Costs and offers

Which AI automation platform includes implementation and guidance, and what does it cost?

Agencies charge €125 to €150 hourly. Platform makers sell guidance separately or on request. Ask for a working task and a team that can continue itself.

Piet Baudoin··17 min read

AI automation platforms with implementation and guidance come in three forms: an agency building hourly (public Dutch rates of €125 and €150), a platform maker selling guidance separately or only with Enterprise (from $490 upfront to “on request”), or a provider setting up the first task with you and teaching your team to do the next itself. Compare what works afterward and what your team demonstrably can do, alongside hourly or monthly prices.

This page compares twelve public offers as published on September 30, 2026. It explains implementation and guidance, costs, your people’s contribution, and how a quote defines completion. The broader choice is in building AI workflows yourself or hiring an automation agency.

The short answer

  • Public Dutch implementation rates are €125 (HAAI Data) and €150 (DenkBot) hourly. Independent AI specialists average €120 excluding VAT according to Knab.
  • Forty setup hours at those agency rates cost €5.000 to €6.000, before software, VAT, and your people’s hours.
  • Platform makers usually exclude guidance from ordinary licenses. n8n explicitly calls its €667 monthly Business plan “self-serve”. Lindy lists “Onboarding & enablement” only under Enterprise.
  • Priced guidance uses different units: four monthly technical sessions at Dapta ($499), two video calls and at most three simple workflows at Hubflo ($490 upfront), and half a day monthly at AI Business Academy (from €1.750).
  • A cheap license hides the actual bill: with n8n Starter and 40 agency hours, setup represents 95.4 percent of year one in our calculation.
  • Building for you delivers a working task. Teaching you additionally delivers a team that can assess and change rules. Almost no quote specifies that second outcome as a testable agreement.
  • Bombos costs €2.000 for a three-month pilot guided by the makers, then €1.000 monthly. After the first task, your team teaches Bombos the next.

What do implementation and guidance mean for an AI automation platform?

Implementation delivers a working task. Guidance should enable your people to assess it and change it within agreed boundaries. These are different services; a provider can deliver either without the other.

Implementation means defining the task, arranging email and software access, configuring processing, and testing real examples. Flowstate divides this into development, internal effort, usage, management, and uncertainty, requesting acceptance evidence before payment.

Guidance is vaguer, creating risk. The term covers a dedicated account manager at Relevance AI, four monthly technical sessions at Dapta, a quarterly call at Hubflo, and half a day of monthly discussion at AI Business Academy. Four different services share one name.

Hubflo shows the distinction clearly: an upfront implementation package followed separately by a $69 monthly Customer Success Addon. Setup and later help are separate invoice lines. You can request that division from any provider.

Internal responsibilities are covered in implementing an AI agent for administrative processes. This page concerns what you purchase from the vendor.

What does AI implementation at an agency cost per hour?

Public Dutch agency rates are €125 to €150 hourly. A rate only means something with hours and an end result specified.

The two public Dutch rates on September 30, 2026:

  • HAAI Data lists “€ 125/hour” (translated) for projects, excluding VAT and travel, with indicative prices. On-site team training costs €2.500 daily. That is a different service, rather than twenty development hours.
  • DenkBot says in its July 24, 2026 pricing article, translated: “our hourly rate is 150 euros”. VAT status is unspecified.

Knab reports €120 hourly excluding VAT for independent AI consultants and specialists in its rate survey, updated July 28, 2026, with over 20,000 independent workers. This group differs from agencies. Knab does not state the AI specialist subsample. These three figures cannot establish a market average.

They do support calculations. Forty hours cost 40 × €125 = €5.000 at HAAI or 40 × €150 = €6.000 at DenkBot. Forty is an example, rather than a fixed duration. Every extra ten exception hours cost €1.250 at €125 hourly. Hourly work leaves you carrying scope risk.

Fixed packages shift that risk to the provider. Flowstate starts at €2.500 excluding VAT for one bounded automation and indicatively prices multistep implementation at €2.500 to €5.000. Polish agency RMF Solutions charges $1.000 upfront for one process with documentation, handover, and thirty days of technical aftercare; $2.250 buys up to three processes, a team workshop, and ninety days of aftercare. Fixed prices still require written scope, or every exception becomes extra work.

