AI automation services for small business
Hand us a recurring job your team does by hand. We build the AI agent, connect it to the tools you already use, and keep it running: we watch every run, fix what breaks, and report what got done. You see 14 days of finished work before you pay anything.
No credit card. No contract. If the trial doesn’t deliver, you owe nothing.
Waiting for your sign-off
Reply to a pricing question. It’s outside your approved messages, so the agent drafted it and held it.
Approve and sendEdit draft
This week
USED BY TEAMS THAT GET WORK DONE
AI automation services take repetitive work off a team’s plate by having AI do it: reading inbound requests, pulling context from your systems, making routine judgment calls within your rules, and either finishing the task or handing it to a person with everything they need. Most providers build the automation and hand it over. Machine-like builds it and keeps running it, for a flat monthly price per workload.
New to the idea? See how AI workflow automation works, step by step.If a job happens every week, follows rules you could teach a new hire, and ends in something you can check, an agent can probably run it. Here is what that looks like in practice, and what each agent hands back.
Sales
Support
Finance
Operations
Sales
Marketing
Don’t see your job? Most workloads start as “the thing we keep meaning to fix.” Bring it to the scoping call. Or browse agents by team: sales, support, finance, marketing, HR.
You bring the knowledge of your business. We do the rest. There is nothing for you to build, configure, or maintain.
We learn the job: what starts it, which tools it touches, the rules you follow, and what correctly finished work looks like. If the job isn’t a good fit for an agent, we’ll say so on the call.
You authorize access to the systems this job needs, and nothing else. Access is scoped to the job, you can revoke it at any time, and agents never own your credentials.
We build the agent to your rules and test it against your examples of good work before it touches anything live. It starts in draft-and-approval mode, so nothing goes out without your sign-off until you decide it can.
The trial clock starts when the agent goes live on your real work, not when you sign up. You judge finished output, not a demo.
If it earns its place, subscribe for $249 a month per workload. If it doesn’t, walk away owing nothing. We cover the cost of the build.
Automations fail in boring ways. A login expires. A vendor changes a form. A customer sends something your rules never anticipated. When a provider builds the automation and hands it over, you find out when a customer complains. With Machine-like, fixing it is the job you’re paying for.
1Hold
When it hits something it doesn’t recognize, it holds the work rather than sending a wrong answer.
2Alert
Failed, late, and missed runs alert us. Someone takes it within 4 business hours.
3Fix
We trace the cause from the run logs, repair it, and re-run any work that was held.
4Note
What broke, what changed, and why. No ticket for you to file.
Every run leaves a receipt. Every week you get a short report: runs completed, approvals waiting, anything that failed, and what we changed, with links to the logs.
See exactly how we operate agents after launch.Every provider in this market falls into one of four models. The difference that matters most isn’t who builds the automation. It’s who fixes it when it breaks, and how much you’ve spent before you know it works. (There’s a fifth option, and it’s the one most businesses are on today: someone on your team keeps doing it by hand.)
| Do it yourselfZapier, Make, n8n | Freelancer | Project agency | Machine-likeManaged service | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who builds it | You | The freelancer | The agency’s team | We do |
| Who fixes it when it breaks | You | You, or the freelancer at their hourly rate | The agency, under a separate support contract | We do. Included in the price, picked up within 4 business hours |
| Upfront cost | $0 to start, plus your time | Commonly $40 to $100 an hour1 | Setup fees from $1,000 to $25,000+2; custom builds $5,000 to $50,000+3 | $0. Scoping, build, and trial are free |
| Ongoing cost | Plans from $19.99 a month, rising with usage4 | Billed per fix or change | Small-business retainers commonly $1,000 to $3,500 a month for one or two workflows2 | $249 a month per workload. $199 at three or more |
| What you risk before it works | Your time | The hours you’ve paid for | The setup fee and weeks of timeline | Nothing. You see 14 days of live work first |
| Best when | The workflow is simple and linear, and every app has a good API | A one-off job that isn’t business-critical | A large custom system with someone in-house to own it after launch | Recurring work that has to keep running, and you’d rather not manage it |
When you shouldn’t hire us: if the job is a simple trigger and action between two apps with good APIs, a $20-a-month automation tool and an afternoon will beat any service, including ours.
“Every option required technical resources that we couldn’t spare.”
Third-party figures are what each source published as of October 12, 2026. Check the source before relying on them.
