Every small business has a list of things that should be automated. The list is usually long, and the hard part is picking where to start.
Foundry24’s answer is the same every time. Start with the one task that takes the most hours. The impressive project can come later. The first one should be the one that gives back the most time.
An automation is paid for monthly, and what it pays for is the time someone spends doing the task by hand. The more hours the task takes, the easier the math. A task that eats an afternoon every week is a better first project than a clever one that saves ten minutes.
Hours also tell you something about the task itself. If someone spends five hours a week on it, the steps are well worn. Everyone knows how it’s done, which makes it easy to write down in a spec.
The best candidates share a few traits. They happen every week. They follow the same steps each time. They move information from one place to another, usually between tools the business already uses. And they have a clear finish, the point where the invoice is sent or the record is entered.
Some common ones:
The calculator on the homepage takes the hours a week and what an hour of that person’s time costs. It turns them into a monthly figure. The default is 5 hours a week at $35 an hour, which comes to about $760 a month. Against automation that starts at $199, that is roughly $560 a month back, plus the five hours.
The calculator also tells you when not to bother. If the monthly figure is under $199, it says software probably isn’t worth it yet and to keep doing the task by hand. At $35 an hour, one hour a week lands there. If the figure is between $199 and about $400, the money is close to a wash, and the hours are the reason to do it. Two hours a week at $35 is in that range. Above that, the automation pays for itself and the time is extra.
Those thresholds are a starting point. The real price depends on how many systems the automation connects and how much volume it handles, and that gets settled in the spec.
Most automation isn’t AI. It is plain software moving information from one tool into another. That gets used whenever it’s the right tool, because it’s cheaper and it doesn’t guess.
AI comes in when the task involves conversation, such as answering the phone, working the inbox, or following up on quotes. Those are AI agents, and they start at $349 a month. If the task with the most hours is the phone, that’s the right first project. If it’s data entry, it’s automation.
Some tasks are hard to judge from the inside. The homepage has a form for that. Describe the most annoying task in your week the way you’d complain about it to a friend, and within a day you’ll get an email back saying whether software can fix it, roughly what it would cost a month, and whether it’s worth bothering with.
The other way in is a 30-minute call. You talk through how the business runs and where the hours go, and you leave knowing what to automate first and what it would cost. Sometimes the answer is that you don’t need any of this yet, which is also a fine answer. If it is worth doing, Foundry24 writes a one-page spec with the price on it, and the build takes a few weeks.
Every price is on the plans page, with no contract and nothing up front.
The task that takes the most hours, as long as it repeats every week and follows the same steps. Hours are what the automation pays for, so the biggest one is usually the best first project.
Multiply the hours a week by what an hour of that person's time costs. If the monthly total is below $199, the starting price for automation, it probably isn't worth it yet. The calculator on the Foundry24 homepage does the math.
Usually not. Most automation is plain software moving information from one tool to another. AI gets used when the task involves conversation, like answering calls or email.
AI agents, automation, and websites, built in a few weeks and then maintained for a monthly fee. If something in your week should be software by now, book a call.