Package
Fixed price2 weeksAI Readiness Audit — two weeks, a written build plan, no obligation to build
A fixed-price assessment that ends in a document you own: which of your processes are worth automating, in what order, at what cost — and whether your systems can actually be integrated, tested against a real API rather than assumed. If the honest answer is that you should not build anything yet, that is what the document says, and you have still got the map.
$2,400 fixed · 2 weeks · scope agreed in writing
- Fixed. Not a starting point
- $2,400Fixed. Not a starting point
- Start to written plan
- 2 weeksStart to written plan
- Named, and yours to keep
- 5 artefactsNamed, and yours to keep
- Of your team’s time, total
- ~6 hoursOf your team’s time, total
What you receive
5 named artefacts, not a summary call
Five artefacts, named up front. They are written for two audiences at once — an executive who needs the decision, and an engineer who needs to check the reasoning — and they are yours whether or not you build with us.
- 01
Process map of how the work is really done
Every step of the processes in scope, the system each step touches, who does it, how long it takes and how often it happens. Drawn from watching the work, not from your process documentation — the two are rarely the same, and the difference is usually where the automation case lives.
You getStep-level map with timings and volumes - 02
Integration feasibility report, tested not assumed
We authenticate against your API, sandbox or database and try the reads and writes an agent would actually need. Rate limits, missing endpoints, undocumented behaviour and permission models are found now, for $2,400, rather than in week five of a build.
You getPer-system verdict with the evidence from the test calls - 03
Ranked shortlist with hours and cost against each process
Each candidate process scored on volume, rule clarity, integration difficulty and the cost of being wrong — with the current hours it consumes and an estimated build cost beside it. Ranked, not listed, so there is a defensible first project rather than a menu.
You getScored table, top three argued in prose - 04
Written build plan
For the recommended first project: the architecture, which systems are read and which are written to, what scope each credential carries, which decisions stop for a person, the phases, and a cost and timeline range. Specific enough to be quoted by somebody else.
You getBuild plan you can take to any vendor - 05
The risks and the case against
What could make this fail: data quality, a system that cannot be integrated, a process that should be redesigned rather than automated, or a team that will work around it. Including, where it applies, the recommendation to do nothing yet.
You getNamed risks with a mitigation or a stop
How it is done
Why this audit tests the integration instead of scoring your maturity
Most AI readiness assessments produce a maturity score against a framework. A score is comfortable and it is not what kills projects. What kills projects is discovering in week five that the ERP has no write endpoint, the CRM rate-limits at a level the volume cannot survive, or the process everybody described does not match the one being done.
We connect to your systems during the audit
Read-only credentials, your sandbox where you have one. We authenticate, list the objects, and attempt the specific calls a build would depend on. A feasibility claim we have not tested is a guess, and guesses are what the audit exists to remove.
We watch the work before we model it
Interviews with the people doing the job, not only the people who own it. The workarounds, the second spreadsheet and the step that only one person knows are the things that decide whether an automation survives contact with the team.
Cost is estimated per run, not per licence
Agent economics are unfamiliar to most finance teams: tokens per run, retries, the expensive model reserved for the hard step. We size it from our own products, where we pay that bill monthly, and put a number on the page.
The recommendation can be "not yet"
We have written that recommendation before and we will write it again. An audit that can only conclude "yes, build" is a sales document with a price on it.
Week by week
What happens, and what it costs you in hours
The last column is the one nobody publishes: how much of your own team’s time each stage takes. It is the question every buyer has and almost nobody asks out loud.
- Day 1–2
Scope and access
A kickoff call to agree which processes are in scope and which systems we may touch, followed by read-only credentials or sandbox access. Nothing in a production system is written to at any point.
Your time60 minutes, plus IT for access - Day 3–6
Watch the work
Short sessions with the people actually doing each process — typically three to five of them, half an hour each. We follow real cases end to end, including the ones that go wrong.
Your time30 minutes each, 3–5 people - Day 5–8
Test the integrations
We authenticate and attempt the reads and writes a build would need against every system in scope, and document what works, what is rate-limited and what simply is not exposed.
Your timeOn call for access issues only - Day 8–11
Score, cost and draft
Processes scored and ranked, run costs modelled, the build plan for the top candidate written, and the risks argued. One short mid-point call to sanity-check the ranking against what you know.
