How much does process automation cost? Prices, what is included and what changes them

Ask five providers what automation costs and four will say it depends. That is partly fair. Nobody can price a system before knowing what it has to do. The trouble is what comes next: a call, a growing scope, and a quote far above the figure you had in mind.

This post does the opposite. It lists our three package prices, what the build fee and the monthly fee cover, what pushes a job into a larger package, and the questions worth asking anyone who sends you a quote. At the end you can run the sum for your own business on the back of an envelope.

Why automation prices rarely come with a ceiling

Most pricing pages give a starting figure and stop there. A price that begins with "from" tells you the least you will pay, not the most.

There are honest reasons for this. A workflow that touches two tools is a different job from one that touches six. But a range without a top end moves the risk onto the buyer. You only learn the real number after hours of calls and briefs.

The fix is not a lower guess. It is to write the scope first and tie the price to it. Then the price is a ceiling for that scope, and anything outside it is visible before work starts.

Three packages, three fixed prices

Every package has a one-time build fee and a monthly fee. The build fee pays for the system. The monthly fee pays for hosting, maintenance and SEO. Prices are in euros, never by the hour, and any tax that applies is shown at checkout.

Operations fits teams of 5 to 15 with one obvious bottleneck. Growth is for 15 to 50 people feeling friction in more than one place. Operations OS is for companies of 50 or more where several teams share one panel.

Enterprise covers regulated industries and any scope the three packages do not reach. Its price and monthly support are written out after a scoping call, and it is invoiced directly instead of going through the online checkout.

What the price includes, and what it does not

A price only means something next to a list. Here is ours.

Included in the build fee:

• A written scope that says what gets automated, what stays out, and when the system hands the job back to a person
• The build itself, tested with your real data before go-live
• Go-live support, a runbook that explains how it works, and a monthly report
• Source files and access, which stay with you

Not included:

• Licences and API keys for the tools you already use, such as your accounting or online store software. Those accounts stay in your name, and so do their fees
• New workflows that are not in the written scope. A new workflow is a new scope
• Changes you ask for after the scope was agreed

The monthly fee covers hosting, the panel, monitoring and the SEO work in your package. You can stop it whenever you like. The system runs on your own infrastructure, so it keeps working after upkeep ends.

What pushes a job into a bigger package

The package price does not move. What changes is which package your job needs. Four things decide that.

1. How many systems talk to each other. Connecting a web form to a spreadsheet is not the same job as linking your sales tool, accounting, inbox and calendar.
2. Whether the input is tidy. Structured fields are easy. Free-text emails, voice messages or photos of invoices need an AI step that reads them first. We explain the difference in rule-based automation or AI.
3. How many teams it touches. A flow that stays inside sales is simpler than one that passes work between sales, operations and finance.
4. How fast a failure must be noticed. A weekly report can wait an hour. An order confirmation cannot. Tighter monitoring takes more setup.

If one workflow covers the problem, Operations is enough. There is no reason to buy a bigger package for a single bottleneck. Not sure which task to start with? Read which workflow to automate first.

Run the sum for your own business

Before you talk to anyone, put a number on the work you want gone. You need three figures: hours per week spent on the task, what an hour of that person costs you, and how much of the task a system could realistically take over.

Here is a worked example with invented figures. Replace them with yours.

• Someone spends 6 hours a week copying order details from emails into a spreadsheet and the accounting tool
• An hour of their time costs the business €20, wages plus overhead
• 6 hours × 52 weeks ÷ 12 months = 26 hours a month, which is €520 a month
• If a system takes over half of that, the business gets back 13 hours and €260 a month

Now the other side. Operations costs €450 once plus €69 a month, so the first year comes to €450 + 12 × €69 = €1,278. Against €260 a month, or €3,120 a year, the build fee is covered in about three months. If your honest share is closer to 10 percent, the sum may not work, and that is a useful answer too.

Two things the sum leaves out. Hours are not the only cost: a wrong invoice or a lead nobody answered can cost more than the time. And a task that only one person knows how to do is a risk when that person is away. Neither shows up in the hourly sum, so write them next to it.

Questions to ask any provider

These help whoever you buy from, including us.

1. Is this price a ceiling for the written scope, or a starting point? If it can rise, when?
2. Will the scope be written down before work starts, with a delivery date and acceptance criteria?
3. Whose infrastructure does the system run on, and who owns the code and workflows once paid?
4. What do I keep if we stop working together? Is there a fee for handing it over?
5. What does the monthly fee cover? Are fixes included, or is every change billed?
6. What happens if the system does not do what the scope says? Is there a refund, and on what terms?
7. When does the system stop and hand the job to a person?

A provider who answers all seven in writing has thought about your risk, not only their own.

What happens if it does not work

The build fee carries a 30-day refund. If, within 30 calendar days of delivery, the system does not meet the acceptance criteria in your written scope, you email us and we try to fix it at no extra cost within 10 business days. If it still misses, the full build fee comes back within 14 business days. Changes to the scope after it was agreed, and failures caused by changes to your own tools, are not covered.

The monthly fee is billed in advance. You cancel from the link in your payment receipt, the month you paid for runs to its end, and that month is not refunded. If you cancel a package before work starts, you get the full amount back. If work has started but nothing has been delivered, you get back the part that covers the work not yet done. The full terms are in our refund policy.

Payment is by card at checkout through Dodo Payments, our Merchant of Record, which issues the invoice and handles sales tax.