Nobody publishes numbers, so every owner walks into the first call blind. Here are mine. They are ranges, because scope is real, but they are honest ranges, and the logic behind them is on this page.
The audit: free. Thirty minutes on your worst workflow. If automation will not fix it, I say so and you keep your money.
An install: most land between $7,500 and $35,000, depending on how many systems the work touches. A single-workflow fix inside one tool comes in at the bottom of that. Work that has to read your PM platform, your accounting system, and the spreadsheet nobody will give up sits at the top. I will tell you which one you are before anything is built.
The retainer: $2,000 to $8,000 a month for firms that want the systems watched, tuned, and extended. Optional. Nothing I build stops working if you do not buy it.
Three things, in order. How many systems the workflow crosses: a fix inside one tool is cheap; a fix that has to read Procore, your accounting system, and a spreadsheet costs more, because the seams are where the work is. How much judgment stays human: pure routing is fast to build; anything that drafts for human sign-off needs checkpoints, and checkpoints take design. And how much compliance is riding on it: work that touches certified payroll or prequalification deadlines gets built and tested to a different standard, because the cost of it failing is not an inconvenience.
The install is a fixed scope: we name the workflow, the system that fixes it, and the price before work starts. The retainer is for firms that want a partner on the operations side: monitoring, tuning, small extensions, and the next workflow queued without a new sales cycle. If you only ever buy one install and run it yourself, that is a fine outcome. I build so that leaving is easy, which is exactly why people stay.
The diagnosis. The thirty-minute audit is free and it ends with a map you keep either way: where the days go, what to automate first, what to leave alone. If a consultant charges you to find out whether they can help you, they have told you something about the engagement.
A few, learned the honest way. Pricing that will not survive contact with a question: if the number cannot be explained, it was not estimated. Per-seat pricing on work that does not scale by seats. A retainer you cannot leave without the system breaking: that is not a retainer, that is a hostage. And hype math: savings projections nobody shows the arithmetic for. Every calculator on this site shows its math and lets you change the assumptions. Hold anyone you hire to the same standard.
Fixed, almost always. You are buying an outcome, not my hours. Hourly shows up only in genuinely open-ended discovery work, and I will say so before the meter exists.
No. The retainer exists for firms that want it. An install with no retainer is a complete engagement, not a downgrade.
The scope names what working means before anything is built. If the system does not do what the scope says, I fix it on my dime. And if I do not think automation will work at all, you hear that in the audit, free.
Bring the workflow and get a number. Thirty minutes, straight answer.
Book the audit