Current filing amounts, including any optional request for faster adjudication, come from the published USCIS fee schedule. The larger and more avoidable cost is internal: producing corporate evidence that did not exist before, and then producing it a second time after a request for evidence.
Budget for evidence rather than pages
Petitions of this kind are expensive in staff time before they are expensive in fees. Somebody has to obtain registry extracts, reconcile share registers, assemble payroll across a qualifying window, describe an ordinary week honestly, and get certified translations of anything in French. Costing that work at the outset generally shows it is cheaper to do thoroughly once. Where an employer wants a figure before committing, give two: the published charges checked on the day, and an estimate of the internal hours, with the note that a second round after a request for evidence costs roughly what the first assembly cost.
Hypothetical example: the controller of a hardwood flooring manufacturer near Roxton Pond is asked for a budget before the board approves a United States branch. She prices the published filing charges, then adds translation of French-language corporate minutes, an accountant’s time to produce reconciled statements for both entities, and counsel’s time on the duties description. Presenting those as separate lines lets the board see what is fixed and what is discretionary. It also makes visible the single largest saving available, which is deciding the corporate structure before the petition is drafted rather than during it.