The Automation Studio Kit: Scope, Price and Run AI Automations for Clients

The business side of selling AI automation with n8n, Make and Zapier: scoping, pricing build, usage and care, delivery standards and client operations. Building the workflow is the easy part. The margin disappears afterwards. A fixed monthly fee ignores AI tokens and voice minutes. A login expires and the client notices before you do. Workflows sit on your personal account. "Can you just tweak this?" arrives every week with no care agreement to charge it against. This kit is the operating system for the business side. What it covers • Scope before you price: discovery questions, a scoping questionnaire, a process map, red flags, and a one-page buyer scorecard the client agrees to before you start. • Price build, usage and care separately: a build price from the process map, cost per run for AI, voice and platform usage at 1x, 2x and 5x volume, pass-through or bundled billing, and three care tiers. • How platforms count, and fail: what n8n, Make and Zapier count, and what happens at the limit or on errors, checked on their own pages in September 2026. • Build it to be run: naming, error routes, no duplicates, settings in one place, AI steps with structured output and human checkpoints, test plans and a parallel run. • Run it: client-owned access, error alerts and heartbeats, a 15-minute weekly check, incident handling, a monthly report, and a clean offboarding. • Licences and rules: what n8n's licence allows agencies to do, security updates for self-hosted instances, GDPR processor duties, AI chatbot disclosure in the EU and consent for AI voice calls in the US. What you get • The manual: 38-page fillable PDF with 8 worksheets • Automation Cost and Price Calculator (Excel), plus an example filled with dated vendor rates • Client Pack (Word): scoping questionnaire and buyer scorecard, ready to send • SOP Pack (Word): onboarding, build standards, weekly monitoring, incidents, offboarding, handover pack and monthly report templates Honest about numbers Vendor prices and plan rules were checked on each vendor's own page on 30 September 2026, and are presented as dated examples to recheck. Starting weights for build hours and care tiers are clearly marked as Lucidens's suggestions, not market data. Not legal or security advice. Names of platforms and vendors are used descriptively; Lucidens is not affiliated with n8n, Make, Zapier or any vendor named. FAQ Which platforms does it cover? n8n, Make and Zapier, plus AI model APIs and voice AI. The method works for any platform. Is it a template pack? No. It is the business operating kit: scoping, pricing, delivery standards and SOPs. It contains no workflow templates. Will the prices be out of date? Vendor prices change often. The calculator has a Rates sheet you update, and every example rate is dated. Can I use the client documents with my clients? Yes. The licence covers use in your own automation business. Do I need to self-host n8n? No. The kit covers cloud and self-hosted setups and what n8n's licence allows for each. By Lucidens. Version 1.0, September 2026. Instant download: PDF plus editable Excel and Word files in one ZIP.