What does automatingone processactually cost?
The usual answer to this question is "it depends". Here is the number, what decides whether your process is one module or three, what the price does not cover, and how to work out the other side of the sum yourself.
One module. 40 hours. €8,000.
The usual answer to this question is "it depends". Which is true, and of no use to you. You want to know whether you are talking thousands or tens of thousands before you spend an afternoon on it.
So, the number first. A module is 40 hours of engineering on one bounded use case and costs €8,000. That price is fixed before we start, and what will be working when we hand it over is written down alongside it.
That shifts the question, and that is the point of this whole piece. Not "what does automation cost", but "how many modules is my process". The second one can be answered, and the answer has less to do with how complicated your process sounds than you would expect.
Commit to several modules together when you sign and the amount per module comes down. That ladder is on the Operations page, along with the worked example that puts the total build cost next to a traditional software project. A module you add on its own later costs €8,000 again.
What decides whether it is one module or three.
Not the size of your company, and not how impressive the process sounds in a meeting. These four things do.
We walk through them with you in a Mission Brief. Within 48 hours you have a written scope with the number of modules and the price, and only then do you have to decide anything.
How many systems it has to touch
One webshop writing into one ERP is a different thing from four sales channels, a WMS and an accounting package that each name it slightly differently. Every connection is its own conversation with its own owner.
How many exceptions there are
The happy path is rarely the work. It is the rush orders, the customer with their own agreed pricing and the docket that was amended by hand that decide whether an automation still works three weeks in.
Whether the data can be found
Is it in a system with an API, or in a folder of PDFs and in the head of someone who has worked there for fourteen years? That difference sits in the build time, not in the ambition.
Whether something physical is involved
A scanner, a sensor or a gateway that measures an event and passes it on is part of the module: researching, connecting, testing. The parts themselves are quoted separately, and complete machines are not something we do.
What is in it, and what falls outside.
The module rate works out at €200 an hour, and that is steep. What it buys is not only a senior engineer's time but the entire development chain that engineer works with. What we do not pay for is quoted separately, because those are your bills with third parties.
Included in the module
- Senior knowledge and systems architecture
- AI tokens and model usage during the build
- Product Factory for structure and build speed
- Mission Control for monitoring behind the scenes
- Our own security and quality checks
What it does not cover
- Licences for software you buy yourself
- API usage once the solution is running
- Hosting for what is live
- Physical parts such as scanners and sensors
- Tiered pricing on a module you add on its own later
And what it is not.
Four things that often creep into a software contract and are not in this one.
No subscription
You buy modules, not a monthly amount that keeps running for as long as you forget to cancel it. Need nothing for a while and you pay nothing for a while.
No hourly meter
The price is fixed before we start. If it runs over, that is our problem and not an extra invoice landing on your desk.
No retainer
There is no mandatory support attached to the end of it. Want a next step, then you buy a next module, and otherwise you do not.
No lock-in
The code, the accounts and the infrastructure end up in your name. You could have someone else build on it tomorrow.
And what are you paying now?
The price of a module is the easy half of the sum: it is fixed, and it is above. The other half never appears on an invoice, which is why almost nobody adds it up.
Work it out once for the process you have in mind. How often does it happen per week, how many minutes does it take someone, and what does that hour cost including employer's contributions. Then add the repair work nobody schedules: the corrections afterwards, the phone calls because something did not come through, the invoice that went out a week late because the job sheet still had to be retyped. That number is the other half.
If you want to put the same sum next to what the deliberation costs, there is a calculator for that on Recon. You fill in your own figures and see straight away what deciding costs against what building costs.
What we will not do is promise a payback period. We do not know your volumes before we have seen them, and a percentage we invent today becomes an argument three months from now instead of an agreement. What we do instead is build the measurement in, so that after the first module there is a fact on the table rather than a feeling.
Not sure yet which process it should be? Then start with the previous note, on what operations actually is and the six places it breaks down in practice. And the full module ladder is on Operations.
Within 48 hours you know the number and the price.
Tell us which process you have in mind. We scope what will be working when we hand it over, how many modules that is and what it costs. On paper, before anything gets built.