Typing the same details into two systems. Checking the same websites every morning. Chasing people for replies.
If someone on your team does a job like that by hand, we can usually set it up to happen on its own. You don't need to know anything technical or arrive with a plan. Tell us what happens now and what you'd like to happen instead, and we'll work out the rest.
Fixed price, agreed before we start — from £300 for one job done, from £3,000 for a whole process rebuilt.
If one of these sounds like your office, it's the kind of thing we do. In each case a person still checks anything that matters.
The morning check
Someone opens the same websites or systems every morning and copies whatever has changed into a spreadsheet. We set it up to check for you and show what is new on one screen. If a website it reads changes, it tells you rather than quietly going out of date.
PlusRooms: a full working day, every day, no longer spent on this.
Quotes that have gone quiet, invoices past due, paperwork not sent back. Reminders go out on time, worded the way you approved. Anything unusual waits for you to look at.
Instead of messaging workers one at a time and chasing replies, the job goes out on WhatsApp and a worker takes it. Two people can never be sent to the same job.
Marmadbir: nobody chases workers any more, and messaging costs are down about 65%.
A chat assistant on your website or WhatsApp that answers from your own prices and policies, at nine at night if need be, and takes the enquiry details. It only answers from what you have given it. When it is not sure, it says so and passes the conversation to a person.
The one somebody puts together by hand from three or four places, always urgent, always the same steps. It builds and sends itself overnight. If anything goes wrong, it tells you straight away rather than failing quietly.
We run one every night for our own product, with nobody touching it.
Someone sits with two windows open, comparing what the accounts say each job cost against what it actually cost. We set it up to do the comparison and list anything that does not match. It only reads: it never changes your accounts or moves money. You decide what to do.
For one client it found £1.49m of costs booked against the wrong jobs in the accounts.
A full day of checking council websites, now done automatically
Manual work replaced
A full working day, every day
Annual saving
≈ £27,000/yr — a full-time role's worth of checking
Council websites checked by hand
None
PlusRooms needs to know about new planning applications as early as possible. That used to mean someone going through council websites one by one, for a full working day, every day. We built Planscope, which checks the council websites on its own every day, covers 97% of London boroughs, and shows what's new on one screen, with alerts for the applications that matter. Nobody has to check a council website by hand any more.
Jobs handed out to field workers automatically, over WhatsApp
Dispatcher time spent chasing workers
Eliminated
Messaging cost
Down ~65%
Annual saving
≈ £10,000/yr in coordination time
Marmadbir sends workers out to customers' jobs. Before, a coordinator did that by hand: messaging workers one at a time on WhatsApp, chasing whoever hadn't answered, and sorting out payments by phone. We built the whole system. Customers book online, the job goes out to workers on WhatsApp, a worker takes it, and payments release on client confirmation. Nobody chases workers any more.
★★★★★
“I work with them for a while now, they are nothing less than hard working, fast responding, and very dedicated agency. Highly recommend.”
A website stuck for eight months, ready to launch in a week
Ready to launch in
Under a week
Before: time without any update reaching the site
8 months
Before: time to swap one picture
2–3 weeks
A Story To Tell lets people make memory books, family trees and memorials online, with a paid subscription for the extras. The business was sound, but the website had stopped moving: eight months without a change going live, and two to three weeks just to swap a picture. We fixed the problems that had piled up, sorted out the subscriptions, made the site reliable, wrote the missing pages and handed it back ready to launch in under a week. We also helped it show up in Google and in AI tools like ChatGPT, and tightened its security, none of which was in the original brief.
★★★★★
“Working with my developer Ben has been an outstanding experience from start to finish. His communication has been clear and quick, his work has been fast and accurate… I’m extremely grateful for everything Ben has done, highly recommended.”
You tell us what your team does by hand. We tell you honestly whether it is worth automating. Sometimes the answer is to leave it as it is.
2
A fixed price, in writing
We write down what we will build, what it will not do, and one price. The price does not go up if the work takes us longer than we thought.
