Honest price breakdown, no sales pitch. What an automation costs depends on complexity, integrations, and which model you pick. We lay out the variants with realistic numbers.
A simple automation in SME-land costs between €1,500 and €5,000 one-off. A more extensive AI-driven solution with multiple integrations costs €5,000 to €15,000. On top of that you pay ongoing for hosting, management, and possibly API usage. With subscription models like Fusify.ai One you pay a fixed monthly fee (€5,000) for one complete delivery per month, plus €75 per running automation for hosting and SLA.
Automation costs always fall into three categories. Which ones you pay and how much depends on who builds and who manages.
The development of the automation itself. This is usually the biggest amount. How much depends on the number of steps, the number of systems that need to talk, and whether AI features are included.
The automation runs somewhere. Someone needs to take care of it, monitor whether it works, and step in if something breaks. This is usually a fixed monthly fee between €25 and €150 per automation.
Some automations use external services with pay-per-use. AI tokens (like OpenAI), SMS messages, emails via a transactional service. This can range from €0 to a few hundred euros per month, depending on volume.
A few examples from practice to give you an idea:
For instance: new lead gets an automatic confirmation and is added to CRM
For instance: sync webshop orders with your accounting
Smart input form, calculation, PDF in your brand style, accounting link
WhatsApp flow, image recognition, link to time tracking
KPIs from multiple sources, custom reporting, user permissions
Most automation partners work in one of two ways.
You request a quote for a specific project, pay the one-off amount, and own it. Upside: predictable end price. Downside: with multiple projects you negotiate each time, and standalone projects often get more expensive per piece because the learning curve for the builder starts over each time.
You pay a fixed monthly fee and get a complete automation delivered every month. Upside: predictable monthly costs, longer relationship in which the builder learns your business, so deliveries keep getting better. Downside: only worth it if you structurally have multiple projects.
An automation that saves four hours a week on a process at €75 per hour (internal rate of an owner or staff member) is worth €1,200 a month. At a €3,000 one-off investment the payback is then 2.5 months. For most SMEs a first automation pays for itself within three to six months.
On top of that there's value you can't directly put in euros: fewer mistakes, faster response to clients, no sleepless nights about admin, and a team with room for the work it was hired for.
Highly variable. A chatbot running a hundred conversations a month easily costs €20 to €60. An automation processing thousands of documents monthly can be €100 to €300. At Fusify.ai the provider (like OpenAI) bills you directly, with no markup from us. That keeps it transparent.
Yes. We offer a pilot for the first five companies: three months, €2,500 a month, no commitments after. Three working automations for €7,500. Email us if you're interested.
Not with us. Everything you pay is fixed up front: monthly fee for the delivery, hosting per running automation, and any API costs are billed directly to you by the provider. No add-ons, no overtime hours after the fact.
You can at any time. You keep everything we built, on your own accounts. You can choose to keep just hosting and SLA with us for €75 a month per automation, or take over the management yourself.
Take the 2-minute quiz. We'll work through what it pays back during a call.