Get the decisions right before anyone starts building.
For teams who will build in-house but want the platform choice, the order of work and the standards settled first. We write the plan. Your people build.
- Volume
- Logic complexity
- Self-hosting
- License cost
- Your team's skills
The decisions that hurt are made in the first fortnight.
Platform choice. Naming and folder conventions. Whether automation is central or federated. How credentials survive someone leaving. All cheap to decide now and expensive to fix at scenario number sixty.
Building without a plan
- The most painful process gets automated first
- Platform chosen on a demo, not on cost
- Every builder names things their own way
- Credentials on personal accounts
- Nobody knows what is safe to change
With one
- The cheapest real win goes first
- Three-year cost modeled for your volume
- One convention, written down
- A vault, and a rotation schedule
- A review line everyone agrees on
Timed, not described
We watch the process as it runs and time each step. What people describe is never quite what happens, and the gap between the two is usually where the cost is.
- Each step timed and costed
- The exceptions counted, not assumed
- Written up so you can check our arithmetic
By payback, not by how loudly it is complained about
Each candidate costed against what it saves, then sequenced by dependency so you are not building the thing that needs clean data before the thing that cleans it.
- Ordered by payback and dependency
- Build versus buy named honestly
- The ones not worth doing, marked as such
Conventions your team can actually follow
Naming, folders, error handling, credentials, environments, and what has to be reviewed before it goes live. Short enough that people read it.
- One page, not a framework
- Written for the tool you chose
- Reviewed with your builders, not handed down
Six things you leave with
Platform selection
Make, n8n, Zapier or Power Automate for your volume, costed over three years.
A twelve-month roadmap
Sequenced by payback and dependency, so nothing waits on data you have not cleaned.
Governance and standards
Naming, folders, error handling, credentials, environments, and what needs review.
Build versus buy
Including the cases where an off-the-shelf product beats anything you would build.
Capability read
Whether your team can deliver the roadmap, and what is missing if not.
Review sessions
Scenario and code review as they build, before anything becomes load-bearing.
Work out whether it is worth doing at all
The roadmap starts with whichever process costs the most to run by hand. Try yours.
That work currently costs you
$1,974every month in wages alone, before the errors and the waiting.
A $2,500 build pays for itself in 1.3 months.
How this is charged
The strategy read is included in free scoping. Ongoing advisory is part of the Growth and Scale plans from $700 a month, and a second opinion costs nothing.
Common questions
Is n8n or Make better for a small business?
Make is the usual default: nothing to host, more connectors, an editor non-developers can follow, priced per operation. n8n wins on high volume, on self-hosting for data residency, or when the logic wants real code. Where the crossover sits depends on your volume, which the free cost model works out.
Can you review a quote from another vendor?
Yes, free. Scope, assumptions, platform choice and price against what the work should involve, in writing. Sometimes the answer is that the quote is fair and you should proceed with them.
Will you train our team?
Alongside your people on a real automation, folded into a build or a plan. We do not sell standalone courses, because they do not stick.
What if we decide we want you to build it?
The consulting work carries straight over and becomes the build plan. Scoping and the proposal are free, so there is nothing to credit.
Are you incentivized to recommend a platform?
No. No reseller agreements, no affiliate commission, no license resale. You buy your own subscriptions. That is the only way the recommendation means anything.
Get the plan before you build
Thirty minutes on what your team is trying to do. We will tell you whether you need the full strategy read, a second opinion, or just to go ahead and build it.
You will talk to Fayez or Kareem. Nobody else.
Related: Scoping and proposal · Workflow automation · Pricing