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AI Automation Audit

The Most Valuable Page in the Report Is the One About What Not to Build

An audit that comes back with a list of opportunities is a sales document, and everybody in the room knows it. The one worth paying for tells you which of your ideas are not worth doing — the task done four times a year, the judgement that is genuinely hard, the thing your existing software already does behind a settings page nobody has opened. That version sells less work and is the only one worth the fee.

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An audit document and cost analysis laid out on a desk
The half people pay forWhat not to build
What you keep either wayThe write-up
The Numbers First

Six questions answered before anybody quotes a build

Each of these is cheap to answer now and expensive to discover three months into a project that should not have started.

  • Where do the hours actually go?Measured · not remembered
  • Which one is blocking something?Not the same as the biggest
  • Does your software already do it?Frequently · and nobody looked
  • What is the honest baseline?Written before anything is built
  • What would you stop doing?Some tasks should just end
  • What is not worth automating?The answer people remember

The fifth row surprises people and it is free money. Some of what an audit finds is not an automation candidate at all — it is a report nobody reads, an approval step everybody routes around, a form filled in because it always has been. Deleting a task beats automating it every single time, and an audit that never suggests deletion has not looked properly.

Straight Talk

Short, specific, and yours whether or not you hire us

The deliverable is a small document rather than a large one. Where the hours go, ranked by volume and by what they block. A recommendation per candidate: build, configure something you already pay for, delete the task, or leave it with a person. A written baseline for anything worth building, so a later result is a measurement rather than an opinion. And an honest first project, small enough to finish.

It is deliberately priced as a fixed fee and deducted from the first month if you go on to work with us, which removes the incentive to inflate it. An audit whose author is paid more when it recommends more work is not an audit, and this arrangement is the only way we know to say that credibly.

The recommendation "do nothing yet" is a real possible outcome and it has happened. Sometimes the honest answer is that the process itself is the problem and no amount of automation fixes a process nobody agrees on. Sometimes it is that hiring is genuinely cheaper — which is the standard answer in some of the markets we work in and is written up properly on our Pakistan page.

What you keep is the document, including the baseline measurements. If you take it to another supplier, it will make their work better and their quote more honest. That is not generosity, it is the only version of this that is worth buying, because an audit you cannot use without the person who wrote it is a sales call with a cover page.

  • Deleting beats automating — Some tasks should simply stop. An audit that never says so did not look.
  • Fixed fee, deducted later — Removes the incentive to recommend more work.
  • "Not yet" is a real outcome — And it has happened more than once.
  • The baseline is written first — Otherwise a later result is an opinion.
  • Yours to take elsewhere — Otherwise it is a sales call with a cover page.
An analyst reviewing a written process audit

An audit whose author is paid more when it recommends more work is not an audit.

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Ghalib Ashrafi Founder & Digital Strategist · 12+ years across search, social & web

What the audit actually covers

Six things, and two of them can end with us not selling you a build.

01

Where the Hours Go, Measured

Watched and timed rather than estimated from memory, because the task people complain about is regularly not the task that costs the most.

02

What You Already Pay For

The tools in your stack and what they do untouched. It is the least profitable thing in the report and it routinely removes a project from the list.

03

What Not to Build, With Reasons

Too rare, too much judgement, too expensive to be wrong about, or already solved. The section people quote back to us months later.

04

Tasks Worth Deleting

The report nobody reads, the approval everybody routes around, the form filled in from habit. Deleting beats automating, and it costs nothing.

05

A Written Baseline

How long each candidate takes today, recorded before anything changes. Without it, whatever happens later is a matter of opinion rather than a measurement.

06

One Honest First Project

Small enough to finish, chosen for what it unblocks rather than what it saves, with a realistic price and the exceptions already listed.

FixedFee, deducted from the first month
YoursThe document, whoever you hire
DeleteA recommendation we actually make
0Performance figures on this page

What clients say

Real clients, quoted in their own words — published with their permission.

More of them, in full, on our reviews page.

— Our Proprietary Methodology —

The Visibility Framework™, applied in Automation Audit

The method doesn’t change by market. What it’s pointed at does.

Step 01

Audit The Hours

Where time actually goes, task by task, scored on volume, repetition and the cost of getting it wrong. Ends in a ranked blueprint with estimated hours saved — yours to keep either way.

