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Notes on business automation

The questions I get asked before anyone is ready to hire anyone — answered properly, including the answers that argue against buying.

How much does AI automation actually cost a small business?

For a small business, one well-defined automation usually costs a four-figure sum to build — thousands, not tens of thousands — and under $100 a month to run. But that range on its own is nearly useless. The build price is driven by how many systems the job touches and how many odd cases it has to cope with, not by how clever the AI is.

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n8n vs Make vs Zapier: which should a small business actually use?

Use Zapier when getting started fast matters more than the bill, and your workflows are genuinely simple. Use Make when you need real branching and decisions, at a lower price per step. Use n8n when you need to keep data on your own server, or your volume has grown enough that per-step pricing has become your biggest line item.

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What should a small business automate first?

Automate the job you do most often, that eats the most time each go, and that follows the same rules every time. For most small businesses that turns out to be handling new enquiries, or the handover between winning a job and starting it. It is almost never the job that annoys you most.

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Is your business data safe with AI automation?

Your data is as safe as the exact setup you are on — which is less reassuring than a straight yes, but far more useful. The business accounts from the big AI providers do not use what you send to train their models. Free and consumer accounts, add-on tools and automation platforms each hold your data for their own periods and pass it to their own suppliers, and each one has to be checked separately.

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A free 30-minute audit call. You leave with a written map of your automatable workflows and what each one is worth — whether we end up working together or not.

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