Which implementation packages do AI platform makers offer themselves?

Most sell software separately, placing guidance in expensive subscriptions or separate packages. Public prices for actual implementation are rare.

  • n8n sells Starter for €20 monthly (annual billing, 2,500 workflow executions, forum help) and Business for €667 monthly. n8n says: “The Business Plan is a self-serve option and dedicated support is supported only in our Enterprise plan.”
  • Lindy charges $29,99, $99,99, or $199,99 per user monthly. Only Enterprise lists “Onboarding & enablement”, without a price (Lindy).
  • Relevance AI lists “Dedicated Account Manager” and “Talk to sales” under Enterprise, with no price or bounded implementation package (Relevance AI).
  • Dapta promises “4 sessions of 1-1 tech implementation per month” under Scale Up ($499 monthly). Session length is unspecified. For Prime ($1.499 monthly), its main pricing page says “Access to solutions engineer”, while a second table says “Dedicated solutions engineer”. Record which you receive.
  • Hubflo sells Premium implementation for $490 upfront: two video calls and “Up to 3 simple workflows or automations with external apps” (Hubflo). Software subscription is additional.

The pattern: cheaper access means more setup by you or a third party. Included guidance leads to Enterprise, without public pricing. Connection scope is a separate question covered in AI agent platforms with existing software integrations.

What exactly do you buy at each price?

Similar amounts buy hours, sessions, a bounded process, or only software. These are vendors’ September 30, 2026 offers, in original currencies. VAT appears only where specified. This compares delivery forms, rather than ranking them.

Offer Public price What it buys Separate or unknown Source
HAAI Data projects €125/hour, excluding VAT and travel Bounded implementation work Hours and end result HAAI Data
DenkBot custom work €150/hour Development hours VAT status, separate guidance DenkBot
Flowstate first automation From €2.500, excluding VAT One bounded initial route Final scope, usage, management Flowstate
RMF Essential $1.000 upfront, excluding taxes 1 process, documentation, handover, 30 days aftercare External software, later work RMF
AI Business Academy guidance From €1.750/month, excluding VAT Half a day monthly discussion, review Development scope separate AI Business Academy
LearnLLM AI working method €3.500 excluding VAT (€4.235 including VAT) Prompt library, AI guidelines, e-learning No automatic cross-system processing LearnLLM
n8n Starter €20/month, annual billing Software, forum help All implementation and guidance n8n
Dapta Scale Up $499/month Software, 4 technical sessions/month Session length, taxes Dapta
Hubflo Premium $490 upfront 2 calls, at most 3 simple workflows Subscription, complex work Hubflo
Lindy Enterprise On request Onboarding & enablement Price, hours, scope Lindy
Relevance AI Enterprise On request Dedicated account manager Implementation scope, price Relevance AI
Bombos pilot €2.000 for 3 months, then €1.000/month First task set up together, maker guidance Public offer does not specify contact count bombos.ai

Two findings stand out. Only Hubflo and RMF cap work: three simple workflows, one or three processes. No provider states a testable team outcome: what your people can do afterward. They list contacts, sessions, and hours, rather than skills.

Why does software pricing reveal so little about the total bill?

Licensing is often the smallest configured-process expense. In a simple calculation, 95.4 percent of year one is setup, before your people’s hours.

One year of n8n Starter plus forty HAAI agency hours costs 12 × €20 + 40 × €125 = €5.240. External development represents €5.000 (n8n, HAAI Data). This proves no fixed ratio, but shows cheapest software need not mean cheapest solution.

Your team is the third expense. A vendor can configure, but only your process owner knows correct outcomes. They supply examples, discuss exceptions, test, and practice. CleverTech budgets 80 to 160 internal hours, while its five phases total 64 to 152. The unexplained difference makes this an estimate, rather than a measurement.

Calculate a smaller example: two two-hour training sessions with four employees at an assumed €50 internal hourly rate cost 2 × 2 × 4 × €50 = €800 in capacity, excluding preparation and practice. Substitute your own rate. A complete budget is in what administrative automation with AI costs and the guide what AI costs in your business.

