Why I publish prices
Most providers don't. "It depends on the project," they say, and ask you for a meeting. I understand why, but I think a business owner is better served by having real ranges before talking to anyone. That way they know whether they're in the right league, spot inflated proposals and avoid meetings that lead nowhere.
These are the ranges I work with. They're indicative: every company has its particulars and the fixed quote comes after the analysis. But if someone asks you for triple, or half, ask why.
Prices by type of automation
WhatsApp assistant with AI
Answers frequent questions, qualifies, books appointments, escalates to people.
- Implementation: €2,500 to €5,000.
- Monthly: €40 to €150 (AI model plus Meta messaging).
- Timeline: 3 to 4 weeks.
- Pays off if: you get more than 100 WhatsApp inquiries a month, or lose appointments to slow replies.
Automatic follow-up of quotes and leads
Scheduled reminders, alerts to the salesperson when the customer opens the document, CRM logging.
- Implementation: €2,000 to €4,500.
- Monthly: €30 to €80.
- Timeline: 2 to 3 weeks.
- Pays off if: you send more than 20 quotes a month and your close rate is under 30 percent.
Reading and loading supplier invoices
Data extraction from PDFs and emails, validation, loading into accounting or ERP with human review.
- Implementation: €3,000 to €7,000 depending on format variety and target system.
- Monthly: €50 to €150.
- Timeline: 3 to 5 weeks.
- Pays off if: you process more than 100 invoices a month.
Automatic management reports
Sales, collections, appointments, incidents, sent weekly from your systems.
- Implementation: €1,500 to €4,000 depending on data sources.
- Monthly: €20 to €60.
- Timeline: 1 to 3 weeks.
- Pays off if: someone spends more than 4 hours a month preparing reports, or if you manage without numbers.
Integration between two systems that don't talk
For example: online store with invoicing, CRM with calendar, web form with ERP.
- Implementation: €1,500 to €6,000 depending on system complexity.
- Monthly: €20 to €80.
- Timeline: 1 to 4 weeks.
- Pays off if: someone copies data by hand between those systems more than 5 hours a month.
AI agent for a complete process
An agent managing a process end to end: qualification and booking, order processing, appointment management with changes and cancellations.
- Implementation: €4,000 to €9,000.
- Monthly: €60 to €200.
- Timeline: 4 to 8 weeks.
- Pays off if: the process consumes more than 40 hours a month of your team or its slowness is costing you customers.
Custom system (CRM, ERP, customer portal)
When what you need isn't connecting tools but building your own.
- Implementation: €6,000 to €30,000 depending on modules.
- Monthly: €100 to €400 in hosting and maintenance.
- Timeline: 6 to 12 weeks.
- Pays off if: you've tried off-the-shelf tools and they don't fit, or you pay more than €300 a month in licenses you don't use well. Details are in the custom business management solution.
All prices exclude VAT and are for companies of 3 to 50 people. For groups or larger volumes the ranges go up, but so does the return. For US clients I invoice in dollars at the equivalent rate.
What a good quote includes (and what it doesn't)
When my prices are compared with others', they sometimes look higher. It's almost always because I include things others charge separately or simply don't do:
- Process analysis before building. Half a day or a full day understanding how you actually work.
- Testing with real data and hard cases. Not with pretty examples.
- Training your team with their own cases.
- Documentation so someone else can maintain it.
- A month of supervision after launch, adjusting what comes up.
- Everything in your name: accounts, access, code.
A quote that doesn't include this is cheaper on paper and more expensive in reality.
How to tell if it pays off (in 10 minutes)
Take the process you want to automate and answer:
1. How many hours a month does it consume today? Add up everyone involved.
2. What does each hour cost? Real cost to the company (gross salary plus employer charges divided by effective hours). For an admin profile in Spain or France, €18 to €30. For a salesperson or technician, €30 to €60. In Miami, add 30 to 50 percent.
3. What's lost by doing it badly or late? Missed appointments, quotes not followed up, late collections, errors that need fixing. Put a monthly value on it even if approximate.
4. Add 1 times 2, plus 3. That's the monthly cost of not automating.
5. Divide the implementation cost by that figure. That's how many months it takes to pay back.
Under 6 months, do it. Between 6 and 12, do it if you have the cash. Over 12, rethink the scope or pick another process first.
Real example: clinic with 2 receptionists. Appointment management by phone and WhatsApp: 60 hours a month between them, at €22, that's €1,320. Appointments lost to slow replies: about 12 a month at €75, €900. Monthly cost of not automating: €2,220. WhatsApp assistant with booking: €3,800. Pays back in under two months.
Three ways to pay less without getting less
Start with one process and expand. The second and third cost less because the foundation is already there (connections, accounts, knowledge of your business).
Have the information ready. If you come to me with the processes drawn out, FAQs collected and access ready, the analysis is shorter and the price drops.
Consider a monthly plan. If you're going to automate several processes over the year, the monthly partnership works out cheaper than three separate projects, and includes maintenance and strategy.
Three ways to pay more than you should
Hiring the cheapest. What wasn't paid in implementation gets paid in fixes, in the team's lost hours and, often, in redoing the whole thing.
Automating without simplifying first. You pay to automate steps that should have been eliminated.
Buying a platform "that does everything". High monthly licenses for features you don't use, and you still need someone to configure it.
In short
Automating a process in a small business costs €1,500 to €9,000 depending on its complexity, plus a low monthly cost. A complete custom system, €6,000 to €30,000. With a 10-minute calculation you know whether in your case it pays back in two months or two years.
If you'd like me to run that calculation with you using your real figures, book a call. It's free, takes 15 minutes and you leave with a concrete range for your process. No obligation to hire anything.