3
We build it
How long depends on the job. A whole process usually takes 2 to 6 weeks. You see it working before it goes live.
4
We hand it over
We show your team how it works and leave written instructions. You own it. The first 30 days of support are included, and after that support is optional.
Not sure where to start across the whole business?
The Process Audit (£1,500) looks at how the work actually gets done and gives you a written plan: what to automate, in what order, and a fixed price for each. Starter builds do not need an audit. The audit is for businesses deciding which bigger system to build first. More about the audit
Prices
What it costs.
Every price is fixed and agreed in writing before we start, and we are not VAT registered, so there is nothing to add on top.
Free first call
Free
Thirty minutes on the phone or a video call. What your team does by hand, what it is costing you, and an honest view of whether it is worth automating.
One job done
We call this a starter build
£300–£1,500
One thing, built and handed over. A chat assistant that answers customer questions is £300. Most single jobs, like website enquiries that go straight into your system or a report that sends itself, are from £500.
You own it, and there is nothing to pay us monthly.
A whole process
We call this a custom build
from £3,000
Several systems joined up so a whole way of working runs end to end, tested, with your team shown how to use it. Usually two to six weeks.
Larger systems, where software makes routine decisions and a person approves anything involving money or a customer, start at £8,000.
Process Audit
£1,500
A written plan for the whole business: what to automate, in what order, what each is likely to save, and a fixed price for each one.
Credited in full against any custom build (£3,000+) if you proceed within 60 days.
Support after handover
£150/mo per system
Optional. We keep an eye on it, fix it if something it relies on changes, and make up to two small changes a month. A system means one thing we built for you, whether a single job or a whole process. Monthly, with no minimum term.
The support plan begins when the 30 days of support included with every build run out. Nothing is charged before that.
The Automation Agency is run by Ben Horne from Chesterfield. Ben has spent more than ten years building software that businesses rely on every day. There's no account manager, and nobody between you and the person building it.
Tell us what your admin is costing you, in hours or in salary, and you'll get a straight answer with a number attached. That includes when the honest answer is that it isn't worth automating.
Ben also runs AI Guys. Same person, same work, same prices, under a different name.
Not at all. Most of the people we work with aren't. Tell us what happens now and what you would like to happen instead, in your own words. We handle the technical side, and explain any choice that matters in plain English before you pay for anything.
How much will it cost?+
One job on its own is £300–£1,500: a chat assistant is £300, and most single jobs are from £500. A whole process done end to end is a custom build from £3,000, and larger systems start at £8,000. If you want a written plan for the whole business first, the Process Audit is £1,500. Every price is fixed and agreed in writing before we start, so there are no surprises on the invoice.
What happens if it goes wrong after you hand it over?+
Every build includes 30 days of support, and we fix anything that goes wrong in that time. After that, support is optional: you can carry on without us, or pay a monthly fee for us to keep an eye on it. Nothing is charged before the 30 days run out.
Do we own what you build?+
Yes. Once it is paid for, it is yours, and it does not stop because you stop paying us. Nothing is charged monthly unless you choose the support plan.
Are there any running costs?+
Nothing to us, unless you choose the support plan. Some systems also use outside services that charge for what you use, such as WhatsApp messages, hosting, or the AI behind a chat assistant. We'll tell you what those are before you agree anything.
Do you only work with businesses near Chesterfield?+
No. Most of our clients aren't local, and calls and builds happen over video and email by default. If you are in Derbyshire or nearby and it would help to meet in person, we can.
What if I'm not sure what to automate?+
That's what the free call is for. Tell us about a normal week and we'll point out where the time goes and tell you honestly what is worth doing. Sometimes the answer is to leave it as it is, and there's no pressure to go any further.
Get in touch
Tell us about the job.
You don't need a technical plan. Tell us what your team does now and what you'd like to happen instead, and we'll work out the rest. If it isn't worth doing, we'll say so.
Prefer a conversation?
Call Ben, Monday to Friday, 9am–5.30pm. You'll get Ben, not a call centre.
