A sample sketch and quote · AI agent: A food wholesaler: an order from an e-mail, a text or a photo of a list, ready to approve
An AI agent reads the order, matches the client's names to the catalogue and prepares a draft. The office checks it beside the original and approves it before anything reaches the stock system.
ExampleThe firm, its competitors, their numbers and this quote are illustrative and point to no existing business. The method, the rate and the market prices beside the quote, each with its source and date, are real.
- For
- A food wholesaler in the Łódź region: 140 shops and restaurants, three people in the order office
- Kind of work
- An AI agent that prepares, and a person who approves
- Recommended scope
- 9 days of work, 3 weeks to launch including a test on real orders
- After launch
- The Watch plan: monitoring and hours of work, among others to check the agent after every model change
Five sentences from the client and one question from us
That is enough to start. We ask the sixth question: how will you know it worked?
From the client
We supply about 140 shops and restaurants around Łódź, and three people in the office take the orders.
Clients order by e-mail, text and a photo of a handwritten list, and one order in three is a photo.
Every client uses their own names for products, and the office retypes them into the stock system item by item.
Mistakes show up at delivery: the wrong product or quantity, then a return and a corrected invoice.
We want orders to reach the system on their own, with the office only checking them.
How will you know it worked?
Morning orders are in the system before eleven, and there are half as many corrections after delivery.
What we read in it
- Retyping takes the office about 38 hours a week, almost a full-time job.
- Mistakes cost twice: the returned goods and an office hour for the correction.
- This is work for an AI agent under a person's eye. The agent prepares a draft, the office approves it, and only what is approved reaches the system.
- The goal can be measured: the time orders are in the system, and the number of corrections a month.
A one-page drawing of the process
Today and after the change, step by step. You correct this drawing yourself before we count anything more precisely.
Order
1Today: An e-mail, a text or a photo of a list, each laid out differently.
1After the change: Everything lands in one order inbox, with the photos.
Reading
Today: The office reads the order and retypes it item by item.
After the change: An AI agent reads items and quantities, from photos too, and matches the client's names to the catalogue.
Checking
2Today: Nobody checks twice. Everything depends on one person's attention.
2After the change: The office sees the draft beside the original. Items the agent is unsure of are marked.
System
3Today: The order is typed into the stock system by hand.
3After the change: The approved order reaches the system by import or API.
Confirmation
4Today: The client phones to ask whether the order arrived and is complete.
4After the change: The client gets a confirmation with the list of items before the goods leave.
- where time or money leaks today
- how we close it
- AI prepares, a person approves
What this process costs today
For a week the office noted where its time on orders goes. We counted the corrections from the last month.
about €4,230
what this process costs a month today
Hours of work: €3,000. What is lost: €1,230. Both come from the five sentences and a week of notes at the example firm.
57 hours
a week go into this process today
€3,000
a month is what those hours cost
€1,230
a month is lost
There are about 30 corrections a month after order mistakes. A return, a second delivery and a corrected invoice cost about €41 each, about €1,230 a month in total.
We count an hour of work at €12, with the employer's costs, and a month as 4.33 weeks.
- today
- after the change
Retyping orders into the system
−30 h
Asking clients about names and quantities
−4 h
Corrections after mistakes
−4 h
Confirmations by phone
−4 h
In total 57 → 15 hours. We check the difference after three months.
Today: a week of notes at the example firm. After the change: our forecast.
Data as a table
| Activity | today | after the change | difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retyping orders into the system | 38 h | 8 h | −30 h |
| Asking clients about names and quantities | 8 h | 4 h | −4 h |
| Corrections after mistakes | 6 h | 2 h | −4 h |
| Confirmations by phone | 5 h | 1 h | −4 h |
What could make this smaller
- The agent will not read every item. We assume the office still spends about 8 hours a week checking drafts after the change.
- Some mistakes happen in the warehouse during picking, and the change does not touch those. So we count 70% of the cost of corrections going away.
Next to three wholesalers: the easiest ordering and the earliest cut-off
We checked the three wholesalers the client named as competitors the way a shop or a restaurant does: how to order, what comes back after an order, where the prices are and until when you can order for tomorrow.
