What it costs to run your firm’s own AI workspace

Separate four different costs

Implementation pays for defining, configuring and testing a workflow, training and handover. Support pays for the agreed operating and small-change allowance. Software and cloud charges depend on the chosen route and usage. A bespoke connector or extensive data repair may need additional engineering.

Our private-workspace planning range is £12,500–£25,000, scoped and quoted following discovery. It assumes a reusable deployment pattern, defined access, approved sources and one first workflow. A first bespoke intelliflo integration or demanding operational requirements may exceed this range. This is not a cloud supplier quote.

An illustrative pilot calculation

Assume 60 tasks a month, 30 net minutes recovered per task and £45 per hour of useful recovered time. With £3,000 setup, £350 monthly support and an assumed £200 monthly software cost, that is 30 hours of capacity a month.

The assumed capacity value is £1,350 a month, or £800 after recurring external costs. Setup payback is 3.75 months at those assumptions. The software figure is not a verified vendor quote and the capacity value is not promised revenue or a reduction in payroll.

A separate workspace illustration

Assume £12,500 setup, £750 monthly support and £250 monthly software/cloud usage. First-year external cost is £24,500. At £45 per recovered hour, the firm would need about 45.4 useful recovered hours each month to match that cost over the first year.

This comparison uses the lower planning-range setup figure; it is not a commitment to build a connector at that price. A larger scope changes the calculation. Fees exclude VAT where applicable; licences, consumption and third-party integration charges are additional and disclosed before commitment.

Keep the calculation inspectable

Net minutes recovered must include checking and correction. Negative minutes mean the proposed process takes longer. If monthly net capacity value is zero or negative, there is no positive setup-payback figure. If hourly value is zero, an hourly break-even calculation is not meaningful.

Hours/month = tasks × net minutes recovered ÷ 60
Capacity value/month = hours × hourly value
Net capacity value/month = capacity value − support − software/cloud
Setup payback = setup ÷ net capacity value (only if positive)
Year-one external cost = setup + 12 × (support + software/cloud)
Break-even hours/month = year-one external cost ÷ 12 ÷ hourly value (if positive)

Collect what a useful quote needs

Describe the workflow, users, source systems, permissions, case complexity, monthly volume and expected review process. Establish API and licensing access before relying on a CRM integration. Set retention, operating hours, monitoring, recovery and exit requirements before comparing quotes.

Agree who pays vendors directly, who owns the cloud account and data, and what rights continue if the implementation supplier changes. Defined care does not imply unlimited engineering or 24/7 response. Measure a pilot before committing to a larger workspace.