AUD, inc. GST, fixed price
AI automation pricing in Australia
Most projects land between $2,000 and $15,000 AUD. No hourly black box, no per-seat licence creeping up every quarter — one fixed number you agree to before any code is written. This page lays out what each band buys, how we invoice, and what actually moves the price. It is written by Lakitha Sahan, the engineer who builds the work, not a sales team.
The $2,000-$15,000 band, broken down
These ranges are real, not a teaser. The work scales from a single automation that quietly runs one job to a custom AI agent that reads context and makes decisions on your behalf. Most SMBs we work with sit in the middle.
$2,000 - $4,000
Single workflow automation
One clearly-defined job that runs without you. Think: a new lead form fills out your CRM and fires a templated reply, or paid invoices in Xero auto-trigger a follow-up sequence.
- One trigger, one outcome — scoped to a single process
- Connects 2-3 tools you already pay for (Xero, HubSpot, Gmail, a form)
- Live in 1-2 weeks
Most common
$4,000 - $9,000
Multi-step automation across your stack
Several steps chained across multiple systems, with branching logic and error handling. The kind of thing you would otherwise hire a part-time admin to babysit.
- Multiple triggers and conditional paths
- 4-6 integrations, plus data clean-up and de-duplication
- Logging and alerts so you know when something needs a human
- Live in 2-3 weeks
$9,000 - $15,000
Custom AI agent build
An AI agent that reads context, makes a decision, and acts — drafting quotes, triaging inbound email, answering customer questions from your own documents. Built and tuned to your data.
- Custom AI agent grounded in your knowledge and rules
- Connected to live systems so it actually does work, not just chat
- Guardrails, human-in-the-loop checkpoints, and evaluation before go-live
- Live in 3-4 weeks
All figures AUD and inclusive of 10% GST. Custom AI agent work for accounting firms and trades businesses typically sits at the upper end of the band.
How you pay, and when it goes live
50/50 split via Xero
Half on sign-off of the scope, half when it is live and working. You get a proper tax invoice through Xero each time — the same accounting tool you probably already run. No retainers, no upfront-everything risk.
Live in 2-4 weeks
A single workflow can be live in 1-2 weeks. A full custom AI agent build takes 3-4 weeks including testing and guardrails. You will see progress along the way, not a silent black box for a month.
Fixed price, no surprises
The number on your scope is the number you pay. If we discover the job is bigger than the audit suggested, we tell you before doing the work — we never quietly bill more.
What actually drives the price
Two projects that look identical from the outside can differ by $6,000. Here is what moves the number, in plain terms.
Number of systems
Two tools with a clean API is cheap. Six tools, one of which is a 2009 desktop app with no API, is not. Integration surface is the single biggest cost lever.
How messy the data is
If your contact list has the same client spelled four ways, we fix that before automating it. Data clean-up is real engineering time, and it is the difference between automation that works and automation you stop trusting.
Decisioning vs. plumbing
Moving data from A to B is plumbing. An agent that decides what to do with that data — which quote to draft, which email to escalate — needs grounding, testing, and guardrails. That is where the top of the band goes.
Edge cases and volume
Handling the happy path is fast. Handling the 12 weird ways your real customers behave, at the volume you actually run, is what makes it production-grade.
A worked example. A Melbourne trades business spending roughly 10 hours a week manually building quotes — call it $400/week in owner time — paid $6,500 inc. GST for an AI agent that drafts quotes from job details and pushes them to Xero. At ~$1,600/month recovered, it paid for itself inside five months. See more in AI automation in Melbourne.
Illustrative; based on typical AU SMB rates — your numbers will vary with your hours, job values and scope.
Pricing questions, answered
Most Zatersio projects land between $2,000 and $15,000 AUD inc. GST, fixed price. Simple single-workflow automations sit at the low end; full custom AI agent builds connected to your live systems sit at the high end. You get an exact scope and number after a free audit — before you commit a cent.
Around $2,000 AUD for a single, clearly-defined workflow automation — for example, new leads from a form landing in your CRM with a templated reply, or paid Xero invoices triggering an automatic follow-up. If a job is genuinely smaller than that, we'll tell you it isn't worth paying us to build and point you at the right tool.
No mandatory monthly fee. We work on fixed-price projects, so the number we quote is the number you pay. Some clients choose an optional support-and-improvement arrangement after launch, but it's never a condition of the build — you own what we deliver.
Four things: how many systems we connect, how messy your existing data is, whether the work is plain data-plumbing or an AI agent making decisions (which needs grounding and guardrails), and how many real-world edge cases and what volume we have to handle in production.
Yes. Every figure we quote is in AUD and includes 10% GST. You'll get a proper tax invoice through Xero, so the amount on your quote is the amount you pay — no surprises at checkout.
Get an exact number, not a range
Book a free audit and we will scope your highest-value automation, show you the math, and quote a fixed price in AUD inc. GST. No obligation, no account managers — you talk straight to the engineer.
Book a Free Audit