How much it costs to automate a business in Puerto Rico and how to tell if it pays off

Automating a business in Puerto Rico with consulting support costs between $497 and $7,500 a month, depending on scope. These are the four tiers Pintado.AI publishes:

• AI Audit Express, $497. A 90-minute session plus a ten-page executive report.
• Discovery + Roadmap, $1,497. An in-depth diagnosis and a 30-, 60- and 90-day roadmap.
• Strategic Implementation, $3,500. The roadmap plus six weeks of executive support.
• Corporate Advisory, from $7,500 a month. A retainer for leadership teams.

Prices do not include IVU (Puerto Rico sales and use tax). The question almost always arrives the same way: someone writes to me on WhatsApp, tells me they spend hours answering messages or preparing quotes, and ends with the same line: "but how much will that run me?" Below is what you pay for in each tier and, more importantly, the math that tells you whether it pays off or not yet.

First, what you are actually buying

Automating is not buying a tool. It is paying for three different things that tend to get mixed up.

The first is judgment: deciding which process gets automated and in what order. The second is the build: connecting the systems, writing the logic, testing it against real cases. The third is maintenance: when WhatsApp changes something, when your email provider updates its API, when the business changes a process.

Most projects that fail paid for the second and skipped the first. They bought a build without having decided whether it was worth building.

The ranges we publish

On Pintado.AI's AI consulting page the prices are in plain view, and that is on purpose. These are the tiers of the consulting line.

The AI Audit Express costs $497. It is a 90-minute session plus a ten-page executive report with the diagnosis of your business. It is the entry point for someone who wants to know whether there is anything to automate before committing to anything.

Discovery + Roadmap costs $1,497. An in-depth diagnosis, a 30-, 60- and 90-day roadmap, prioritization of initiatives and an estimated return for each one, stated as an estimate.

Strategic Implementation costs $3,500. The roadmap plus six weeks of executive support during the initial implementation, with weekly sessions and asynchronous support.

Corporate Advisory starts at $7,500 a month. It is a retainer for leadership teams, with monthly sessions and ongoing availability.

If what you are looking for is not consulting but building the system, process automation work is quoted separately and depends on how many systems need to be connected.

Having the numbers published does not mean they are the price of your project. It means you know the order of magnitude before you sit down with me, and that saves both of us time.

The math that tells you whether it pays off

Here is the exercise I do on the first call, and you can do it on your own before writing to me.

Take the process that eats up the most time. Quoting, answering messages, following up, invoicing, whichever it is. Work out how many hours a week go into it, counting yours and those of whoever helps you.

Now put a value on that hour. Not the hourly wage, but what that hour would produce if you were selling, serving a large client or closing a project. What is an hour of your time really worth when you spend it selling instead of copying data? That is the figure to use.

Multiply hours per week by the value of the hour by 50 weeks. That is the annual cost of continuing to do it by hand. If you would rather not do it on paper, the site's calculator (in Spanish) does the same math.

If that number is several times the investment you are considering, the conversation is worth having. If it is in the same range or lower, not yet. I will tell you on the call and you save yourself the project.

What I cannot promise you

I will not give you a guaranteed return percentage. Anyone who promises you an exact figure before seeing your operation is selling you a story, not a service.

What does go in writing from the first document is the verifiable criterion we will use to measure each initiative. A concrete example: in the sales agent we built for D'Show Events, Pintado.AI's sister company, the criterion was quoting time. Today that agent quotes in under a minute and serves customers on WhatsApp and by voice 24 hours a day, covering the island's 78 municipalities. That is a measurable fact, not a promise of return.

The costs almost nobody mentions

Beyond the build, there are ongoing costs that need to be on the table from the start.

There are the subscriptions for the platforms that run the system. There are the credits for the artificial intelligence models, which are paid by usage. There is your team's time learning the new process, which is real even though it does not show up on an invoice.

And there is the one that hurts the most: the cost of the tools you already bought and do not use. It is common to find, in a diagnosis, active subscriptions that someone signed up for on a recommendation and never connected to anything. Part of the work is taking inventory of that before proposing that you spend another dollar.

Where to start if your investment capacity is limited

If the ranges above are out of reach today, there is a middle path that costs nothing.

Pick a single process. The most repetitive one, the one you do the same way every time. Document it step by step in a document, with the decisions you make at each fork. That document is half the work of any future automation, and you can do it without hiring anyone.

Once you have it, the conversation with me changes. It is no longer "I don't know where to start"; it is "here is the process, tell me what can be taken off my hands." That call is much shorter and costs you much less.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to automate WhatsApp for a small business? It depends on scope, but the honest starting point is the $497 AI Audit Express, which determines whether your message volume justifies the project before anything gets built.

Is there anything below $497? Yes, and I do not charge for it: documenting your process step by step. It is half the work of any automation and you can do it yourself this week.

Do the prices include IVU? No. All published prices are in US dollars and do not include the applicable IVU, which is calculated at the time of payment.

What to do now

If you want the full diagnosis, the $497 AI Audit Express is the honest entry point. If you would rather first find out whether your case qualifies, write to me at hola@pintado.ai or book directly at cal.com/pintadoai. You can also read how I approach AI consulting in Puerto Rico before deciding.

I work from Bayamón with businesses in Guaynabo, San Juan, Toa Baja, Caguas and the rest of the island. The first conversation is to see whether there is anything worth automating. If there is not, I will tell you.