Government charges appear on the USCIS fee schedule and depend on the employer's size and any premium-processing request. The larger cost is internal: staff time to document the procedure's history, training records and the customer arrangement.
Budget for evidence, not adjectives
The government's charges are fixed by the schedule and should be checked at filing. Professional fees for L-1B often run higher than for a comparable L-1A because the specialized-knowledge evidence takes more work to assemble and the offsite-placement issue needs a careful contract review. Internal costs include the time of the engineer, the quality manager and the owner to produce dated records, and possibly the cost of formalising documents that were never written down. If the customer will reimburse the shop for the engineer's time, the reimbursement arrangement itself must be documented so it does not look like a staffing fee. Ask the adviser what happens if a request for evidence arrives, whether an amended petition is needed if the customer site changes, and whether family applications are included. A file that saves money by relying on a warm support letter tends to spend it again on the response to the request for evidence.
Hypothetical example: an East Hants ceramic-tile glazing manufacturer must document an internal formula before sending its specialist south. The first review identifies the cost of collecting secure manuals, preparing a customer-control explanation, and obtaining declarations from supervisors, separately from government charges. Decide which records can be shared under a confidentiality agreement and which need redacted summaries. Saving money by providing no underlying evidence often produces a costly request for evidence after the business deadline is already close.