What does AI automation cost, in one table?
AI automation means software that does a repeated task end to end, with an AI model handling the parts rules cannot: reading a PDF, sorting an email, writing a summary. The total cost has four lines. Here they are for a typical small business.
| Cost line | Typical range for an SME | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Build (one-time) | From ₹50,000 per workflow bundle at Silvane | Design, building, testing, documentation, hand-over |
| Automation tool | ₹0 (self-hosted n8n, Zapier free) to several thousand rupees a month | Depends on tool and run volume; see table below |
| AI model usage | Often ₹100 to ₹5,000 a month | Per token; depends on documents processed and model used |
| Hosting | ₹0 on cloud tools; a small cloud server for self-hosted n8n | Self-hosting trades fees for maintenance |
| Run and support | Your team’s time, or from ₹15,000 a month at Silvane | Fixing breaks when apps change, adding new flows |
How much does each type of automation project cost?
The number of systems involved matters more than how clever the AI step is. A workflow that touches two apps is cheap. One that touches five apps, handles exceptions and moves money takes longer to build and test.
| Project | Example | Complexity | Where it usually lands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lead routing | IndiaMART, JustDial and Meta leads go to the CRM, get assigned and get a WhatsApp reply in a minute | Low | Starter build |
| Document reading | Invoices or purchase orders arrive by email; AI extracts fields into a sheet or Tally-ready format and flags mismatches | Medium | Starter build |
| Daily MIS report | Pull numbers from billing, CRM and ads every morning and send a summary to owners | Medium | Starter build |
| Support triage | AI reads incoming emails or chats, tags them, drafts replies for approval and routes to the right person | Medium | Starter to Growth |
| Incentive or payout calculation | Monthly staff incentives calculated from sales data, checked and mailed to each person | Medium to high | Starter to Growth |
| Order-to-cash | Shopify or Razorpay to accounting, COD confirmation, reminders, reconciliation | High | Growth build |
| Department-wide programme | Several of the above across sales, ops and finance with monitoring | High | Growth or Scale |
Silvane’s founder automated the daily doctor performance reports, incentive calculations and incentive mailers at Vetic, a pet-care chain. That is the kind of work in the middle rows: dull, repeated, error-prone when done by hand, and very automatable. For more on reports specifically, see how to automate MIS reports.
What do n8n, Make and Zapier cost?
Most SME automations run on one of these three tools. Their pricing models differ, so the cheapest tool depends on your volume. Figures below are from each vendor’s pricing page as of November 2026, in the currency they publish.
| Tool | Entry paid plan | How usage is counted | Free option |
|---|---|---|---|
| n8n Cloud | Starter €20/month billed annually (2,500 executions); Pro €50/month (10,000 executions) | Per workflow execution, however many steps | Community edition can be self-hosted on your own server |
| Zapier | Professional $19.99/month billed annually or $29.99 monthly (750 tasks); Team $69/month annually (2,000 tasks) | Per task, meaning each action step | Free plan with 100 tasks a month |
| Make | Paid plans (Core, Pro, Teams) priced by monthly credits; check the plan selector | Per credit, roughly each module step | Free plan with 1,000 credits a month |
A ten-step workflow that runs 2,000 times a month is 2,000 executions on n8n but around 18,000 to 20,000 tasks or credits on Zapier or Make. At that volume n8n is usually cheapest; at a few hundred runs the difference is small and ease of use matters more. Our n8n vs Make vs Zapier comparison covers the trade-offs, including data control under the DPDP Act 2023.
How much does the AI part cost?
AI models are priced per million tokens. As of November 2026, Anthropic lists Claude Haiku 5.5 at $0.10 input and $0.50 output per million tokens, Claude Sonnet 5.5 at $2 and $10, and Claude Opus 5.5 at $4 and $20. The Batch API halves the price for jobs that do not need an instant answer, such as overnight invoice processing.
As an illustration, reading 1,000 two-page invoices a month with a mid-size model, at about 4,000 input and 500 output tokens each, comes to about $13, or roughly ₹1,200 at an assumed ₹90 per dollar. With the batch discount it is about half that. For most SME workflows, AI usage is the smallest line on the bill.
Usage also stays low because most automation steps need no AI at all. Moving a row, sending an email or creating a CRM record is plain logic. Only the steps that read or write natural language need a model call, so design workflows that way.
What hidden costs should you expect?
- App changes. When a vendor changes its API or login, a workflow breaks. Someone has to notice and fix it.
- Exceptions. The 5 percent of cases that do not fit the rules (a scanned invoice, a duplicate lead) need a human path. Design it upfront.
- Premium connectors. Some tools charge more for certain apps or for faster polling.
- Data clean-up. Automation exposes messy data. Fixing customer names or product codes is part of the project.
- Your team’s time. Someone must explain the process, test it and approve outputs in the first weeks.
- Logging and alerts. Without error alerts, a broken workflow can fail silently for days.
How do you know if it is worth it?
Do the maths on one process before buying anything. Count how many times a month the task happens, how many minutes it takes, and who does it. A task that takes an executive 2 hours a day is roughly 44 hours a month. If automation removes most of that, and also removes errors that cost you money or customers, a one-time build plus a small monthly bill usually pays back within months. If the task happens twice a month, leave it manual.
- List your top 10 repeated tasks with frequency and time per task.
- Mark which ones involve reading or writing text (good for AI) and which are pure rules (plain automation is enough).
- Pick the one with the highest hours and lowest risk as the first project.
- Get a fixed quote that separates build, tools, AI usage and support.
- Run it alongside the manual process for two weeks before switching over.
A worked example: lead routing for a real estate office
Take an illustrative real estate office in Pune that gets about 600 enquiries a month from property portals, Meta lead ads and its website. Today an executive copies each lead into a sheet, assigns it to an agent on a WhatsApp group and reminds agents to call. Leads that arrive at night wait until the next morning.
The automation: every new lead lands in the CRM within a minute, an AI step reads the enquiry and tags budget, location and intent, the lead goes to the right agent by area, the customer gets a WhatsApp reply with project details, and the agent gets a reminder if nobody has called within 15 minutes. Monthly running costs here are small. On n8n Cloud Starter, 600 runs fit inside 2,500 executions. AI tagging of 600 short enquiries costs a few rupees on a small model. WhatsApp replies cost Meta’s per-message rate, which for utility templates in India is about ₹0.115 each as of October 2026. The real cost is the build, and the real return is speed: the first call happens in minutes instead of hours.
How Silvane can help
Silvane builds AI workflow automation on n8n, Make or Zapier, inside your own accounts, and documents every workflow so your team can maintain it. For finance and back-office work, see AI for operations and finance. A discovery call and AI audit costs ₹199 for founding members (normally ₹15,000) and the fee is credited to the build. Starter builds start from ₹50,000 with a run plan from ₹15,000 a month; Growth from ₹1,20,000 plus from ₹40,000 a month; Scale is custom from ₹1,00,000 a month. Tools and usage are billed at cost, billing is 50/50, everything is built in your own accounts, you get 30 days of free fixes and 30 days’ notice to cancel. GST is extra.
If you are comparing vendors, our guide on how to choose an AI automation agency in India lists the questions to ask.
Sources: n8n pricing · Zapier pricing · Make pricing · Anthropic model pricing