Small-business automation maintenance
Ongoing operational reliability across a defined automation estate.
- For
- Small agencies using many business integrations
- Solves
- Automations break silently after upstream changes.
- Delivers
- Maintained workflows and monthly reliability report
- Built in
- about 5 weeks of creation time, MVP in 6 days
- Investment
- $11,000 for the MVP, $45,000 for the full product
- Run it
- Inside your business, or as part of your offer to clients
What it does
For small agencies using many business integrations, turn authorized workflow definitions and execution records into maintained workflows and monthly reliability report.
- Monitor executions.
- Detect schema changes.
- Retry safe operations.
- Reconcile duplicates.
- Alert workflow owners.
- Update runbooks.
What goes in, what comes out
- Authorized workflow definitions
- Execution records
AI drafts, people review. Technical delivery workspace with managed implementation.
- Maintained workflows
- Monthly reliability report
How it works
The workflow
- InStart with
Authorized workflow definitions and execution records
- 1
Scope one technical task
- 2
Inspect authorized material
- 3
Propose an implementation
- 4
Build in a controlled environment
- 5
Run relevant checks
- 6
Obtain the required change approval
- 7
Deliver with recovery instructions
- 8
Monitor the agreed operating scope
- OutFinish with
Maintained workflows and monthly reliability report
AI does the heavy lifting, people stay in charge
Explain code or configuration, draft transformations and propose technical changes. Execute deterministic validation and meaningful tests. Engineers review correctness, access handling and failure behavior before deployment.
What your team sees
Key screens: Health dashboard, failure queue, maintenance history. Show a work backlog, proposed changes and verification results. Link each item to its source configuration, code or data mapping. Provide execution logs and an owner-facing health view. Keep environments and approval states clearly separated so a draft cannot be mistaken for a live change. In this product, the first view is health dashboard, followed by failure queue and maintenance history.
Accounts and administration
Project access, environment separation, versioned changes, test evidence, owner approvals, execution logs, rollback instructions and incident handling.
Integrations and data access
Authorized repositories, technical documentation, application APIs and logs. Approved repositories, application APIs, execution platforms and monitoring systems. Validate current API access and behavior during discovery before promising compatibility. These are candidate integration categories, not verified supported connectors.
How we build it
We build with our own AI software development factory, so most implementations take days to a few weeks of creation time, not months. You see working software at every step, and exact timing depends on availability.
- 1
Scoping call
Day 1Thirty minutes on your process, your data and how you want to run it: for your own team, or for your clients. You get a fixed scope and price for the MVP.
- 2
MVP
6 daysOne buyer segment, one recurring use case; first modules: monitor executions; detect schema changes. Manual review in the loop. Built by our AI software factory.
- 3
Paid pilot
7 daysAccounts, roles, review states, audit trail and the first integration, hardened for two to three paying pilot customers.
- 4
Full product
3 weeksRemaining modules: reconcile duplicates; alert workflow owners; update runbooks. Self-serve onboarding, billing, monitoring and the wider integration set.
- 5
Run and improve
MonthlyWe host, monitor and improve it for a fixed monthly fee, or hand it over to your team. How the retainer works.
Why we start with an MVP
An MVP, or minimum viable product, is the smallest version that your users can actually work with. It is not a cheap version of the full solution. It is a test, built to answer the questions that decide whether the rest is worth building.
- Pick the riskiest assumption. Here: will small agencies using many business integrations use it to solve "automations break silently after upstream changes"?
- Build only what tests it. One team, one use case, a few core modules. People do the rest by hand for now.
- Run a paid pilot. Implement one bounded task in a safe test environment.
- Measure, then decide. Track successful runs and recovery time. Then expand, change course or stop, with evidence instead of opinions.
MVP scope for this solution. Begin with small agencies using many business integrations and one recurring use case. Build the first two modules: monitor executions; detect schema changes. Provide operator assistance for the third module: retry safe operations. Deliver maintained workflows and monthly reliability report through a manual review queue. Perform other necessary full-scope functions manually during the pilot. Include all applicable access, accuracy and professional-review controls from the start.
After the MVP. After paid pilots establish value, automate the remaining modules: reconcile duplicates; alert workflow owners; update runbooks. Add one validated source integration, reusable customer configuration and recurring delivery. Expand to additional teams, document formats or languages only after testing the new scope.
