Guides
The questions people actually ask before committing to an AI agent build, answered without a discovery call in the way.
How Long Until an AI Agent Pays for Itself?
What the published research says about AI payback timing, why the three-month claims on page one are not sourced, and how to set a target your CFO will still believe in month six.
Do AI Agents Make Sense at 10-100 Employees?
US Census data shows AI adoption is really a company-size gap. What that means if you are the size that is being left behind, and when the honest answer is to wait.
What an AI Consultant Costs
Published hourly rates for AI and engineering consultants, what an hourly arrangement does to the incentives, and when hiring one is still the right call.
What to Ask an AI Agency Before You Sign
Twelve questions worth asking any AI automation agency, what a good answer sounds like, and our own answers to each so you have something to compare against.
How Much Does It Cost to Build an AI Agent?
Real 2026 pricing for custom AI agents — build costs, ongoing costs, and how to work out payback against what the work costs you today.
What an AI Automation Agency Actually Costs
Real monthly pricing for done-for-you AI agent work, why almost nobody in this market publishes a number, and what the ranges you are being quoted are actually for.
What an AI Agent Costs Per Month to Run
The recurring bill after the build is finished — models, orchestration, monitoring and human review — itemised, with published vendor prices rather than estimates.
The Hidden Costs of an AI Agent
The costs that do not appear in any quote: review time, rework, the maintenance tail, and the measured gap between how fast people feel with AI and how fast they actually are.
AI Agent Cost vs Salary: The Actual Comparison
What an AI agent costs against what an employee costs, using published BLS wage data and real loaded-cost multipliers.
How to Calculate ROI on an AI Agent
A method for working out the return on an AI agent build that a CFO will accept, including the costs most estimates leave out.
AI Agent Pricing Models Explained
Fixed fee, per-agent, per-seat, usage-based and outcome-based pricing for AI agent work — what each one means for the buyer.
Why AI Agent Projects Fail
The failure modes that kill AI agent pilots before production, and what separates the deployments that survive.
Who Owns Your AI Agents If You Stop Paying?
What happens to the automations an agency built for you when the contract ends — the questions to ask before signing, and why the answer tells you what the contract is really for.
How to Decide What to Automate First
A scoring method for choosing which repetitive work to hand to an AI agent first, based on volume, rule-clarity and cost of error.
AI Agents vs Traditional Automation
Where rule-based automation like Zapier stops working and an AI agent starts making sense — and where the reverse is true.
AI Agent Security: What to Ask Before You Buy
The security and access questions to put to anyone building AI agents inside your systems, and what good answers sound like.