AI · n8n · Chatbots · Custom builds · UK

Your busywork,
automated. Properly.

If you've grown faster than your processes, automation is the cheapest way to scale without adding headcount. We map where your team's time actually goes, then build the systems that give it back. Fixed price agreed before we start, clear handover, no vague AI promises.

£27k/yr saved for one client — a full-time role of manual checking£3,000 fixed price to start a build. Agreed before we beginA day a week the kind of time clients get backFree 30-minute call to find out what yours is worth

Fixed price, agreed upfront

Builds from £3,000. You know the number before we start.

Scoped within 48 hours

One call, then a written scope — not three weeks of meetings.

Live in 2–6 weeks

Built, tested and handed over with your team trained on it.

Manufacturing to professional services

Engineering, logistics, property, hospitality, recruitment, finance.

Popular automations we build

The jobs people ask us for most.

  1. 01

    New enquiry → straight into your CRM, with a Slack or email nudge

  2. 02

    Website or WhatsApp message → booked in → your team notified

  3. 03

    Messy inbox → AI reads it, summarises, drops it in a sheet

  4. 04

    Google Sheet → tidy report → emailed to your client on schedule

  5. 05

    Stripe payment → CRM updated, receipt sent, subscription sorted

  6. 06

    Broken Zapier or Make flow → rebuilt so it stops falling over

  7. 07

    Telegram bot for alerts, content delivery or internal tools

  8. 08

    AI chatbot for FAQs, bookings and lead capture

Trusted by
What clients say

Five out of five, twice.

Working with my developer Ben has been an outstanding experience from start to finish. His communication has been clear and quick, his work has been fast and accurate… I’m extremely grateful for everything Ben has done, highly recommended.
NG

Nezmaster games

A Story To Tell · Verified Google review

I work with them for a while now, they are nothing less than hard working, fast responding, and very dedicated agency. Highly recommend.
DI

Dor Iluz

Marmadbir · Verified Google review · Local Guide, 27 reviews

What we build

Buyer-friendly, engineer-built.

Not sure which one fits? Book a free audit and we'll tell you straight.

Fixed-price starter builds

Need one thing built? Start here.

Two ways to work with us. Need one specific thing built? Pick a fixed-price starter below. Not sure where to start, or want a plan first? Book the free audit — we'll map it out and only build what's worth building.

£350

Simple automation

One workflow connecting 2–3 tools — a form, a sheet, a CRM update, a Slack or email alert.

£750

AI workflow

A Claude or OpenAI workflow that classifies, drafts, summarises, routes or extracts.

£750

Chatbot

A WhatsApp, website, Telegram or SMS chatbot for FAQs, bookings, lead capture or support.

£1,500

Internal tool / dashboard

A small dashboard, admin panel, Supabase app or workflow control panel.

£1,500

Process audit

The full diagnostic — see the audit section below.

First paid engagement

The Process Audit: know exactly what to automate before spending a pound on building it.

A discovery call shows you what's possible. A Process Audit tells you exactly what to build, in what order, and what return to expect — in writing.

Over one to two weeks we map your core workflows, identify the automation opportunities with the highest ROI, and deliver a written report you can hand to any developer — including us.

  • Full process map of your current workflows
  • Prioritised automation opportunities with effort and ROI estimates
  • Technical architecture recommendation per opportunity
  • Fixed-price implementation quote for each item
  • Written report — yours to keep, regardless of next steps
Get Started — Book a Discovery Call

Process Audit

£1,500

Fixed fee. Credited in full against your build if you proceed within 60 days. If you don't, you keep the report — no strings attached.

  • 1–2 week engagement
  • Remote or in-person (Derbyshire + surrounding areas)
  • Written deliverable report
  • Fixed-price build quote included
  • Full £1,500 credited if you proceed
Book a Discovery Call First
How it works

From first call to live
system in weeks.

A clear, predictable process. No hidden phases, no scope creep. You know exactly what's happening — and what it costs — at every stage.

01

Discovery Call

30 minutes. We talk through your business, identify where time is being wasted, and give you an honest view of what automation can and can't do for you.

