What does AI workflow automation cost for a small business?

A Flow Map starts around A$750 and credits fully toward a build booked within 30 days. A single production workflow typically lands between A$2,400 and A$4,500, and a connected system of three to five workflows between A$6,500 and A$12,000. Every price is fixed and quoted on one page before work starts.

How long does it take to automate a workflow?

A Flow Map takes three to five days. A single workflow is usually live in one to two weeks. A connected system takes three to five weeks. Verify takes two weeks. If a date matters it goes in the quote.

Do I have to start with Verify?

No. The three steps are a ladder, not a package, and you can stop after any of them. Most people start in the middle with a build, because they already know which job is hurting. Start with Verify if you handle client material you would not want leaking, or if clients have begun asking you what you do with their information.

What if my website is not the problem?

Then we say so and stay on workflows. A site rebuild that does not fix the thing costing you hours is an expensive way to feel busy.

What Shift builds, and what it costs

V

Verify

FROM A$5,000 · TWO WEEKS

Find out what your people are actually using, where client material goes when they use it, and whether each tool is set up and contracted the way you have been told it is. Most businesses cannot answer this, and increasingly their clients are the ones asking.

Tool inventory: including the ones nobody told you about, with versions and account detail.
Platform verification: whether your material stays inside a controlled environment, and whether the supplier is contractually restricted from training on it. Read from the agreement, not the marketing page.
Data-flow map: where information physically goes, which country it lands in, how long it stays.
A tool register, built and populated, plus an access and logging review.
A written answer you can hand to a client, an insurer or a tender panel when they ask what you do with their material.

This is technical and operational work: it documents the facts, it does not interpret your obligations, and it is not legal advice. Regulated practices are the sharpest case for it — solicitors and tax agents carry duties about tools and client information that somebody has to establish the facts for — and those practices should have their own professional-standards adviser review the output before adopting it.

JOB REFS · V-SERIES

A steel card-index drawer pulled open, packed with record cards, a glass loupe resting on top — An inventory nobody has kept, built properly once, then kept current.

A

Automations

A$2,400 – 12,000 · 1–5 WEEKS

The workflows themselves. Built inside your own accounts, documented, with your team trained on them as part of the price rather than as an extra line.

Flow Map — from A$750: one page showing where the hours actually go and what is worth automating first. Credited in full against a build booked within 30 days.
Single Flow — A$2,400–4,500: one production workflow, tested and documented, with a 14-day fix window after handover.
Flow System — A$6,500–12,000: three to five connected workflows plus training for the team.
Record-keeping builds: intake and client checks, retention with audit trails, and reporting workflows for anyone who has to show their working.

Typical first builds: enquiry intake and triage, quote-to-invoice chasing, review requests after a job closes, and the weekly owner's report that currently gets assembled by hand out of five systems.

JOB REFS · A-SERIES

Close-up of a precision mechanical movement in brushed steel — Built to be serviced, not admired. Every step is visible, logged and switchable.

W

Websites

FROM A$4,500

The front door, when it is genuinely part of the problem. A site is worth rebuilding if enquiries are being lost at it or nothing behind it is connected. Otherwise it is an expensive way to feel busy.

Site Build: custom, mobile-first, fast, with forms wired into the workflows rather than into another inbox nobody watches.
Site + First Flow: the site plus one automation running off it from the day it goes live.
A straight answer: if your site is not the problem, we say so and stay on workflows.

JOB REFS · W-SERIES

Four sheets of dark glass stacked in a steel jig, each pane edge-lit in cold blue — Layers you can see through. Nothing hidden behind a page builder you can't leave.

C

Care

FROM A$1,500 / MONTH · OPTIONAL

Nothing in this field stays still. Models get retired, vendors change their terms, people leave, and a tool that was fine in March quietly is not in September.

Monitoring: workflows watched, failures alerted to a person rather than discovered by a client.
One change a month: the small adjustments that otherwise never get made.
The register kept current: tools added and retired, and changes to supplier terms flagged.
Annual re-verification: the Verify work run again, so what you told your clients is still true.

Offered only after a build or a verification, never as a condition of anything, and cancellable monthly. If it stops earning its place, stop paying for it.

JOB REFS · C-SERIES

Precision service tools laid out in order on dark grey felt — Serviced on a schedule, not when something breaks in front of a client.

Four things, and you can stop after any of them.

Verify

Automations

Websites

Care

Every number, on one page.

Before you ask.

Work out what yours is costing.