Small tasks and larger workflows are both welcome
You do not need a full workflow rebuild to work with us, and you do not need a specification. A reminder, a recurring report, or one repetitive step can be a good place to start. We look at what needs to happen, recommend a practical approach, and give you a fixed quote before work begins. A simple job is not priced like a complex one.
What a project looks like at different sizes
These are descriptions, not packages. Most tasks land somewhere on this range, and the same task can sit in different places depending on the details.
A small, focused automation
One task, one or two systems, clean input, a rule you can already write down. A reminder from one list. A report from a few exports. A file that needs the same cleanup every time.
A more involved single task
Still one task, but with more going on: messy input, several exceptions, a system with screens but no connection, a person who has to review or approve part of it.
A larger workflow
Several tasks or several systems chained together, often across more than one person. The handoffs and the exceptions are most of the work.
A custom web application
A workflow that never fit a product, built around your own screens, rules and handoffs. Scoped and quoted separately.
One example of the small end: a small, clearly defined automation may be a $1,000 project. More involved workflows are quoted to match their scope. That figure is an illustration of the kind of work we are glad to take on, not a minimum, a package price, or a quote for your task. The quote comes after we have seen the task.
Web apps are different work. A workflow that never fit Salesforce or a spreadsheet needs its own screens, and we scope and quote that separately. The number is still fixed before we start.
What moves a project up or down the range
- The number of systems and steps. A task inside one system is simpler than one that touches four.
- The quality and consistency of the input. A clean export every time is easy. A file that looks different every week is not.
- Available connections or file exports. When a system offers a proper connection, the automation uses it. When the only way in is a website built for people, the automation has to use it the way a person would, and that takes longer to build and to keep running.
- Exception handling. If a person makes a judgment call a dozen times a day, we have to build a place for that call to happen.
- Human review or handoffs. A step where someone approves, checks or picks up the work adds screens and states.
- Reliability and operating requirements. Something that runs once a week and can wait a day if it fails is simpler than something that has to run every hour without anyone watching.
- AI, where it is genuinely needed. Reading free text, sorting documents without clean naming rules, or handling a caller adds building, testing and a running cost per use.
You do not need to work any of this out before you contact us. Tell us what you are doing by hand and we will look at the systems, the inputs and the rules with you. Two tasks with the same name can be very different sizes: a reminder from one clean list is a small job, and a reminder that reads three systems and waits for an approval is not.
Compared to the person doing it now
The evaluation is partly about whether the likely benefit justifies the work. To make that concrete we use an illustrative fully loaded cost of $45,000 a year, which is salary, benefits, taxes and overhead for one person. Your figure may be higher or lower, and the calculator lets you change it.
At that figure, a task that takes 10 hours a week, about a quarter of someone's week, is worth roughly $11,000 a year of a person's time. A task that takes two hours a week is worth roughly $2,000. A task that is someone's whole job is the whole $45,000. None of that is a project quote, and none of it is guaranteed cash savings. Automation gives the hours back; what your team does with them is the return.
The quote does not go up because your people cost more. It follows the work: the systems, the inputs, the exceptions and the operating requirements above. The comparison only tells you, and us, whether the project is worth doing.
The calculator on the automate page does the arithmetic for your own figures. Every task page has one set to the typical hours for that task.
One more comparison worth making. A day rate looks cheaper until the days add up, and a retainer keeps charging after the work is done. A fixed price for a finished automation is paid once for the build, and the hours it returns come back every week for as long as the task exists.
The number is fixed before work starts
We quote after the free evaluation, once we have seen the task as it actually happens. The quote is the price of the build. There is no hourly meter, and no change order because the work took longer than we thought. If an outside system changes after delivery, a portal redesign or a vendor's API change, repair work is quoted separately, and we tell you when that happens.
First deliverables land in 30 days from kickoff, guaranteed. No staff replaced. The evaluation is free, and if it is not a fit, we say so.