FREE

02

Process Audit

1–2 weeks. We map your workflows in detail, identify the highest-ROI automation targets, and deliver a written report with a fixed-price quote.

£1,500 · CREDITED IF YOU BUILD

03

Build & Deploy

2–6 weeks. We build, test thoroughly, and deploy into your existing workflow. Fixed price agreed upfront. No surprises at invoice.

FIXED PRICE FROM £3,000

04

Handover & Support

Full documentation, staff walkthrough, and optional ongoing retainer. Automation compounds — every workflow makes the next one faster and cheaper to build.

OPTIONAL RETAINER FROM £1,500/MO
Our work

Built. Shipped.
Running autonomously.

Real systems, real outcomes. Every project below operates unattended today.

Marmadbir

Field Services

WhatsApp dispatch automation for field-service teams

Marmadbir was coordinating field workers manually across WhatsApp groups and phone calls — dispatchers chasing workers, payments handled by phone. We built the full stack: customer-facing front-end, multi-tenant Twilio-powered WhatsApp dispatch flow, and Tranzilla payment integration. Jobs broadcast, workers apply, payments claimed race-safe, client confirmed. The coordinator's manual workload: zero.

Dispatcher time spent chasing workersEliminated
Messaging costDown ~65%
Annual saving≈ £10,000/yr in coordination time
Payments reconciled by handNone

WhatsApp automation · Twilio · Job dispatch · Payments · CRM workflow

Punthub

Horse Racing

Automated data pipeline & prediction dashboard

Punthub needed daily horse-racing data from 6 live sources, run through 7 ML prediction models, results reconciled overnight, and insights surfaced through a custom-plugin front-end. Python scripts feed Google Sheets each evening; Supabase syncs overnight; the Next.js site renders prediction cards via bespoke plugins. Runs unattended every night.

Staff time to run it each nightNone — it runs unattended
Annual saving£13,000+/yr in operating costs eliminated
Data kept current without anyone touching it6 sources, daily
Figures reconciled by handNone

Python automation · Data pipeline · ML models · Daily reporting · Supabase

Built and owned by The Automation Agency.

Public-data extraction & planning-alert dashboard

PlusRooms needed daily coverage of planning applications across England — previously a full working day of manual council-website trawling. We built Planscope: an automated scraping pipeline covering 97% of London boroughs and a live dashboard with alerts. Nobody has to check a council website anymore.

Manual work replacedA full working day, every day
Annual saving≈ £27,000/yr — a full-time role's worth of checking
Council websites checked by handNone
London borough coverage97%

Web data extraction · Playwright · Scheduled scraping · Dashboard · Alerts

Figures are actual costs eliminated or salary-equivalents of manual work replaced.

Pricing

Fixed prices.
No surprises.

Every engagement is agreed upfront. You know exactly what you're paying before a line of code is written.

Step 1

Discovery Call

Free

30 minutes · no commitment

We talk through your business and identify where automation could make the biggest difference. Honest conversation, no pitch.

  • 30-minute call
  • Workflow walkthrough
  • Initial assessment
  • No obligation
Book Now

Step 2 — Most start here

Process Audit

£1,500

Fixed fee · 1–2 weeks · credited if you build

We map your workflows, identify automation targets, estimate ROI, and deliver a written report with a fixed-price build quote.

  • Full workflow mapping
  • Prioritised opportunities
  • ROI estimates per item
  • Written report — yours to keep
  • Build quote included
  • £1,500 credited if you proceed
Book Discovery Call First

Credit applies within 60 days of audit delivery.

Step 3

Automation Build

from £3,000

Fixed price · 2–6 weeks

We build and deploy the system scoped in the audit. Single workflow to full multi-agent stack depending on requirements.

  • Fixed price before start
  • Existing tool integration
  • Testing & deployment
  • Staff walkthrough
  • 30-day post-launch support
Get Started

Multi-agent builds from £8,000.

Ongoing

Retainer

£1,500/mo

Monthly rolling · cancel anytime

An ongoing automation partner. We monitor, expand, and build new workflows as your business grows.

