First identify the relevant evidence and applicable document requirements. Ask which records need preparation rather than assuming every product record adds value.
Target preparation to the facts being established
Separate appropriate translation and evidence work from professional review and official charges. Extensive spending on unrelated materials cannot establish the knowledge actually required for the assignment.
The government charges are the same as L-1A: the I-129 fee, the fraud prevention fee, any applicable asylum program fee and optional premium processing, per the USCIS fee schedule. Budget system work separately from application preparation and current official fees. A comparison of commercial costs does not replace the specialized-knowledge requirements. The sequence to plan is document gathering, petition preparation and filing, adjudication with or without premium processing, then admission, which for a Canadian citizen follows the approval without a separate visa interview. The largest cost is usually not a fee at all but the professional and internal time spent creating a documentary record the business never previously needed. When offsite placement is involved, document petitioner control rather than funding a client résumé campaign. The substantial cost is internal: the engineering, quality and management time needed to document what is genuinely proprietary and how the employee came to know it.