Straight answers about business automation
The questions we get asked before anyone signs anything, answered properly, with real numbers, and with the cases where the answer is different. No gated PDFs and no discovery call required.
Cost and timing
What it costs, how long it takes, and how to work out whether it pays back.
How much does business process automation cost for a small business?
Setup runs from $499 to $12,000, with no monthly fee required after launch. The full breakdown, the variables that move it, and how to check whether it pays for itself.
How much does an AI agent cost for a business?
A chat agent is $3,500 to set up and a voice agent $5,000, fixed before work starts. What the build covers, what you pay providers rather than us, and when an agent is the wrong buy.
How long does an automation project take?
10 business days to build; three to five weeks end to end for a first automation. What each stage involves, and what actually causes overruns.
Deciding what to do
Scope, sequencing, and knowing when the answer is "don't."
Do we need to fix our processes before we automate?
No, but you need to be able to describe them. Why messy is fine and unsettled is not, and the four things that genuinely should be sorted out first.
How many hours will automation actually save us?
Runs times minutes, cut by the share it will not handle. The correction most proposals skip, and why the hours are often the smaller half of the value.
What is business process automation?
Software doing the routine steps between the systems you already run, copying, checking, chasing, filing. What it replaces, what it is not, and how to tell if a process qualifies.
How do I choose an automation partner?
Judge them on how they estimate, not what they have built. The four questions that separate advisers from order-takers, and how to compare two quotes fairly.
What can a 20-person company actually automate?
The six automations that consistently pay back at this size, a four-question test for any process, and what to leave alone.
What should not be automated?
Processes that should be deleted instead, work that needs judgment, and the high-stakes tasks that produce no signal when they go wrong.
Should I hire an ops person or automate?
The honest arithmetic including the rows vendors leave out, when each is right, and why the answer is usually both, in a specific order.
Technology choices
Platforms, AI, and what happens after it is running.
Do I need an AI agent or just a workflow?
The one-question test, what actually differs between them, and the six guardrails that separate a production agent from a demo.
Can you automate an old system with no API?
Usually yes. The five routes in, best to worst, what each one does to the price and the fragility, and the hybrid option most people never consider.
Is n8n or Make better for a small business?
The pricing models are the whole story. How to estimate your operation count in ten minutes and find your own crossover point.
What happens when an automation breaks?
The five ways they actually fail, why silent failure is the dangerous one, and five questions to audit what you already have running.
Risk and commitment
The two questions people think about and rarely ask out loud.
Is our data safe if we automate?
Where your data actually goes, what AI providers keep at business tiers, what we can see and how to remove us, and the mundane risks that cause real incidents.
What happens if we stop working with you?
Everything keeps running. What you keep, why it is built that way, and the four shapes lock-in takes when a firm does not build it that way.
Most of this should not be a secret
The standard practice in this market is to keep pricing, timelines and trade-offs behind a discovery call, on the theory that a conversation converts better than a web page.
It might. It also wastes the time of everyone who was never going to be a fit, and it leaves buyers unable to compare anything. We would rather you arrived already knowing the numbers and disagreeing with something specific.
- Every answer is complete on its own, no "book a call to find out"
- Real figures, including the ones that make us look expensive
- The cases where our answer is "don't hire us for this"
- Updated when the underlying facts change, with the date shown
Question not answered here?
Ask it directly. If it is a good one we will answer it here too, and you get a direct reply.
You will talk to Fayez or Kareem. Nobody else.