Your time45 minutes, one reviewer - Day 12–14
Hand over and walk through
Documents delivered, then a 60-minute walkthrough with whoever needs to make the decision — including the parts that argue against building.
Your time60 minutes
Not included
What this package does not cover
Published rather than discovered. A fixed price only means anything if the edge of it is written down.
- Any code written into your systems — the audit reads, it does not build
- A licence, a subscription or a tool you have to keep paying for afterwards
- Legal, regulatory or compliance certification of any kind
- A data-quality remediation project, though we will tell you if you need one
- Vendor selection for software outside the processes in scope
- An obligation to build with us, or a price that changes if you do not
Is this the right package
Who this is for, and who it is not for
We would rather lose the sale here than three weeks in. If the right-hand column describes you, say so on the call and we will point you somewhere better.
A good fit when
- You have a process you can name and roughly size, and it hurts
- Your systems have APIs, a database or a scheduled export — almost all do
- Someone internally can give five people half an hour each
- You would rather find out it is not feasible now than in month three
- You need a document a board or a CFO will accept as a basis for a decision
Not this package when
- You want a strategy deck about AI in your industry — that is not this
- You need the build to start next week; the audit adds two weeks first
- Nobody can grant access to any system, even read-only in a sandbox
- The decision is already made and the audit is being bought as cover
- You want us to assess software we cannot connect to or observe at all
The money
$2,400 fixed — what that covers
$2,400 is the price, not an entry point
Fixed, invoiced once, for up to three processes across up to four systems. It does not move because your systems turn out to be harder than expected — that discovery is what you are buying.
Wider scope is quoted before we start, never after
More than three processes, or more than four systems, is quoted as a number before any work begins. There is no mid-engagement variation, because a fixed price that moves is not a fixed price.
It comes off the build if you go ahead
If you commission a build from us within 60 days, the full $2,400 is credited against it. That is deliberate: it means the audit costs you nothing if the answer is yes, and it is the cheap way to find out if the answer is no.
After this
Where people go next
- $6,500 from · 4–6 weeks
Agent Pilot
The usual next step: take the top-ranked process from the audit and prove it end to end on live data.
- $8,000 from · 5–8 weeks
Access Layer
Where the audit finds three or more processes worth building and the same systems underneath all of them, the layer is built first.
Questions
AI Readiness Audit — before you commit
What if the audit concludes we should not build anything?
Then it says so in writing, with the reasons, and you have saved considerably more than $2,400. You still keep the process map, the integration findings and the ranked shortlist, which usually pay for themselves on their own. We would rather write that conclusion than take a build we expect to fail.
Why is this $2,400 when comparable audits are $5,000 or more?
Two weeks rather than four, five artefacts rather than six, and no maturity-scoring framework. We took out the parts that produce a score and kept the parts that change a decision. The integration test — the part most audits do not do at all — is the expensive part and it stays.
Do you need access to our production systems?
We need read access, and a sandbox is better than production. We never write to a production system during an audit. If your security policy does not allow external read access at all, we can work from a screen-share walkthrough with your engineer instead, and we will note in the report that the feasibility finding is observed rather than tested.
How much of our team’s time does this actually take?
About six hours in total, spread over two weeks: an hour at kickoff, half an hour each from three to five people doing the work, forty-five minutes at the mid-point and an hour at the walkthrough. If that is more than you can give, say so on the call — below about four hours the findings get thin and we would rather tell you than deliver a weak report.
Can we take the build plan to another vendor?
Yes, and it is written to be usable that way — architecture, integration findings and scope, not a document that only makes sense if we build it. That is the point of buying a plan rather than a proposal.
Is the AI Readiness Audit the same as an AI strategy engagement?
No. A strategy engagement tells you what AI could mean for your sector. This tells you which three of your processes are worth automating, whether your systems will let you, and what the first one costs. If you need the strategic view, buy that from someone who does it well — we do the engineering assessment.
What happens to the credentials you were given?
They are revoked at handover and we ask you to confirm the revocation. Anything we extracted during the integration test is deleted at the same time, other than what is quoted in the report itself.
Can we do this if we are not in the US or Bangladesh?
Yes — the audit runs remotely and we work across time zones as standard. Sessions are scheduled in your working hours, not ours.
Tell us which process is costing you.
Thirty minutes, no preparation, no deck. You describe what keeps going wrong and we tell you whether AI is the answer — including when it is not.
Prefer email? contact@devs-core.com