What automation actually costs
Audits run $2,500 to $6,000. Build projects run $8,000 to $35,000, driven mostly by how many systems are involved. Support retainers start at $1,500 a month. Below is what moves each number, so you can estimate your own situation before you speak to us.
Why we publish prices
Two reasons. A buyer who cannot find a number assumes they cannot afford us and leaves — which wastes their time and ours. And a range with the variables attached is more useful than a single figure, because it lets you work out roughly where you land before anyone gets on a call.
Automation audit
$2,500 – $6,000 · 1–2 weeks
- $2,500 — one or two processes, small team, straightforward stack
- $4,000 — three or four processes across two teams
- $6,000 — department-wide, five or six processes, or more than eight systems in scope
- Credited in full against your first build
Build projects
$8,000 – $35,000 · 2–6 weeks
- $8,000 – $14,000 — one workflow, two or three systems, clean APIs
- $14,000 – $22,000 — several linked workflows, or one with heavy exception logic
- $22,000 – $35,000 — multi-system integration, two-way sync, AI components, or a legacy system with no API
- Fixed price and fixed date, quoted after the audit
Support retainers
From $1,500 / month
- $1,500 — up to 10 workflows, 2-day fixes, 4 improvement hours
- $3,000 — up to 30 workflows, 1-day fixes, 10 improvement hours
- $6,000 — unlimited scope, same-day critical response, 24 improvement hours
- 30 days notice to cancel, no exit fee
What moves a build quote up or down
In rough order of how much impact each one has. If you can answer these five, you can place yourself in the range fairly accurately.
1. How many systems are involved
Two systems is the cheap case. Each additional one adds authentication, field mapping, error handling and another vendor whose API can change. Going from three systems to six roughly doubles a build, it does not add 50%.
2. Whether the APIs are any good
A documented REST API with webhooks is straightforward. A SOAP endpoint, an undocumented internal API, or a system with no API at all pushes a project up by $5,000 to $15,000 depending on the workaround required.
3. How many exceptions the process has
"Except when it is a rush order." "Except for our three largest accounts." "Except in December." Each exception is a branch that has to be built, tested and documented. Exception logic is frequently the majority of the engineering.
4. One-way or two-way
Pushing data one direction is straightforward. Keeping two systems in sync means conflict rules, loop prevention and reconciliation — roughly double the work for the same field count.
5. The state of your data
Duplicate customer records, inconsistent formats, three spellings of the same supplier. If a cleanup is needed before the automation can work, we quote it separately and visibly rather than absorbing it into a vague number.
What does not change the price
How long it takes us. Fixed scope means fixed price — if we estimate badly, that is our problem, not an extra invoice. We also do not price on your company size or on the value of the time saved.
Other engagement types
- Takeover assessment — $2,500. Fixed fee to inventory, map and document automations built by someone else, with a stabilisation quote. You keep the documentation regardless.
- Strategy sprint — $4,000 to $8,000. Platform selection, twelve-month roadmap and governance standards for teams building in-house. Credited against a first build within three months.
- Advisory retainer — from $2,000/month. A standing half-day a month reviewing and unblocking your own team's builds.
- Second opinion — $1,500. A written review of another vendor's proposal, quote or platform recommendation.
- Data migration — $9,000 to $20,000. One-off migration with mapping, dry run, validation report and documented rollback.
Costs that are not ours
Platform subscriptions are paid by you, directly, in your own accounts. We do not resell them or take a margin. Typical monthly running costs for an SMB stack:
- Make.com: roughly $10 to $100/month depending on operation volume
- n8n self-hosted: roughly $10 to $40/month in infrastructure, or n8n Cloud from about $25
- Zapier: roughly $30 to $100/month at typical SMB volumes
- AI API usage: often under $50/month for a triage or extraction agent at a few hundred documents a day
We estimate your specific running cost during the audit, so it is part of the decision rather than a surprise in month two.
Common questions
How much does business process automation cost for a small business?
For a business under about 50 people, a realistic first-year spend is $12,000 to $25,000: an audit at $2,500 to $4,000, one or two builds at $8,000 to $14,000 each, and optionally a support retainer at $1,500 a month from the point the first build goes live. Platform subscriptions add roughly $30 to $150 a month on top, paid directly to the vendor. Businesses that start with a single well-chosen workflow rather than a programme typically spend at the lower end.
Do you bill hourly?
No. Builds are fixed scope and fixed price, agreed before work starts. You should not pay more because something took us longer than we estimated — that is our estimating risk to carry, and carrying it is what makes the number meaningful. Retainers are a flat monthly fee. The only hourly-shaped thing we sell is the improvement allowance inside a retainer, which is a stated number of hours included in the fee.
What are your payment terms?
Builds: 50% on signature, 50% on cutover. Audits: paid in full on kickoff. Retainers: monthly in advance. For projects over $25,000 we will split into three milestone payments if you prefer.
Is there a minimum engagement?
Effectively $2,500, which is the smallest audit. We do not take on sub-$5,000 build work, because the scoping, testing and documentation overhead means we would either do it badly or lose money, and neither is good for you. If your need is genuinely that small, you are usually better off building it in Zapier yourself, and we will say so on the call.
Do you work with businesses outside the US?
Yes. Delivery is remote and we work across US and European time zones. Pricing is in USD regardless of location.
What if the project turns out to be bigger than quoted?
If the extra scope is something we should have caught, we absorb it — that is what fixed price means. If it is genuinely new scope you have asked for, or something material that the audit could not have surfaced, we stop, explain it, and quote the difference before continuing. You never receive an invoice you have not already agreed to.
Get a real number for your situation
Thirty minutes on the phone and we can usually place you within a few thousand dollars. No obligation and no discovery-call gatekeeping.