- Client's wholesaler
- about 140 shops and restaurants, around Łódź
- Competitor A
- a nationwide wholesaler with an ordering platform for businesses
- Competitor B
- a local fruit and vegetable wholesaler
- Competitor C
- a catering wholesaler with an app for restaurants
What a shop or a restaurant can do
| A customer can | Client's wholesaler | Competitor A | Competitor B | Competitor C |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Order on a website or in an app | no | yes | no | yes |
| Order with a photo of a list, a text or an e-mail | yes | no | partly | no |
| Get a confirmation with the items | no | yes | no | partly |
| See current prices | partly | yes | partly | yes |
| Repeat the last order | no | yes | no | yes |
| Google rating | 4.452 reviews | 3.8210 reviews | 4.631 reviews | 4.177 reviews |
| Until when you can order a delivery for tomorrow | 14:00 | 22:00 | 16:00 | 18:00 |
- Client's wholesaler and competitor B, prices: a PDF price list sent once a week.
- Competitor B, ordering outside the app: texts only, no photos.
- Competitor C, confirmation: an e-mail with the order number, without the items.
The hour from each wholesaler's terms of sale or website.
Data as a table
| Firm | Result |
|---|---|
| Competitor A | 22:00 |
| Competitor C | 18:00 |
| Competitor B | 16:00 |
| Client's wholesaler | 14:00 |
What follows
- The client wins on easy ordering: only there can a shop order with a photo of a list. A and C require an app. The agent keeps that edge, because shops order as they do today.
- It loses on the hour: it takes orders for tomorrow until 14:00, competitor A until 22:00. The early cut-off gives the office time to retype the orders.
- Only A sends a confirmation with the items. For the client that is the confirmation module in the Recommended scope.
- The client sets a later cut-off itself, together with the warehouse and the routes. This quote does not promise one.
Three scopes, one rate
Each scope is counted the same way: days of both founders times the day rate. The range comes from the risks below.
Start
The agent reads e-mails and texts, the office approves, the order reaches the system. It solves the main problem: retyping.
price: €3,360
- days of work
- 7
- range
- €2,880–4,320
- to launch
- 3 weeks
- gives back
- €1,800 / mo.
- payback
- in month 3
Recommended
Our pickStart plus reading photos of lists and a confirmation for the client. Closes all four places in the drawing.
price: €4,320
- days of work
- 9
- range
- €3,840–5,760
- to launch
- 3 weeks
- gives back
- €2,800 / mo.
- payback
- in month 3
Full
Recommended plus a name dictionary that learns from the office's corrections, and a monthly report.
price: €5,280
- days of work
- 11
- range
- €4,800–6,720
- to launch
- 4 weeks
- gives back
- €2,900 / mo.
- payback
- in month 3
| Item | Days | Start | Recommended | Full |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Writing down the process and 50 sample orders | 1 | included | included | included |
| The product catalogue and the clients' names | 1 | included | included | included |
| The AI agent: reading orders from e-mails and texts | 2 | included | included | included |
| The checking screen: draft beside the original | 1 | included | included | included |
| Importing approved orders into the stock system | 1 | included | included | included |
| Reading photos of handwritten lists | 1 | not included | included | included |
| A confirmation with the items for the client | 1 | not included | included | included |
| A name dictionary that learns from the office's corrections | 1 | not included | not included | included |
| A report: time, mistakes and the most common corrections | 1 | not included | not included | included |
| A test on 200 real orders and the launch | 1 | included | included | included |
| days of work | 7 | 9 | 11 | |
| price | €3,360 | €4,320 | €5,280 | |
| range | €2,880–4,320 | €3,840–5,760 | €4,800–6,720 |
- A day of both founders: €480 net, which is €30 for one person's hour.
- Amounts are net, plus 23% Polish VAT.
- Providers in the Recommended scope: about €69 a month. You pay them directly, on your own accounts, at cost.
- In the sketch, one business day after five sentences, you get the same scopes as ranges rounded to whole thousands: Start €2,000–5,000, Recommended €3,000–6,000, Full €4,000–7,000. We close the quote after the free first week.
- Our amounts are converted from złoty at the NBP average rate of 28 October 2026 (table 210/A/NBP/2026, EUR 1 = PLN 4.409) and rounded up. Figures from publications and from the example firm's own market stay in their own currency.
Why we recommend Recommended
Recommended adds photos and confirmations, because one order in three in this example is a photo of a list, and without confirmations the phone calls stay. Full pays back in the same month and gives almost the same after a year: the dictionary and the report make sense only after three months of the office's corrections. We propose them then, at the same rate.
