What an AI or Automation Project Looks Like, From First Call to Handoff

Below is how a project with me works, what it costs, and what I need from you.

Why I write this down

Business owners have told me they put off a project for months because they did not know what to ask or what to budget. Opaque pricing and technical jargon make people wait, and waiting gets expensive when someone on your team is losing hours every week to manual work. So here is the whole process, start to finish.

Step 1: A free first call

We talk for about 30 minutes. I ask what the problem is, what you are doing by hand right now, and what data or systems are involved.

There is no pitch deck. I am listening for whether I can help and what the simplest good solution would be. If you do not need AI, or a tool you already pay for can solve it, I will tell you.

Step 2: A fixed-price audit

Most projects start with an audit. I look at how the work gets done today, find the strongest opportunities, and rank them by impact, effort, and risk.

• Price: a fixed $750 to $1,500, depending on complexity.
• Time: one week.
• What you get: a written plan that doubles as a project proposal, with the recommended scope, priorities, timeline, and a fixed price for the build.

You keep the plan whether or not we go further. For websites, the audit works as a benchmark: I score your site against the best sites in your industry and give you a ranked list of fixes.

Step 3: The build

Once you approve the plan, I build it. Every week you get a check-in with progress and a demo, so you see the work as it develops instead of all at once at the end. A misunderstanding caught in week two costs very little to fix, and one caught at launch costs a lot more.

The price is fixed, so hours do not pile up on an open invoice. If the scope changes, we agree on the change in writing before I start on it.

Step 4: Deployment

I put the system into your own environment, with your data, and test it there. That includes the unglamorous parts like hosting, configuration, security certificates, backups, and a way to roll back if anything goes wrong. You do not need to be technical to work with me.

Step 5: Handoff

I make sure you or your team can run the system without me. You get documentation, a walkthrough, and answers to your questions. You own the code, and if you later hire someone else to maintain it, they will have everything they need.

What projects look like in practice

Every project is different, but most fall into a few shapes.

The smallest is a single automation: one painful, repetitive task handled for you, like weekly overdue-payment alerts or reports that assemble themselves. Those usually take one to two weeks.

A connected system takes longer, usually four to eight weeks. That is several tools that do not talk to each other, joined into one flow with a dashboard on top. For my own coworking space, I connected billing, payments, scheduling, and the CRM so one email address tied every record together.

Website redesigns and rebuilds cover design, build, and migration with redirects so you keep your search rankings. I rebuilt the Mesh Cowork site in about three weeks, and its main content now appears in 1.2 seconds instead of 16.

Then there are integrations with demanding outside systems. Some providers, like utilities, require security certificates, a test phase, and approval before you touch live data. Most of that timeline is their process rather than the code, so I plan for it from the start.

Your fixed price comes out of the audit, so you see the number in writing before any build work begins.

What I need from you

I need the problem described in plain language, with no technical terms required. I need access to the data and systems involved, or someone who can grant it. And I need your timeline and a rough budget range. If your budget and the scope are far apart, I would rather say so on day one than waste your time.

Common questions

What if something breaks after launch? Every project includes a support window. If there is a bug in my work, I fix it. New features are a new scope.

Do I own what you build? Yes. No licensing fees, no lock-in.

Will I be working with a team I never meet? No. You work with me, from the first call through handoff. There are no account managers and no handoffs between a designer and a developer.