | 3--6 months |
| DfE Family Hubs Programme | £10K--250K per LA | Ongoing |
| 3 LA contracts | £29,997/year | H2 2026 |
The ask ​
SpektraBot has been built over 8 months for under £2,500 in cash and ~£81,000 of donated founder time. The platform is production-grade, UK-sovereign, GDPR-compliant, and serving real schools. The founders need to be paid. A single Innovate UK Smart Grant or three LA contracts would cover a full year of operations including fair founder compensation.
Notes ​
- All costs are estimates based on published pricing as at March 2026
- Actual invoiced amounts may differ -- update this document when exact figures are available
- Exchange rate assumed: $1 = £0.80 (approximate)
- Founder hours are estimates based on commit history and project activity -- Joel's 1,495 commits on the current repo across 4 months (plus work on two prior repos) indicate sustained full-time-equivalent effort
- Infrastructure costs assume services were provisioned progressively (not all from day one)
- The first implementation attempt (September -- November 2025) was abandoned but the research, architecture, and domain work carried forward into the current platform