The automation department you cannot justify hiring.
We find the work in your business that a system should be doing, build the workflows and integrations that do it, and keep them running. Audits start at $2,500. Build projects run $8,000 to $35,000. Support retainers start at $1,500 a month.
Most companies do not have enough automation work to justify a full-time engineer. They still have the problem. That gap is what we do.
What does an automation department actually do?
It looks at how work moves through a business, finds the steps a person is doing because no system connects two other systems, and removes them. Here is what that looks like in practice.
Someone is the integration
A form submission gets read in Gmail, typed into HubSpot, copied into a Google Sheet, then mentioned in Slack. Four systems, one person, every time.
Invoices typed in by hand
Supplier invoices arrive as PDFs. Someone opens each one, reads the numbers, and keys them into QuickBooks or Xero. Then checks them against the PO.
The Monday morning report
Three exports, a pivot table, and forty minutes of formatting to produce a number that was already sitting in the source system.
Work parked in an inbox
Quotes, approvals and onboarding stall for two days. Not because the task is hard, but because nobody has picked it up yet and nothing chases it.
The same forty questions
Inbound email that could be sorted, prioritised and half-answered before a person ever opens it.
Automations nobody maintains
Someone built a Zap two years ago. A credential expired in March. Nobody noticed until a customer did.
Not an agency. Not a software vendor. A function you rent.
An agency sells you projects. A software vendor sells you a licence and leaves the integration to you. Neither one has to live with the result.
We work the way an internal team would: we learn how your business actually runs, we build against that, and we are still there when an API changes six months later. The difference is you are not carrying the salary.
- We will tell you not to automate something. Some processes should be simplified or dropped instead. Audits that end in "do not build this" are a feature, not a failure.
- Built on tools you already pay for. Make, n8n, Zapier, Power Automate, or plain Python where that is cheaper to run.
- Everything lives in your accounts. Your licences, your data, your credentials. If you stop working with us, nothing stops working.
- Prices are published. They are on the pricing page, not behind a discovery call.
- Deterministic before AI. A rule-based flow is cheaper, faster and more predictable. We reach for a model only when the task genuinely involves language or judgement.
What we do
Six service lines. Most engagements start with an audit and continue into one or two builds.
Automation audit
A measured review of where your hours actually go, with a prioritised list of what is worth automating and what is not.
02Workflow automation
Connect the tools you already use so work moves between them without a person acting as the relay.
03AI agents & assistants
Agents that triage inbound messages, qualify leads, draft replies and read long documents against your checklist.
04System integrations
Custom API work and middleware for the two systems your vendors promised would talk to each other.
05Automation support
Monitoring, fixes and a monthly improvement allowance. We also adopt automations somebody else built.
06Automation consulting
Strategy, tool selection and roadmap work for teams who want to build it in-house but need the plan first.
The platforms we build in
How does an automation project actually run?
Four stages. We measure before we build, test before we switch, and document before we leave.
Audit
We sit with the people who do the work and follow a process end to end — every step, every handoff, every system it touches, and how long each part really takes. You get a written process map and a prioritised list of opportunities, scored on hours saved against effort to build.
Blueprint and fixed quote
A written scope: which workflows, which tools, what data moves, what changes for your team, and what happens when something fails. Attached to it is a fixed price and a delivery date. If the payback does not justify the build, we say so.
Build and parallel run
We build inside your own accounts, with error handling and alerting in every workflow. Before anything replaces a live process we run it alongside the manual one on real data and compare outputs. We cut over when the numbers match, not before.
Handover, then support if you want it
Diagrams, a plain-language runbook and a recorded walkthrough, with credentials in your own vault. From there you either run it yourself or put it on a support retainer so failures alert us instead of you.
Common questions
How much does business process automation cost?
For a small or mid-sized business, an automation audit runs $2,500 to $6,000 depending on how many processes are in scope. Build projects run $8,000 to $35,000, driven mainly by how many systems have to be integrated and whether any of them lack a usable API. Ongoing support retainers start at $1,500 a month. Full detail is on the pricing page.
How long does an automation project take?
An audit takes one to two weeks from kickoff to written report. A first build is typically two to four weeks after the blueprint is signed off. Projects that involve a legacy system without an API, or a data cleanup before the automation can run, take longer — and we will tell you that at the blueprint stage rather than halfway through.
Do we have to change our software?
Almost never. We build on the tools you already have. If a system genuinely cannot do what you need, we will say so and explain the trade-off, but replacing your stack is not the goal and we do not resell software.
Who owns the automations you build?
You do. Everything is built inside your own accounts and subscriptions, with credentials stored in your vault and documentation written for your team. If you stop working with us, nothing stops working and nothing needs to be handed back.
Do I need an AI agent or just a workflow?
If the task follows rules — move this data there, trigger that when this happens — you need a workflow, and it will be cheaper, faster and more reliable. You need an agent when the task requires reading and interpreting language: sorting messy inbound email, summarising a long document, drafting a reply. Most businesses need mostly workflows and a small amount of AI at the edges.
What happens when an automation breaks?
Every workflow we build ships with error handling, retry logic and failure alerting, because an automation without them is a liability. On a support retainer those alerts come to us and fixes are included in the monthly fee. Without one, alerts go to your team and you have the runbook to work from.
Will this replace people on our team?
In practice it moves people off admin and onto the work they were hired for. We will tell you plainly which tasks disappear, because that is worth planning for before you start rather than discovering afterwards. What you do with the recovered hours is your decision, not ours.
Start with a scoping call
Thirty minutes on what is slow, manual or breaking. You get a straight answer on whether automation fits, and what an audit would cover.