What the build depends on. Authorized technical access, suitable test environments, documented APIs or schemas, secrets management, meaningful checks and recovery procedures.
Investment
A planning range to start the conversation, not a quote. You pay per phase, so you can stop after the MVP.
- Phase 1
MVP
One buyer segment, one recurring use case; first modules: monitor executions; detect schema changes. Manual review in the loop.
- Phase 2
Paid pilot
Accounts, roles, review states, audit trail and the first integration, hardened for two to three paying pilot customers.
- Phase 3
Full product
Remaining modules: reconcile duplicates; alert workflow owners; update runbooks. Self-serve onboarding, billing, monitoring and the wider integration set.
Indicative total, MVP to full product$45,000about 5 weeks of creation time · start with the MVP from $11,000
Running costs per month
A rough indication of monthly hosting and AI model costs once it is live, not tested. Real costs depend on usage, file sizes and the models chosen.
| Stage | Hosting and infrastructure | AI usage | Total per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| MVP and paid pilotabout 3 customers | $30–$60 | $60–$120 | $90–$180 |
| Full productabout 50 customers | $110–$210 | $530–$1,050 | $640–$1,260 |
Run it or resell it
For your own team
Small agencies using many business integrations run it inside the business: authorized workflow definitions and execution records in, maintained workflows and monthly reliability report out, reviewed by your people.
As part of your offer
Agencies, consultancies and software companies can offer it to their own clients under their brand. We build and maintain it; you sell and deliver it.
Your brand, or this one
Run it under your own brand, or start from this concept style.
- primary
#278591 - accent
#c96254 - surface
#e4eff1 - ink
#22201e
- Headings
- Fraunces
- Text
- Inter
- Voice
- Technical, direct, no hype
Selling it to your own clients: the go-to-market playbook
Pricing to test
Test USD 1,000-4,000 for one bounded implementation or technical review, then USD 200-1,000 monthly for defined maintenance. Hosting, vendor fees and major feature changes are separate. Prices are hypotheses.
Message to test
Small-business automation maintenance for small agencies using many business integrations. Ongoing operational reliability across a defined automation estate. Demonstrate the claim through an automation health check with failure examples.
Where to find buyers
Automation implementation partners
Lead magnet
An automation health check with failure examples
The first 30 days
- Week 1: interview five prospective buyers in this segment: small agencies using many business integrations. Ask to see a recent example of the problem and their current process.
- Week 2: prepare this demonstration using authorized or synthetic material: an automation health check with failure examples.
- Week 3: present it through automation implementation partners and seek one narrowly scoped paid pilot.
- Week 4: review successful runs, recovery time, total delivery effort and a concrete renewal decision before increasing scope.
Paid pilot
Implement one bounded task in a safe test environment. Demonstrate normal operation, failure handling and recovery with representative inputs. Have the responsible technical owner review the results. For this solution, use authorized workflow definitions and execution records and evaluate maintained workflows and monthly reliability report. Agree success thresholds with the buyer before starting; collect a baseline for successful runs, recovery time. A positive signal is payment and repeat use with acceptable quality and delivery cost, not a favorable demo reaction alone.
Success metrics
Successful runs, recovery time
Retention and expansion
Maintain agreed integrations or technical assets, review failures and upstream changes, and sell additional scoped work only after the first implementation is stable.
Why clients would pick it
Reliable niche implementations, integration knowledge, representative tests and ongoing operational responsibility. For this solution, build around ongoing operational reliability across a defined automation estate. This advantage requires execution and accumulated customer trust; the base model alone is not a defensible asset.
Alternatives and positioning
Developers, system integrators, existing automation products and internal engineering work. Differentiate on this specific proposed advantage: ongoing operational reliability across a defined automation estate. Test it against the buyer's current method on the same task. Competitor coverage and uniqueness have not been established.
Main delivery costs
Engineering, testing, cloud execution, third-party API fees, monitoring, incident response and vendor-change maintenance.
Safeguards
Protect secrets, customer data and source code. Use controlled environments, technical review and a recoverable deployment process. Validate source access and reviewer availability during the pilot. Maintain customer-level access, data deletion controls and a record of final approvals.