AI Automation
Work Less. Earn More.

Most US AI automation agencies charge $1,500 – $25,000 to build a system and $300 – $5,000 per month to run and maintain it. Chatbot Boy AI prices single workflow builds from $1,500, AI voice agents from $3,000, and full monthly retainers from $1,500 – $5,000. Voice usage (Retell, Vapi, phone numbers) is billed on top at $300 – $1,200 per month depending on call volume.

Expect $300 – $1,200 per month for a production AI voice agent handling a small-business call volume. That covers the voice platform (Retell AI or Vapi), an LLM (Claude or OpenAI), transcription, and phone numbers. Costs scale with minutes on the phone, not with the number of contacts in your CRM.

Build it yourself if you have 60+ hours to spend on a single system, enjoy learning the tools, and can afford to break things while you learn. Hire an agency if you want a working system in 2 – 4 weeks and would rather spend that time on customers. Hire an in-house engineer only once you have three or more full automation projects lined up per year — before that, an agency is cheaper and faster.

Both are strong. Retell AI tends to be faster to configure for scheduling, transfer, and knowledge-base flows, and its latency is consistently sub-800ms. Vapi is more flexible if you want tight custom control over the LLM stack or need to build a novel voice interaction. Chatbot Boy AI builds on both — the choice is made per project based on latency targets, telephony needs, and how tightly the agent integrates with your CRM.

Look for four things. One, a public price range so you can budget before the sales call. Two, named tools they actually implement (Retell, Vapi, n8n, GoHighLevel, Make) rather than logo walls. Three, a documented process — audit, design, build, test, launch — not just "we build AI stuff". Four, someone who will tell you what NOT to automate. If any of those four are missing, keep looking.

Anything that requires judgment on a first-time exception, sensitive customer conversations, and any workflow that isn't already documented on paper. Automating a broken process just makes it break faster. In our audit we identify workflows that are stable, repeatable, and high-frequency — those are the ones we automate first.

Three things. Voice latency dropped below 800ms across Retell and Vapi, making live phone conversations feel natural. LLM cost per call fell 60 – 80% year over year, which is what makes 24/7 voice reception viable for small businesses now. And AI search — Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity — became the top discovery channel for service queries, which changes what your website needs to say.

Yes. We are based in Houston, Texas and work remotely with service businesses across the United States and internationally. Everything from strategy call to launch happens on video and in shared docs — location has never been a blocker for a client.