Less money means fewer items
If the budget is smaller, we strike items from the table above, starting with the last scope. The day rate stays the same, and each item we strike takes its days with it.
What the price leaves out
- Changes to the stock system and invoicing.
- Orders taken by voice over the phone.
- An online shop for clients.
- AI model fees: you pay the provider on your own account, and they are in the providers' costs below.
Payback and the cost of the first year
Payback is arithmetic on the example firm's numbers: hours times the cost of an hour, plus what is lost today, minus the providers and the care plan. We check the result after three months.
- Recommended
- Start
- Full
Data as a table
| Quarter | Start | Recommended | Full |
|---|---|---|---|
| launch | −€3.4k | −€4.3k | −€5.2k |
| quarter 1 | +€680 | +€1.8k | +€1.1k |
| quarter 2 | +€6.1k | +€10k | +€9.5k |
| quarter 3 | +€12k | +€18k | +€18k |
| quarter 4 | +€17k | +€27k | +€27k |
| Start | Recommended | Full | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Build | €3,360 | €4,320 | €5,280 |
| Providers for 12 months | €552 | €828 | €960 |
| The Watch plan for 12 months | €1,440 | €1,440 | €1,440 |
| First year | €5,352 | €6,588 | €7,680 |
- You pay for the build once. Providers and the care plan are monthly, so we show them apart.
- We count payback after the Watch plan (€120 a month): a payback without a cost we propose ourselves would look better than it is. The industry rule, 15–20% of the build's price a year, gives €55–73 a month here. Watch costs more because it includes hours of work, monitoring and backups. Care plans after launch
What we recommend and why
Recommended and Full both pay back in the third month. After a year both scopes are about €27k ahead, so two more days of work barely pay back in the first year. We recommend Recommended now, and the dictionary and report after three months.
This price against the market
Published 2026 prices for AI agents. Almost all come from firms that sell these services, and most are „from” prices.
- published ranges
- our three scopes
MankaSoft · an AI agent in the firm's systems, entry prices of 6 firms
Brandfit · an e-mail agent for a 20-person firm
PixelAgency · an AI agent with integrations (CRM, e-mail, calendar)
Dokodu · a system with one AI agent and an integration
BizBees Studio · Start
BizBees Studio · Recommended
BizBees Studio · Full
Entry prices usually cover one mailbox and drafts to approve. Recommended adds photos, the import into the system and confirmations for clients.
Data as a table
| Source | Range |
|---|---|
| MankaSoft · an AI agent in the firm's systems, entry prices of 6 firms · 24.10.2026 | PLN 4,900–12,500 |
| Brandfit · an e-mail agent for a 20-person firm · 24.06.2026 | PLN 15,000–25,000 |
| PixelAgency · an AI agent with integrations (CRM, e-mail, calendar) · 18.07.2026 | PLN 15,000–45,000 |
| Dokodu · a system with one AI agent and an integration · 7.06.2026 | PLN 30,000–80,000 |
Risks and what we do about them
Each risk has a name, a plan and an effect on the price. The top of the range is all the risks at once.
| Risk | What we do | Effect on price |
|---|---|---|
| The stock system has no API | An import from a file the system accepts. We check this in the first week. | +1 day |
| Clients use names that are not in the catalogue | The agent proposes a match and the office approves it. We save every approval for next time. | +1 day |
| Some photos of lists are unreadable | The agent marks the items it could not read, and the office phones the client only about those. | +1 day |
The bottom of the range assumes the stock system has an API and the catalogue has product codes: then we save a day.
Terms and what we need from you
Terms
A fixed price for an agreed scope. We quote any change of scope in writing before we make it.
The agent only prepares. An order reaches the system once a person has approved it.
Everything made in the first week stays with you, even if we do not continue.
The code, the model provider account, the data and the documentation are yours.
Payment in three parts: 30% at the start, 40% after the test on real orders, 30% after launch.
draft term · to be confirmed
For 30 days after launch we fix bugs at no extra charge.
draft term · to be confirmed
What we need from you
- An export of the product catalogue and the last 200 orders, with clients' details anonymised if you prefer.
- Test access to the stock system or its import documentation.
- One person from the office to approve drafts in the test week.
This page is not an offer under the Polish Civil Code (art. 71). We give your price in the sketch, one business day after five sentences.
Your sketch looks the same, only with your five sentences
One business day, no meeting and no contract. Write how your process works today and how you will know it worked.