  • Monthly builds
  • Monitoring & fixes
  • Priority turnaround
  • Monthly strategy call
Get Started
About

Built by someone who has actually built it.

The Automation Agency is run by Ben Horne, a developer with over a decade of building real production systems — automation stacks, ML pipelines, multi-tenant SaaS platforms, AI agents, and data infrastructure across multiple industries.

Not a consultant who reads about AI. Someone who writes the code, ships it to production, and keeps it running. Tell us what your admin is costing you — the hours, the salary, the jobs that slip — and you'll get a straight answer with a number attached, including when the honest answer is that it isn't worth automating.

Based in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, working with clients across the UK.

Capability areas, if it matters to you: workflow automation, AI agents and chatbots, data pipelines and web data extraction, CRM and payment integration, email deliverability, and custom dashboards and internal tools. Which tools we reach for depends entirely on your problem, and we'll explain the choice in plain English before you pay for anything.

Ben Horne, founder of The Automation Agency

Ben Horne

Founder

Previously

  • PlusRoomsLondon planning intelligence platform
  • MarmadbirWhatsApp dispatch platform
  • PunthubPredictive data product (founder)

10+

Years shipping production automation

<10%

of UK businesses run agentic workflows today

£0

Cost to find out what we'd automate for you

2–4wk

Typical audit-to-live timeline

Common questions

Answers before you ask.

What kinds of automation do you build?+

Mostly the day-to-day admin your team does by hand: n8n, Zapier and Make workflows, WhatsApp and website chatbots, CRM and spreadsheet syncing, AI agents that read and sort your inbox, data pipelines, and the odd custom dashboard or internal tool when no-code can't quite get there.

Which tools do you use — n8n, Zapier, Make or custom code?+

Whichever fits the job. n8n and Make handle most workflow automation at a sensible cost. Zapier suits simple, low-volume connections. When something needs real logic — AI decision-making, a bespoke dashboard, tricky data — we write custom Python or Next.js instead. We'll always recommend the cheapest option that holds up long-term.

How much does a typical automation cost?+

Simple workflows connecting two or three tools start at £350. AI workflows and chatbots usually run £750. Bigger builds — dashboards, multi-step systems, custom web apps — start around £1,500 and scale from there depending on scope. Everything is quoted as a fixed price before we start, so there's no surprise on the invoice.

Do you work with businesses outside Derbyshire?+

Yes — most of our clients aren't local. We're based in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, but discovery calls, audits and builds all happen remotely by default, over video call, Slack or email. In-person kickoffs are available across Derbyshire and the wider East Midlands when that's genuinely useful, but it's never required.

What if I'm not sure what to automate?+

That's exactly what the free discovery call and Process Audit are for. We'll ask about your day-to-day, spot where time's being lost, and tell you honestly what's worth automating and what isn't. There's no pressure to book a build afterwards — sometimes the honest answer is to leave it as it is.

Will the automation keep working after handover?+

Yes. We test everything thoroughly before handover and give you full documentation plus a walkthrough with your team, so everyone knows how it works and why. Every build includes 30 days of post-launch support, and there's an optional monthly retainer if you'd rather we kept monitoring, fixing and expanding things ourselves.

Get in touch

Find out what your business could stop doing manually.

Pick a slot below — 30 minutes, free, no commitment. We'll talk through your business and tell you honestly what's automatable. Prefer email? Use the form.

Prefer to talk? Call us

01246 923041

Mon–Fri, 9am–5.30pm. You'll get Ben, not a call centre.

Email

hello@automation-agency.co.uk

Reply within 24 hours

Book a slot — instant

Two quick questions, then pick your slot

So we can come to the call with something useful rather than spending the first ten minutes working out who you are.

Or send a message

Send us a message

We respond within 24 hours and will suggest a call time that suits you.

We respond within 24 hours. No spam, ever.

Some of the tools we build with

n8nZapierMakeWhatsAppTwilioClaudeOpenAISupabaseStripeNext.jsAirtablePythonn8nZapierMakeWhatsAppTwilioClaudeOpenAISupabaseStripeNext.jsAirtablePython