Step 02

Design The Guardrails

Before any building: what the agent may touch, where a human must approve, what happens when it is unsure, and which data is never allowed near a third-party model.

Step 03

Build & Evaluate

One workflow at a time, in your accounts, scored against real examples from your business before it touches live work. Shipped early so it meets reality while it is still cheap to change.

Step 04

Run & Improve

Monitored for cost, failures and quality drift. Models change, your business changes, and an automation nobody tends becomes a liability rather than an asset.

Honest, No-Nonsense Commitment

If the audit concludes that a task is not worth automating, we will tell you and refund the difference rather than build it anyway. And if a workflow we built does not hit the outcome we agreed in the blueprint, we keep working on it at no extra cost until it does or we take it out.

Investment

AI Automation pricing for Automation Audit, in GBP

A fixed fee, deducted in full from your first month if you go on to build with us. If the audit concludes you should not build anything yet, that is a legitimate result, you keep the document, and we have both spent less than a wrong project would have cost.

One Process

A single workflow, examined properly.

£450 one-off
  • Hours measured, not estimated
  • Build, configure, delete or leave alone
  • A written baseline you keep
Get a Quote

Organisation

Several teams or sites.

£2,500+ one-off
  • Per-team findings with shared priorities
  • A sequenced plan rather than a wish list
  • Presented to whoever holds the budget
Get a Quote

Every plan is scoped around your market — start with a free first look and we’ll recommend what fits, priced in GBP.

What you’re actually committing to

Most agencies keep this in a contract you only see after the sales call. We would rather you knew now, because it is the question everyone asks second — right after the price.

  • The audit is credited, not sunkPay for the audit, and the full amount comes off the build if you proceed. If you don’t, the blueprint is still yours to hand to anyone else.
  • A fixed build price after the auditQuoted once we know what we are building. If it takes longer than we estimated, that is our risk — the price only moves if you change the scope.
  • You own everythingAccounts, API keys, workflows, prompts, evaluation sets, logs and documentation — all in your name from day one, and still yours if we never work together again.
  • Running costs are yours and visibleAPI usage is billed by the provider directly to you. We never resell tokens or mark up usage, and you see the real number.
  • The retainer is month to month30 days’ notice, no exit fee. Stop it and your automations keep running — you are simply maintaining them yourself.
  • Human approval is the defaultAnything customer-facing or irreversible needs a person until the evaluation data justifies otherwise, and that decision is yours to make, not ours.

These are the terms as they appear in the agreement itself — nothing here is softened for the website. The full wording lives in our terms and conditions, and you get the agreement to read before anything is signed or invoiced.

Automation Audit AI Automation questions, answered

What do we actually receive? +
A short document: where the hours go ranked by what they block, a recommendation per candidate — build, configure something you already pay for, delete the task, or leave it with a person — a written baseline for anything worth building, and one honest first project small enough to finish. Short rather than impressive, because the long version is a sales document.
It is priced as a fixed fee and deducted from your first month if you go ahead, so there is no margin in recommending more. An audit whose author is paid more when it suggests more work is not an audit, and this arrangement is the only way we know to say that credibly rather than just promising it.
Yes, and it has been. Sometimes the process itself is the problem and no automation fixes a process nobody agrees on. Sometimes hiring is genuinely cheaper — which is the normal answer in some of the markets we work in and is written up properly on our Pakistan page rather than hidden.
Regularly, and it is free money. The report nobody reads, the approval step everybody routes around, the form filled in because it always has been. Deleting a task beats automating it every time, and an audit that never suggests it has not looked properly.
Yes, and it will make their work better and their quote more honest. That is not generosity — an audit you cannot use without the person who wrote it is a sales call with a cover page, and it is not worth paying for.
This happens before anything is built and asks whether it should be. Evaluation happens to a system that already exists and asks whether it works. Different questions at opposite ends of a project, and plenty of clients need both at different times.
Keep Exploring

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Same service, different angle — by market, by service and by industry.

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Tell us where the hours go in a normal week. We will tell you which one is blocking something, which your software already handles, and which of your ideas we would talk you out of.

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Get in touch with Ghalib Ashrafi HQ

Ghalib Ashrafi takes on work for brands in six markets — the UK, USA, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Australia and Pakistan. Every enquiry gets a reply within 24 hours.

Phone / WhatsApp: +92 343 2653224
Email: info@ghalibashrafi.com
Hours: Mon–Sat, 10am–7pm (PKT)
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