How Much Does AI Automation Cost? UK Prices 2026

Overview

AI automation costs three things, and firms price them separately. Finding what to automate is an audit or assessment. Setting up is the build. Running is the monthly bill for the tools, plus a looking-after plan if you want one. Every UK firm figure below comes from the firm's own website, read on 2 November 2026. Prices marked "from" are starting points, not quotes. Only Augustova and Revio say their prices exclude VAT; the other pages do not say.

The short version for a business of five people: the published audit prices start at £247 and the published build prices start at £595 for one small automation and £3,000 for a larger first build. Tools add roughly £100 a month. In the worked example below, two combinations of published starting prices come to about £4,600 and £15,500 for the first year, and "from" prices can end higher. Our own prices are further down, stated separately.

Finding

An audit or assessment is a short piece of paid work that ends in a written list of what to automate, ranked. Six UK firms publish an entry price.

The cheapest are short. Skirr AI's £247 review is a two-page written plan in 48 hours with a 30-minute call. Augustova's £495 quick audit is for firms of up to about 25 staff: a 90-minute session and a report naming your three best automations. HeyBRB's £499 assessment is a 45-minute call and a report in 5 business days. Prime AI Solutions says it typically works with organisations of 50 to 500 employees, so it is not aimed at a five-person firm.

Fuller audits cost more. Skirr AI's Starter Audit is £4,500 for organisations of 2 to 15 people and its Growth Audit is £9,300 for 16 to 50. Augustova's full audit is £2,500 to £6,000. Both Augustova and Revio say the audit fee is credited against a build, and Skirr AI says £297 comes off a Starter Audit if you upgrade from its quick review. It also says its Starter and Growth audits include a 12-month After-Audit Programme, with calls and support, at no extra cost.

Setting Up

The build is the largest cost. These are the starting prices three firms publish for a first piece of automation. Single automations cost less than larger builds: Augustova also lists a Single Automation from £595, excluding VAT, then £39 a month.

The names differ and so does the size. Revio's £4,500 pilot is one process, built into the CRM you already run, at a fixed price. Its home page says 3 to 4 weeks and its pricing page about a week. Augustova's implementation runs from £4,000 up to £15,000 and takes one to three weeks. ajairu.ai's £3,000 automation is for workflow work with tools you already use, while its £8,000 implementation adds integrations, training and 30 days of support. Revio's full system starts at £12,000 and takes 6 to 12 weeks.

Fixed prices are the norm in these listings. Augustova says there are "no day rates, no retainers, no minimum project size", and ajairu.ai says "all engagements are fixed-price". None of the six publishes a consulting day rate of its own, though Revio prices training at £1,200 a day.

Running

Running has two parts: the tools, and anyone you pay to look after them.

Tools. These are the plans a small business is most likely to meet, from each vendor's own pricing page.

These are not like for like. n8n charges by how many workflow runs you use a month, 2,500 on Starter and 10,000 on Pro. Zapier counts "tasks", one for each successful action, not the trigger. ChatGPT Business and Google Workspace charge per person. Zapier's figure is for its lowest Professional setting, 750 tasks a month. We could not read Make's plan prices on the day, so Make is left out. For a comparison of the three automation tools, see Zapier vs Make vs n8n.

Looking after it. Some firms sell a monthly plan. Augustova lists care plans from £39 a month, and Revio charges from £450 a month, rolling, "never a condition of the build", both excluding VAT. Three firms sell a part-time AI lead rather than upkeep: Prime AI Solutions from £1,500 a month, ajairu.ai at £2,000 to £5,000 and Revio from £3,500.

Example

Take a business of five people. We use the firms' own starting prices as they stand, for the first year only (Augustova and Revio exclude VAT; the others do not say). The tools are five ChatGPT Business seats at £15 and n8n Starter at £20, which is £95 a month or £1,140 a year. n8n's £20 is billed annually, so £240 is paid up front; month to month it is £24. This is our own illustration, not a quote, and it assumes the build prices do not include the tool subscriptions or any audit credit.

The lower case is HeyBRB's £499 assessment plus ajairu.ai's £3,000 automation, with no looking-after plan. The higher case is Skirr AI's £4,500 Starter Audit, Revio's £4,500 pilot and its £450 a month plan for 12 months. From year two, the lower case costs £95 a month and the higher £545 a month. The higher case mixes two firms' offers: Skirr AI says its Starter audit already includes 12 months of after-audit calls and support, so the £5,400 counts some looking-after twice. Read it as a ceiling, not a typical bill.

Drivers

Five things move the price, from what the firms themselves publish.

• Your size. Skirr AI charges £4,500 for 2 to 15 people and £9,300 for 16 to 50. Augustova's audit ranges from £2,500 to £6,000.
• How many tools it touches. Revio's pilot is built into the CRM you already run. ajairu.ai prices workflow automation from £3,000 and implementation with integrations from £8,000.
• How much it runs. Tool bills follow usage: n8n by workflow runs, Zapier by tasks, ChatGPT Business by seat.
• Looking-after. A plan adds a monthly cost, but you can say no. Revio's is "never a condition of the build".
• Training. Augustova lists a team workshop at £895, and ajairu.ai lists training from £1,500.

What makes it cheaper: one job at a time, tools you already pay for, and a fixed price agreed before work starts.

Own Hours

You can do all three parts yourself. The tools have free or low plans: Zapier's free plan covers 100 tasks a month, and n8n Starter is £20 a month. The real cost is your time.

Price your hours at the legal minimum and it is still real money: the National Living Wage for people aged 21 and over is £12.71 an hour from April 2026, so every 10 hours is £127.10. An owner's time is usually worth more than the minimum wage. Multiply by the hours you think it will take, then add the hours you will spend fixing it when a tool changes. That second figure is the one people forget.

An audit that gives you a step-by-step guide cuts the hours, because you start with a ranked list instead of a blank page. The DIY route is a good fit when you enjoy the work and the job is small. It is a poor fit when you would rather be on a job.

Tunewell

Our prices are below. We are not VAT registered, so the price shown is what you pay.

A Check-Up includes one Quick Win set up and working by the time the report arrives, chosen from More Reviews, Invoices Chased or Weekly Numbers. Builds are at a fixed price, agreed before we start and paid in three stages. If you go ahead within 30 days, what you paid for the review comes off the build. A Care Plan is optional, and keeps what we built running and fixes anything that stops by the next working day. The Intro Call is free and lasts 30 minutes.

We take no commission from any tool, you own everything we build, and the report is yours to use with anyone, including to do the work yourself. In the five-person example, a Check-Up and the same tools come to £1,635 for the first year, with a build quoted on top if you want one. See also AI Receptionist UK for one job priced in detail.