
How to price ongoing automation maintenance.
Maintenance is a separate commercial product from the build, because you are selling availability rather than output. Price it against response, not hours.
Practical writing on automation delivery, APIs and the operational details that make systems reliable.
Showing notes tagged automation delivery.

Maintenance is a separate commercial product from the build, because you are selling availability rather than output. Price it against response, not hours.

Most agency automation work is data protection work, and it usually gets treated as though it is not. Controllers, processors and where the data actually goes.

A workflow runs every night and nobody fully understands it. Working is not the same as owned, and the difference only becomes visible when it stops.

Agencies that build automation are badly placed to advise against it, which is why the advice carries weight when it comes from them. Six clear signals.
Subcontracting technical work does not have to put the client relationship at risk. The protections are contractual and operational, and every one of them can be written down in advance.
A client wants a number by Friday for something you have never built. The cost is not in the build. It is in the unknowns behind it, and those are discoverable in an hour of questions.
Send us the requirement. We’ll tell you how we’d approach it, what it would require and whether it makes sense to build.
No pitch deck required. A rough description is enough.
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