Start here · Three practical steps
- Define one workflow and the volume it needs to handle.
- Include setup, subscriptions, usage, review and maintenance.
- Compare the full cost with the time and quality gained in a pilot.
AI automation costs include the software, the work needed to connect it to your business and the effort required to keep it useful. These are different expenses. A low subscription price can sit inside an expensive implementation, while a simple workflow may need little custom development.
For concrete reference points, Microsoft's US pricing page lists Power Automate Premium at US$15 per user per month, paid yearly, and Power Automate Process at US$150 per bot per month, paid yearly. They serve different licensing needs; neither is a quote for a finished AI project. Prices checked on 24 September 2026. See Microsoft's pricing and conditions.
These are automation-platform licence prices, not an all-in AI service. AI Builder actions consume credits, and additional AI capacity may be needed. Ask which AI Builder or Copilot Credits apply to your account, what is included and how extra usage is funded. Microsoft's AI-credit licensing documentation explains these separate consumption rules.
To budget sensibly, price one defined workflow and compare its full cost with the work it actually removes. The framework below combines verified supplier examples with an explicitly hypothetical project calculation.
1. Separate product prices from implementation costs
A ready-made tool, a workflow connecting existing applications and a custom system require different amounts of work. Before requesting a quote, describe the input, required output, monthly volume and person responsible for exceptions.
| Scope | What you are buying | Work to include |
|---|---|---|
| Staff assistant | A tool employees use to draft or analyse material. | Accounts, permissions, task templates, training and checking time. |
| Connected workflow | A defined process across email, a CRM or another application. | Integration, field mapping, approvals, testing and failure handling. |
| Custom application | A dedicated interface or specialised business process. | Development, hosting, access management, maintenance and handover. |
Ask suppliers to split the essential first release from later additions. For example, extracting an enquiry into a CRM draft is a narrower scope than qualifying the lead, sending a quote and booking a sales meeting. Each additional action needs its own rules and tests.
- Setup
Include integration, testing and team training.
- Running costs
Count software, usage, support and internal upkeep.
- Benefit
Value the time released after checking and corrections.
Compare full cost with measured benefit.
Reduce scope or revisit the decision.
Illustrative workflow · Adapt the checks and responsibilities to your business.
2. Understand how usage is charged
Some services charge by seat; others charge by documents, workflow actions, tokens or call minutes. An individual customer request can trigger several chargeable actions. Failed attempts and retries may add usage too.
For a document example, AWS lists Amazon Textract Analyze Expense at US$0.01 per page for the first million pages in its US West (Oregon) pricing example. At that rate, 2,000 pages would cost US$20 for extraction alone. This excludes the surrounding application, storage, review and implementation. It is a regional API price, not the price of a complete invoice service. Checked on 24 September 2026: Amazon Textract pricing.
Workflow billing has its own distinctions. Make explains that non-AI operations consume credits, while AI consumption can depend on connection type and token use. With a custom AI-provider connection, the model provider charges for tokens separately. See Make's credit documentation. The planning lesson is to count the actions in a completed workflow, not assume one enquiry equals one billing unit.
Request estimates at ordinary volume and at twice that volume. Include long documents, retries and seasonal peaks. Ask which spending limits and alerts can be configured, and what users will see when a limit is reached.
3. Build a complete first-year budget
A usable quote should identify the following costs even when some are included in a fixed fee.
- Setup: process mapping, data preparation, connections, access configuration, testing, documentation and launch.
- Software: subscriptions, required plan upgrades, hosting, storage and any extra environments.
- Usage: model consumption, document processing, communication services and overages.
- Ongoing support: monitoring, fixing failed runs, adapting to application changes and maintaining source information.
- Your team's time: discovery sessions, training, review, exception handling and ownership of the process.
Ask whether taxes are included and keep the budget in one currency. A US dollar list price does not establish the price a UK or European business will pay. Billing location, exchange rates, contract terms and applicable taxes can change the payable amount.
A simple cash-budget formula is: setup payments + twelve months of recurring payments + expected usage and other one-off charges. Record internal time alongside it, without automatically treating existing salaries as additional cash spending.
4. Work through the benefit after review time
The following figures are hypothetical planning assumptions, not Evoogen prices, supplier quotations or market averages. Imagine a team preparing 600 service-request records each month. Each takes six minutes manually. An AI-assisted process takes two minutes to review and finish each record.
600 records a month · Hypothetical planning example from this guide
of capacity released before the additional 2 hours of monthly upkeep.
Assumptions, not measured results. Released capacity is not automatically a cash saving. The table below includes operating costs and upkeep.
| Item | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Time released | 600 × (6 − 2) minutes ÷ 60 | 40 hours |
| Capacity value | 40 hours × assumed £25/hour | £1,000 |
| Software and usage | Assumed monthly allowance | £100 |
| External support | Assumed monthly fee | £200 |
| Internal upkeep | 2 additional hours × £25/hour | £50 |
| Net capacity benefit | £1,000 − £100 − £200 − £50 | £650/month |
If setup costs £3,000, simple payback on those assumptions is £3,000 ÷ £650, or approximately 4.6 months. That is a capacity-based calculation. If payroll and other spending remain unchanged, it does not mean £650 appears in the bank each month.
In this example, first-year external cash spending would be £3,000 + 12 × £300 = £6,600. Internal upkeep represents another £600 of valued time. Keep those categories distinct so a forecast does not present released staff capacity as guaranteed cash savings.
5. Find the assumptions that could overturn the decision
Keep the same £350 monthly operating cost, including upkeep, and test lower usage or longer reviews:
| Scenario | Net monthly benefit | Simple payback |
|---|---|---|
| 600 cases, two-minute review | £650 | About 4.6 months |
| 300 cases, two-minute review | £150 | 20 months |
| 600 cases, four-minute review | £150 | 20 months |
| 300 cases, four-minute review | −£100 | No positive payback |
This simplified comparison holds operating costs fixed to isolate the effect. In a real forecast, adjust variable usage charges as volume changes. Also count staff time dealing with mistakes and interruptions.
Faster responses or better records may matter beyond time saved. Give those benefits their own measures. Avoid counting the same released hours once as labour savings and again as new revenue without evidence that the extra work can actually be sold and delivered.
6. Request a quote you can compare
Send each supplier the same scope, example inputs, expected volume, approval rules and acceptance criteria. Request setup and recurring amounts, exclusions, account ownership, support arrangements and an exit plan. Establish who pays when a connected application changes and what counts as a new feature.
Use a bounded pilot to replace assumptions with observed checking time and usage. Agree the maximum spend and the evidence needed to proceed before expanding the system.
Want to understand the cost for your business? Tell Evoogen which task you want to improve, which applications it touches and roughly how often it happens. That is enough to start defining a scope that can be priced meaningfully.
From reading to doing
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Prefer email? support@evoogen.comSources & further reading
Primary references used in this guide. Product details and requirements can change.
- Microsoft Power Automate pricingChecked 2026-09-24
- Microsoft Learn: Licensing and AI Builder creditsChecked 2026-09-24
- Amazon Textract pricingChecked 2026-09-24
- Make Help Center: CreditsChecked 2026-09-24