When the off the shelf tool cannot do it

Custom Automation Engineering

Bespoke services, scrapers, schedulers, and integrations for the processes that no SaaS product covers, built as real software with tests and deployment pipelines.

What this is

Some processes do not fit a node graph. Document pipelines with heavy transformation, reconciliation across systems that disagree, scheduled jobs with complex state, legacy integrations over SFTP and fixed width files, portals with no API. That work needs actual software engineering: a repository, tests, CI, migrations, monitoring, and someone who thinks about what happens at 3am when a job fails halfway through.

What is included

Purpose built services in Python or TypeScript, containerized and version controlled
Reliable scheduling with locking so overlapping runs cannot corrupt state
Reconciliation logic for systems that hold conflicting truths
Legacy interfaces: SFTP, fixed width, EDI, SOAP, screen scraping where unavoidable
Full CI pipeline with automated tests before anything reaches production

How we run it

01Technical discovery

02Architecture

03Build in slices

04Harden

05Deploy and transfer

Technical discovery
Systems inventory, data volumes, access constraints, and the failure cost of getting it wrong.
Architecture
Written design covering data flow, state management, idempotency, and rollback before code starts.
Build in slices
Weekly deployable increments to a staging environment you can inspect.
Harden
Load testing, failure injection, and a documented recovery procedure for each failure class.
Deploy and transfer
Production cutover with a rollback plan, then knowledge transfer to your team.

What you receive

Source repository with tests, CI, and infrastructure as code
Deployed service on your cloud account
Monitoring, structured logs, and alert routing
Architecture document with data flow and failure analysis
Handover to your engineering team or ongoing maintenance

Engagement

Typical duration2 to 8 weeks
Indicative investmentFrom $4,900
CategoryAutomate
Starts withFree written quote

Get a free quote

Opens the quote form with Custom Automation Engineering already selected.

Typical stack

PythonFastAPITypeScriptCeleryTemporalDockerTerraformPostgres

Third party names and logos are shown for identification only and do not imply affiliation or endorsement.

Month one is refundable. If the first month does not land we return it. We would rather refund than carry a project neither side believes in.

The return

What this gives back, every month

Ranges, not promises. They come from published 2026 automation benchmarks and our own delivery data, and the audit re-runs them against your actual volumes before you commit anything.

35 to 60hours a monthreturned from reconciliation, scheduled reporting, and cross system data fixes

$1,300 to $2,300Staff time returned every month

10 to 14 weeksTime to break even

$4,900Your first year cost, all in

Why buy it

The case for doing this now

Some processes do not fit a canvas

Reconciliation across systems that disagree, fixed width files over SFTP, portals with no API, jobs with complex state. Forcing these into a node graph produces something nobody can maintain.

Finance and ops carry the heaviest manual load

Published benchmarks put account reconciliation at 15 to 30 hours a month and report generation at another 10 to 20. Invoice matching automation alone cuts errors by 70 to 90 percent.

Half finished jobs are worse than failed jobs

A reconciliation that dies at record 400 of 900 leaves your books in a state nobody can reason about. Recovery and idempotency are the actual deliverable.

Compared to the alternatives

What the same outcome costs elsewhere

Every option below solves some version of this problem. Here is what each one actually costs over twelve months.

First year total cost, including the staff time you keep paying if nothing changes

Do nothing for a year

$21,660

In-house developer

$130,000

Typical agency

$12,000

deepaibots

$4,900

Figures are indicative market ranges for a team of 10 to 60 staff, not quotes from named vendors. Staff time is costed at $38 an hour loaded, meaning salary plus employment cost plus overhead.

Your options	Upfront	Ongoing	Time to value	What you get
Do nothing	None	$1,805/mo in staff time	Never	Plus the cost of reconciliation errors
In-house developer	Recruiter fee	$10,800/mo	3 to 5 months	Fully loaded mid level US or UK cost
Typical agency	$8,000 to $20,000	Retainer on top	6 to 12 weeks	Frequently delivered without tests
deepaibots	$4,900	Optional from $1,200/mo	2 to 8 weeks	Tests, CI, monitoring, architecture document

What changed

Why this is worth buying in 2026 and was not in 2024

The scope of this service moved with the tooling. These are the shifts that make the engagement materially better than the same brief eighteen months ago.

01
Durable execution engines such as Temporal moved into reach for mid sized teams, so long running jobs survive restarts without hand rolled state machines.
02
Document extraction accuracy improved enough that fixed template parsers can be replaced with model based extraction plus a confidence threshold and a human queue.
03
Infrastructure as code and container tooling made it normal to hand a client a service they can redeploy themselves, rather than something only the builder can run.

FAQ

Custom Automation Engineering: your questions

Why not just use Zapier for this?

For simple triggers you should. We recommend the cheaper tool when it fits. Custom engineering is for stateful, high volume, or compliance sensitive work where a node graph becomes unmaintainable.

Will our team be able to maintain it?

That is a design constraint, not an afterthought. We match your existing language and deployment conventions so the code looks like the rest of your estate.

Can you take over an existing broken system?

Often yes. We start with a paid audit: what it does, what it costs, what breaks, and whether repairing beats rebuilding.