Business Process Automation That Starts With What the Work Costs You
Business process automation means handing work people do by rote — moving data, chasing approvals, building reports — to software. Done well, it saves hours every week and removes the errors that come with re-typing.
We start by measuring: which tasks happen most, how long they take, and what a mistake costs. Then we automate the ones that pay back fastest, with whichever tool is cheapest to run for that job — Zapier, Make, n8n, Power Automate, or a small piece of custom code.
This is for you if
- ✓Staff spend hours a week copying data between systems
- ✓Work stalls because approvals sit in someone's inbox
- ✓Reports are put together by hand every week or month
- ✓Errors creep in wherever people re-type the same information
This is probably not for you if
- ✕The process itself is broken or changes every week — automating it just makes the mess happen faster
We would rather tell you now than take the project and disappoint you.
Worth knowing: Automation is easy to overspend on. A task that takes ten minutes a week is not worth a $5,000 build, however satisfying it would be to automate. We put a number on the hours saved before quoting, and if the payback is longer than a year, we say so.
What you get
Process mapping
Each task written down step by step, with who does it, how often, and how long it takes.
A costed shortlist
Hours saved per month set against build and running cost, so you see the payback before committing.
The right tool per job
No-code where it is enough, custom code where volume, logic or reliability demand it.
Approvals and handoffs
Requests routed to the right person with reminders, so work stops waiting in inboxes.
Error handling
Failures alert a person with the details, instead of quietly dropping records.
Handover
Plain-language documentation of what runs, when, and what to do if it stops.
What is worth automating first
The best first candidates share three traits: they happen often, they follow the same rules every time, and a mistake is easy to spot. A quick way to rank yours:
- 1Count how often the task happens each month and how many minutes it takes.
- 2Multiply by the hourly cost of whoever does it.
- 3Add what its errors cost: refunds, late fees, lost leads.
- 4Compare that monthly figure with the build cost and the monthly running cost.
Anything that pays back within six months goes to the top. Anything that needs a judgement call at every step stays manual, or gets an AI draft that a person approves.
When there is no API: robotic process automation, honestly
Some older systems have no API at all. Robotic process automation (RPA) handles them by driving the screen the way a person would, with tools such as Power Automate Desktop or browser automation. It works, but it breaks when the screen changes, so we treat it as a last resort and monitor it closely.
What we build it with
Deliberately mainstream choices. You should be able to hand this to any competent developer later without them needing to learn something exotic first.
Front end
Next.js, React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS
Back end
Node.js, Next.js API routes, Cloudflare Workers
Database
Postgres, Supabase, Cloudflare D1 and KV
CMS
Sanity, Payload, headless WordPress, or plain Markdown
Payments
Stripe, Shopify, WooCommerce
AI
OpenAI, Anthropic, and open models where they fit better
Hosting
Vercel, Cloudflare Pages — in your account, not ours
Analytics
Plausible, Fathom, GA4, Search Console
Not sure whether automation is what you actually need? Send over what you are trying to fix and we will tell you straight — including if a smaller job would do it.
Ask us first →How it works
Measure
A short discovery in which we watch the work being done and time it.
Prioritize and quote
A costed shortlist, and a fixed price for the automations you choose.
Build and run in parallel
The automation runs alongside the manual process until the outputs match.
Switch over and monitor
The manual step retired, alerts on, and a check-in after the first month.
Questions
How much does business process automation cost?
Single automations start at $1,500. A set of automations across a department usually runs $4,000–$12,000. Running costs depend on the tool, from almost nothing for small self-hosted workflows to a few hundred dollars a month for high-volume Zapier plans.
Which processes can be automated?
Anything rule-based and repetitive: data entry between systems, invoice processing, onboarding checklists, approvals, report building, appointment reminders and lead routing. Tasks that need judgement can often be partly automated, with software preparing the work and a person deciding.
Will automation replace my staff?
It usually removes the parts of jobs people like least rather than whole jobs. The common outcome is the same team handling more work with fewer errors.
What is RPA, and do I need it?
RPA software operates other programs through their screens. You only need it when a system has no API or export. Where an API exists, a direct integration is faster, cheaper and far more reliable.
How quickly will we see results?
Most single automations are live in one to three weeks. Because we start with the highest-payback task, the first automation is chosen to pay for itself within months.
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