What should AI implementation guidance include?

For every component, good guidance records what the vendor supplies, what you supply, and evidence of completion. This matrix is our proposal. Sources explain why components belong, rather than proving every vendor delivers them.

Component Vendor supplies You supply or decide Completion evidence
Scope Task description, exceptions, exclusions Process owner, examples, goal Signed scope with change route
Access Working connection with named permissions Permission, software administrator contact Task works with your own access
Setup Working processing with review step Substantive rules Agreed test cases succeed
Training Practice on your work, understandable manual Participants, practice time Employee performs action independently
Knowledge transfer Permitted changes and boundaries Owner and replacement Both retrieve agreements
Overview Visible status, stalled-work alerts Alert recipient Employee recognizes simulated error
Next task Method for a similar new task New examples, desired result Second task or change without dictated steps
Completion Workbook, ownership and access agreements Acceptance or specific recovery request Open items have owners and dates

Builders explain why handover and visibility belong. An n8n builder says on Reddit that nontechnical clients could not use accounts and technical keys and kept asking whether the system worked: “Sending them the workflow wasn’t going to work.” On the n8n forum, another asks on April 13, 2026: “What do you send the client when you hand over a workflow?” A monitoring thread asks: “Do you charge for monitoring separately, bundle it into a retainer”. These are individual experiences from service sellers, rather than research. They show an exported file is not a handover.

Ask seven things for each contact block: contact count, minutes, participants, live or written, work covered, period, and treatment of unused time. Dapta’s four sessions, AI Business Academy’s half day, and Hubflo’s two calls become comparable. Subsequent outages and changes are covered in AI automation with setup and support.

What differs between someone building for you and teaching you to do it yourself?

Building delivers a working task. Teaching additionally delivers a team able to assess, adjust, and prepare the next task. Setting up together lies between them.

Form What you buy Required team skills Suitable delivery agreement Pricing trap
Built for you Bounded working task Supply examples, assess outcomes, report exceptions Task works within boundaries; management has owner Cheap development, unbudgeted later changes
Set up together Working task plus guided practice Free time and perform actions Task works and employee makes agreed change independently Paid sessions without defined outcome
Learn to build Skills, feedback, materials Design, build, and review Participant builds and reviews own application Comparing course price with delivered system

RMF delivers a process with handover. LearnLLM mainly sells a team method: prompt library, AI guidelines, and e-learning for €3.500 excluding VAT. Valuable team adoption differs from an AI agent working in your accounting software.

“Doing it yourself” has three levels: reviewing proposals, changing business rules, and managing underlying technology. Every user needs the first. The process owner handles the second. A company with twenty people need not handle the third if its contract identifies who does.

Buyers ask this directly. A small business owner on Reddit asks: “Is it better to hire someone to do it or better to learn?” And: “We dont have any coding background but very open to learning required skills.” A Dutch care entrepreneur on r/FreelanceNL seeks advice, setup, and “training my team” (translated) in one assignment, asking “Is this realistic for one person?” (translated). See can employees adjust AI workflows themselves?.

When is an implementation and guidance project complete?

It is complete only with two outcomes: running work, and a team demonstrably knowing what it may change, check, and refer back. This is our position, based on the twelve offers.

Providers specify access (Lindy, Relevance AI), contacts (Dapta, Hubflo, AI Business Academy), hours (HAAI, DenkBot), or processes (RMF, Flowstate). None specifies the buyer’s eventual abilities. Builders show failures when handing over to nontechnical people. Buyers request precisely that second outcome: team training without programming backgrounds.

This weighs heavily without an IT department to retain knowledge after the guide leaves. Without testable transfer, you buy a working task plus lasting dependency, with every small change quoted at €125 or €150 hourly. Ongoing outsourcing is legitimate. It should be a choice, rather than a side effect.

We propose a five-action handover test, performed by an ordinary user on their work without the guide taking the mouse:

  1. Explain task inputs and excluded cases.
  2. Assess and correct a proposal, and retrieve its source.
  3. Adjust an authorized business rule in a test environment or controlled trial.
  4. Recognize an error, stop work if necessary, and know who helps next.
  5. Use the workbook to prepare a similar next task or change, including review.

