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Looking to hire an AI automation agency? AY Automate pairs one senior engineer with a fleet of AI agents to scope, build, and maintain the n8n workflows and agents that remove manual work from your operations, for teams across the USA and worldwide. One team for strategy, build, and post-launch support, not three separate vendors.
Free ยท You keep the scoped plan either way
AI automation shipped for teams at






1-2 wks
To ship a single workflow
4-8 wks
To ship a full automation system
$60K/yr
Embedded placement, starting from
$0
Cost of the audit call
What we build with
n8n handles the cron jobs, webhooks, and glue. Claude Code is the brain for logic a trigger cannot handle. Nothing gets bolted on that you cannot maintain after we leave.





Our AI automation agency services break down into four core engagements. Every engagement starts as one of these, then expands once the first workflow proves itself.
n8n workflows and autonomous agents that handle business logic 24/7, connected to the tools you already run.
API integration and workflow engineering that replaces manual handoffs between your systems.
Custom agents and internal knowledge bases that execute multi-step work, not just answer questions.
Private retrieval pipelines that ground AI answers in your own data instead of a public model's guess.
Need an engineer embedded on your team instead of a project delivered to it? See Forward Deployed Engineers and Engineer Placement.
We do not sell a fixed package before we have seen your systems. Every engagement starts with an audit of what is actually happening today.
The loop repeats. Maintenance surfaces the next thing worth automating instead of ending the engagement.
We map your current workflow: the manual steps, the tools involved, and where an agent or automation actually pays for itself. Output: a scoped plan, not a sales pitch.
We build the automation or agent in n8n, Claude Code, and your existing stack, sandboxed first, with real usage tested before it touches production.
We ship into your systems, not a demo environment. You see it running on real data before we call it done.
Automations break when APIs change and edge cases appear. We keep watching after launch instead of handing you a workflow and disappearing.
Single workflow
1-2 weeks
Full automation system
4-8 weeks
Both ranges are timed during the audit call, not a fixed quote sight unseen.
Automations break when APIs change. See Automation Maintenance & Support for what the maintain step covers.
Still comparing options? See our breakdown of the best AI automation agencies for what to check before hiring one.
The three real numbers already on this page, side by side.
In-house and embedded-placement figures are annual costs (from this page's own pricing copy above: $150,000+ salary plus roughly $30,000 in benefits for a US in-house hire, and placement starting from $60,000/year). The single-workflow figure is a one-time build cost for one focused automation, not a yearly number, shown here for scale only, not a like-for-like comparison.
No invented statistics. Every number below is from a published case study.
Client Reviews

Elie Salame
COO ยท Adstronaut.io







Elie Salame
COO ยท Adstronaut.io




Most AI automation agencies quote a package before they have seen your systems. An honest look at the four ways to get automation built, so you can pick the one that fits your stage.
| In-House Hire | Freelancer | No-Code DIY | AY Automate | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upfront cost | $150,000+ salary plus ~$30,000 benefits | Lower hourly rate, but scope creep is common | Lowest cash cost, highest time cost | Custom, scoped after an audit, no fixed package |
| Time to first workflow | Weeks to hire, then ramp-up time | Days to start, quality varies by person | Days, if you already know the no-code tool | Audit in days, first workflow scoped on the same call |
| Ongoing maintenance | Depends on the person staying | Usually not included, re-hire per fix | You maintain it yourself | Included as an explicit line item |
| Complex, multi-system logic | Depends entirely on the hire's skill level | Depends entirely on the freelancer's skill level | Breaks down past simple triggers | Built for multi-step, multi-system workflows by design |
| Accountability | You manage the output | You manage the output | You own every failure | We stay accountable through the build and after launch |
No-code DIY tools are a legitimate starting point for a single simple trigger. They tend to break down once a workflow needs conditional logic across more than two systems, which is the point most of our clients come to us.
Every engagement, no exceptions
Monitoring wired in from day one
Failures surface as an alert, not a silent broken workflow a client discovers first.
Error handling and retries
The happy path plus what happens when an API changes or an input is malformed.
Documentation and handover
Your team can read what shipped, not just click a button and hope it keeps working.
Accountability after launch
A maintenance retainer or a clean handover, never a workflow dropped and abandoned.
We do not sell fixed packages sight unseen. Pricing is scoped to what you actually need, based on our current engagement types.
Single workflow
Low four figures
One focused workflow, live in one to two weeks, with error handling, retries, and monitoring built in from day one.
Full automation system
Scoped after audit call
AI steps, monitoring, and integrations across multiple systems, typically four to eight weeks. There is no fixed package because the scope depends on how many systems and how much logic is involved.
Embedded engineering placement
From $60,000/year
If you need a dedicated engineer building and maintaining automation full time inside your team, that is placement pricing, starting from $60,000/year against a $150,000+ US salary plus roughly $30,000 in benefits.
Whichever model fits, the first call is free and the audit tells you the real number before you commit to anything.
Teams who chose the audit over the pitch
+45 founders and operators
โThe team is super fast - sometimes we had to slow them down. We managed to scale the company without investing into hiring.โ

