AI Compliance Cost Lens

Inputs

These are the only knobs. Defaults below roughly approximate a 40-person Series-A/B fintech with an EU presence.

Annual turnover (EUR)Used to size the percentage-of-turnover penalty cap.HeadcountDrives the SME / micro-enterprise classification (≤250 / <10).Use caseAnnex III of the EU AI Act explicitly lists credit scoring and insurance risk-pricing as high-risk. Full QMS, conformity assessment, registration, ongoing post-market monitoring.Penalty tier to modelProvider/deployer obligations, including high-risk Annex III use cases (credit scoring, insurance risk-pricing).EU exposure. We place the system on the EU market, sell to EU customers, or process EU data subjects.Colorado exposure. We sell to consumers in Colorado or subject them to algorithmic decisions covered by SB 26-189.

Size assessment

SME At or under 250 employees AND at or under EUR 50,000,000 turnover — qualifies as an SME; the LOWER-of-cap-or-percentage rule applies.

Under Article 99(6), the fine for SMEs is the lower of the fixed cap and the percentage — the opposite of the rule for large undertakings. artificialintelligenceact.eu (consolidated text) ↗AgentLiability.eu ↗

SMEs also receive a 50% fee reduction on the otherwise-applicable administrative fine. Holistic AI ↗

Estimated compliance cost

Range from published third-party research — not a quote. CEPS (Centre for European Policy Studies) ↗SQ Magazine ↗Patech Labs ↗

One-time setup: €193,000 – €344,500
Annual maintenance: €71,400 – €120,000
3-year total: €407,200 – €704,500

One-time range combines CEPS's QMS stand-up (EUR 193k-EUR 330k) and per-system conformity + compliance work (~EUR 9.5k-EUR 14.5k). Annual maintenance is the CEPS ~EUR 71.4k/yr floor with headroom for sector-specific add-ons.

Penalty exposure

EU AI Act exposure: on. Penalty tier modeled below. Tiers are from Article 99 of the EU AI Act. artificialintelligenceact.eu (consolidated text) ↗AgentLiability.eu ↗AI Exponent ↗

Tier: Tier 2 — Provider / deployer / notified-body obligations
Trigger: Non-compliance with provider or deployer obligations, including high-risk system requirements and transparency duties. Annex III use cases like credit scoring or insurance risk-pricing land here.
Final fine (your situation): €150,000
Fine before SME/micro reduction: €300,000 (MIN(cap, pct))
SME fee reduction: −50% applied. Holistic AI ↗
Fixed cap (Article 99): €15,000,000 (3% of turnover)
Percentage-of-turnover cap: €300,000
Binding cap (large-entity MAX rule): €15,000,000 (fixed)
Binding cap (SME MIN rule): €300,000 (percentage)

Sanity check — EU-wide overhead

CEPS estimates that the EU AI Act adds roughly 17% overhead to AI spending at the EU-wide level. As a rough planning reference, that implies an annual overhead of €17,000 to €85,000 on your turnover, assuming AI spend is 1–5% of turnover. This is a sanity check, not a primary input. CEPS (Centre for European Policy Studies) ↗

Colorado — different enforcement model

Toggle on Colorado exposure to see the enforcement-model note.

Three canned scenarios

If you don't have specific inputs in mind, these three quick presets cover the most common cases people ask about.