The Happy Path Takes a Day. The Exceptions Take the Project.
There is a version of your process where every enquiry arrives complete, in the right format, from a person who behaves as expected. That version is quick to build and it is not the one you have. You have the duplicate submitted twice, the one with no phone number, the amount in the wrong currency, and the customer who replies to the automated message with a question. Those are the work, and most quotes price the day.
No credit card required · 30-minute call · No obligation to sign up
Six things that break a workflow in the first fortnight
Not one of these is exotic. Every one of them turns up within two weeks of going live, and every one is cheap to handle if it was scoped and expensive if it was not.
- The same thing submitted twiceImpatient click · two records now
- A required field that is emptyBecause the form let it through
- Somebody replies to the robotWith a real question, to nobody
- The wrong currency or formatOr a date read the American way
- The other system is downMid-run · halfway through
- A case nobody has seen beforeWhich is the whole point of exceptions
The fifth row is the one that quietly loses data. A workflow that fails halfway through has done some things and not others, and unless somebody designed what happens next, the record is now in a state nobody planned. Deciding in advance whether it retries, rolls back, or stops and shouts is twenty minutes of conversation and the difference between a hiccup and an afternoon of repair.
Watch it done by hand before automating it
The most useful hour on any automation project is spent watching somebody do the task manually and writing down every time they make a judgement. “This one is obviously a duplicate.” “That is the same company under a different name.” “I would chase this one but not that one.” Each of those is a rule that has never been written down, and each of them is an exception the automation will meet in its first fortnight. Skipping this hour is why so many workflows are rebuilt twice.
From that comes an honest scope, and it is usually larger than the version in your head and smaller than the version in a proposal. Larger because the exceptions are real; smaller because a good chunk of what people ask for turns out to be handled better by a person who now has the time. We say which is which before quoting rather than after.
Then it gets built to fail safely. Every step knows what happens if the thing it depends on is unavailable: retry, roll back, or stop and tell somebody. A workflow that dies silently halfway through is worse than one that never ran, because the second is obvious and the first is discovered three weeks later by a customer.
And there has to be a way to see what it did without opening the tool it was built in. A plain record of runs, what each one handled, and what it could not — readable by whoever is responsible for the process rather than by whoever built it. Automation nobody can inspect is automation nobody can trust, and it gets switched off the first time it does something surprising.
- ✓Watch it done by hand first — Every judgement they make is an unwritten rule and a future exception.
- ✓Scope bigger than you think — And smaller than the proposal. We say which before quoting.
- ✓Every step fails safely — Retry, roll back, or stop and shout. Never die silently.
- ✓Inspectable without the tool — Automation nobody can look at is automation nobody trusts.
- ✓Some of it stays human — And is better for it, once that person has the time back.
A workflow that dies silently halfway through is worse than one that never ran. The second is obvious; the first is found by a customer.
How the work actually runs
Six steps, and the first one is an hour of watching.
Watch It Done Manually
One hour, writing down every judgement the person makes. Those judgements are the rules nobody wrote down, and they are the exceptions the build will meet in its first fortnight.
An Exception List, Priced
Duplicates, missing fields, odd formats, replies to automated messages. Listed before the quote, so the number is for the thing you actually have rather than the tidy version.
Failure Behaviour Per Step
Retry, roll back, or stop and tell a named person. Decided in twenty minutes of conversation, and it is the difference between a hiccup and an afternoon of repair.
A Run Record You Can Read
What ran, what it handled, what it could not — visible without opening the tool it was built in, by whoever owns the process rather than whoever built it.
What Stays Human
The judgement calls that are genuinely hard, and the tasks too rare to be worth it. Named explicitly, because a scope that automates everything is a scope nobody checked.
Built in Your Accounts
On tools and logins you own, documented so somebody who has never met us can maintain it. Running costs are billed to you directly, not through us.
What clients say
Real clients, quoted in their own words — published with their permission.
“It was a pleasure working with Ghalib and his team.”
“We’re very thankful to Ghalib and his team for building a fully-functioning website for our business.”
“Ghalib’s clear guidance has helped improve our website’s SEO performance.”
More of them, in full, on our reviews page.
— Our Proprietary Methodology —
The Visibility Framework™, applied in Workflow Automation
The method doesn’t change by market. What it’s pointed at does.
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.
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.
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.
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.
AI Automation pricing for Workflow Automation, in GBP
Quoted in pounds after the exception list exists. A workflow quoted before anybody has written down what actually arrives is a quote for the happy path, and the difference between those two numbers is usually most of the project.
One Workflow
A single process, done properly.
- An hour watching it done by hand
- Exception list written and priced
- Failure behaviour agreed per step
Process Set
The usual one. Three or four connected.
- Everything in One Workflow, across a set
- Shared run record across all of them
- What stays human, named explicitly
- Optional: bundle in SEO or Website Development
Ongoing
Building and maintaining as you go.
- A defined number of workflows per quarter
- Monitoring, and fixing what drifts
- New exceptions handled as they appear
- Optional: combine all 4 services for full-funnel growth
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.
Workflow Automation AI Automation questions, answered
Related AI Automation pages
Same service, different angle — by market, by service and by industry.
Want the exceptions priced, not discovered?
Free 30-minute call · No obligation · Response within 24 hours
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.