Elie Salame
COO, Adstronaut.io
Book a free audit call. We will map what is worth automating first and give you a scoped number, not a sales pitch.
In this call, we'll walk through your project scope, timeline, and goals - so we can both check if we're a fit. No obligation, no slide deck, just a working session.
Don't want a call? Email walid@ayautomate.com
โThe team is super fast - sometimes we had to slow them down. We managed to scale the company without investing into hiring.โ

Elie Salame
COO, Adstronaut.io
We've created products featured in
Walid Boulanouar
View LinkedInShare your use case, then schedule the call directly on this page.
Free ยท You keep the scoped plan either way
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Forward Deployed Engineers
An embedded engineer instead of a scoped project, when that fits better.
FAQ
Start with the audit call: a real agency scopes your actual systems before quoting a number, rather than selling a fixed package sight unseen. Check that they can show working builds, not just slides, and that they stay accountable after launch through a maintenance retainer or handover documentation.
An AI automation agency, sometimes called an AI automation company, replaces repetitive manual work with systems that run on their own: lead routing, reporting, document handling, support triage, data syncs between the tools you already use. AI matters where judgment is involved, like classifying a message or extracting data from a messy document. We are tool-honest: n8n where it is the fastest reliable path, custom code where the workflow needs more control, and no AI at all where a plain rules-based flow does the job cheaper.
Yes, same service, different vocabulary. Both describe an agency that designs and builds systems to remove manual work from your operations. We use n8n for the workflow logic and add an AI agent only where judgment is actually needed, like classifying a message or drafting a reply for review, not everywhere by default.
Focused single-workflow builds start in the low four figures and ship in one to two weeks. Full automation systems with AI steps, monitoring, and integrations typically run four to eight weeks and are scoped after the audit call, because the honest answer depends on how many systems the workflow touches. If you need a dedicated engineer embedded full time instead of a scoped project, placement pricing starts from $60,000/year, well under the $150,000+ salary plus roughly $30,000 in benefits a US in-house hire typically costs.
An in-house hire costs $150,000+ in salary plus benefits and takes weeks to recruit before they start producing. An agency engagement starts with a scoped audit, builds against your existing stack, and you are not carrying a full-time salary, payroll taxes, or a hiring pipeline for a role you may only need part of the time.
A freelancer builds the happy path. We build the happy path plus error handling, retries, monitoring, and documentation, and stay accountable for the system after launch. That difference is invisible in the demo and decisive in month three.
No. AI adds cost and variance, so it only goes where judgment is involved: classification, extraction from messy input, or drafting for human review. Deterministic steps stay deterministic.
For a single simple trigger, yes, a no-code tool alone can work. Most teams come to an agency once the workflow needs conditional logic across more than two systems, error handling, or an AI agent making decisions, which is where DIY no-code setups tend to break down.
A single focused workflow is typically live in one to two weeks. A full automation system, with an AI layer, monitoring, and integrations across multiple tools, typically takes four to eight weeks and is timed during the audit call.
Yes. We connect the CRM, database, spreadsheets, email, Slack, and private APIs you already run rather than forcing a new stack. Most builds are integration-heavy by design.
Either a clean handover with documentation and a working session for your team, or a maintenance retainer where we watch the monitors, handle API changes, and extend the system as your process evolves.
They overlap. Agent development is one of the services an automation agency delivers, building autonomous agents for complex logic, alongside workflow automation, API integration, and RAG pipelines. If you already know you need an agent specifically, our AI agent development page covers that scope in detail.
A consultant typically advises and hands you a recommendation. An agency scopes the audit, then builds and ships the system itself. We do both under one team: the audit call is the consulting step, and the build plus maintenance is the agency work, instead of a hand-off between two separate vendors.
Both. Every engagement is remote-first: the audit call, the build, and ongoing maintenance happen over video and your existing tools. We work with teams across the USA on US business hours and with international teams the same way, so location does not change the engagement.
B2B. Our engagements automate internal operations and customer-facing workflows for companies, not consumer social apps. Most clients are SaaS platforms, ecommerce operators, agencies, and internal operations teams removing manual work from processes their own staff or customers run into daily.
Yes, alongside other B2B teams. SaaS companies typically automate onboarding, usage checks, and support triage. Ecommerce operators automate order handling, inventory syncs across channels, and customer service. Both run through the same audit, build, maintain model as every other engagement.
No, it's the same underlying work described with different vocabulary. IT systems and CRM automation are two of the systems we connect into a workflow, alongside your database, spreadsheets, email, and internal APIs, scoped to your engagement.