Record each as independent, with help, or outside agreed authority. The last may be correct: not everyone needs every permission. Repeat with a replacement. Training only the most enthusiastic coworker replaces agency dependency with dependency on that coworker.

Specify two delivery milestones: the task works, and the team has taken the test. The second costs little extra when guidance is sincere, and exposes guidance consisting only of conversations. Pre-start testing is in testing an AI agent before automating.

Where is this heading?

No measured time series of implementation prices or guidance hours exists. Percentage decline forecasts would be invented. Platforms increasingly let you build in ordinary language (Make lists this), while still selling human starting guidance separately (Dapta, Lindy). Building gets easier; assessing and changing business rules does not.

Our expectation: by late 2027, testable handover outcomes will outweigh workshop hours for simple administrative work. Collect ten explicit-guidance quotes now and repeat in December 2027. We expect at least five new quotes to specify a testable team outcome, such as an independent employee change, alongside the working first task.

The reasoning: when explaining buttons becomes unnecessary, guides handle what software cannot: customer exceptions, rule-changing authority, and when to stop. These are transferable and testable. Buyers previously stuck with untransferable automation will ask for them.

The hypothesis fails if easier building does not enable reliable changes, customers allocate no learning time, or full outsourcing demonstrably uses less total labor. Measure external help minutes, internal minutes, and errors after every deployed change. Less outside help is no gain if internal hours or errors rise.

By then, Bombos will provide a first task set up with the makers and a team teaching the next task itself, with approval as a fixed boundary on external actions.

What can this not yet do?

This comparison has limits.

  • Prices are snapshots. All were accessed September 30, 2026. LearnLLM and Relevance AI search results differed from opened pages; we used the pages. Kommit was excluded because verification showed different packages from the research. Recheck quotes.
  • Rows are not equivalent. Hubflo’s customer portal, LearnLLM training, and agent platforms do different work. This compares guidance packaging, rather than software abilities.
  • Outcomes have not been measured. Pricing promises prove no customer result, including ours.
  • Learning requires time. A team without an hour weekly learns nothing regardless of guidance quality. Outsourcing is then more honest.
  • Ability does not eliminate vendor dependence. You may change rules while hosting, security, and recovery remain with the maker. Record that division.
  • The handover test is a proposal. It is no tested standard, certificate, or score. Bombos has not measured it as a customer standard either.
  • Knowledge in people’s heads does not enter systems automatically. Bombos interviews you to record it. Ask an agency who handles this.

How does Bombos handle implementation and guidance?

Bombos sets up the first task with you. The makers guide you for three months, then your team teaches Bombos the next without technical skills. The goal is more work, at a higher quality, with the same team, and independent continuation.

You start with two permanent AI agents. Chef distributes incoming work to specialists. Wegwijzer explains, helps set boundaries, and proposes work to take over. Specialists are built around your tasks in your email and software. Connections including Exact, Dutch accounting software, AFAS, Dutch business software, Nmbrs, payroll software, and Microsoft 365 are routine work. Details are in your own software. Bombos interviews you to record knowledge only in someone’s head.

Every proposal shows its basis. You approve, change, or reject in Bombos. Corrections become rules for coworkers too. Learning happens through reviewing work, rather than a separate course. Payments, customer messages, and contracts wait for approval by default. See errors and review, AI without an IT department, and the first-task example shared mailbox.

Price: €2.000 for a three-month pilot, then €1.000 monthly, the same for everyone. One uninterrupted year costs €2.000 + 9 × €1.000 = €11.000. Guidance contact count is not publicly fixed. Ask and record it in the first conversation. First this task, then your team teaches the next. Your work capacity grows without adding people.

Sources

Each source was opened on September 30, 2026, and each original quotation appears verbatim in it. Dutch quotations above are labeled as translations.

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More work done, at a higher quality, with the same team.

That is what Bombos is for: companies that grow fast and want to keep the same team. We start with one task that keeps piling up and guide you until your team can handle it. Then your team teaches Bombos the next task. Leave your number and we will call you back to talk about your situation.

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