A workload is the complete stream of work one agent owns from start to finish, such as “every inbound lead” or “month-end reporting,” including every workflow that job needs. You’re paying for the job to get done, not for software or hours. We estimate a typical workload at 5 to 10 hours a week of manual tasks taken off your team.
Operator1 to 2 workloads
$249
per workload, per month
Email and Slack support.
Growth3 to 5 workloads
$199
per workload, per month
Email, Slack, and video support.
Command6+ workloads
Custom
quoted on a scoping call
Dedicated success manager.
No seats. No meters. No setup or integration fees. Month to month, cancel anytime. See full pricing and terms.
Customer supportfitDEGREE
The agents classify each inbound ticket by topic, urgency, account type, and complexity; pull context from the CRM, billing, help desk history, and product docs; answer routine issues with approved responses; update the records; and escalate complex cases to the right person with a summary and a recommended next step.
“Our partners at Machine-like gave us a more responsive support operation without forcing a massive migration.”
Marketing analyticsPerformance marketing company
Agents check data freshness and metric definitions, flag drift and anomalies, sort incoming questions, and draft first-pass queries and readouts. The analysts keep the judgment calls.
“We don’t use agents because we lack talent. It is almost the opposite.”Read the story
AI search visibilityCourseCareers
Results within 120 days.
Read the CourseCareers storyA good provider answers these with specifics. Here are ours, in writing.
The agent holds the work instead of guessing, and the failure alerts our team. A person picks it up within 4 business hours, replays the run, ships the fix, and sends you a note on what changed.
$249 a month per workload, or $199 once you run three or more. Hosting, monitoring, fixes, and changes to the same job are included. There’s no separate support contract and no setup fee.
You do. Your systems stay where they are. You authorize access through a connection scoped to the job, and you can revoke it at any time. Agents never own your credentials, and your data never trains models.
Before we build, we agree on what correctly finished work looks like. Then you judge 14 days of live output against it. Every run leaves a receipt, and the weekly report shows what got done.
One-off and ad hoc requests, work nobody can describe step by step, and decisions that should stay with a person. Our agents run defined jobs with a clear finish line. They aren’t general-purpose assistants.
A 30-minute scoping call, access to the tools the job uses, a few examples of good work, and one person to handle approvals and judgment calls.
You don’t pay. Your account, the scoping, the build, and the 14-day trial are free. If the finished work doesn’t earn its place, you walk away owing nothing.
Not sure what to hand off first? See 47 jobs AI agents can take over, with costs and examples by role.
It depends on how you buy. Do-it-yourself tools start around $20 a month plus your own time. Freelancers commonly bill $40 to $100 an hour. Agencies typically charge a setup fee from $1,000 to $25,000 or more, then a monthly retainer. Machine-like charges $249 a month per workload, with no setup fee, and the first 14 days of live work are free.
Most agencies sell a project. They scope it, build it, and hand the automation to you, with ongoing support sold separately. Machine-like sells the finished work as a subscription. We build the agent, run it, and fix it for as long as you keep it, for one monthly price per workload.
For simple, linear workflows between apps with good APIs, yes, and you should. AI automation earns its cost when the work needs judgment, like reading a messy email, deciding what a ticket is about, or writing the reply, and when a silent failure would cost you a customer.
It replaces tasks, not judgment. The point is to take repetitive work off your team so they can spend their time on customers and decisions. You decide where a person signs off, and the agent escalates anything it is not sure about.
It depends on the job and the systems involved. You get a timeline on the scoping call, and the 14-day trial clock does not start until the agent is live on your real work.
Most common business apps, including CRMs, help desks, email, calendars, spreadsheets, accounting software, and Slack. Complex or legacy systems are scoped separately. See integrations.
Your systems stay where they are. Access is scoped to the job and you can revoke it at any time. Agents never own your credentials, every run is logged, and your data is never used to train models. Read our security page, including what we don’t claim yet.
RPA follows a fixed script, clicking and copying the same way every time, and breaks when the input changes. AI automation can read unstructured inputs like emails, documents, and tickets, make routine judgment calls within your rules, and escalate what it cannot handle.
The scoping call is free and covers what a consultation would: the work, the tools, what done looks like, and whether an agent is the right fit. The difference is what happens next. We build the agent and run it, instead of handing you a recommendations deck.
If the work earns its place, you subscribe month to month at $249 per workload. If it does not, you walk away and owe nothing. You can add workloads later, and at three or more every workload drops to $199 a month.
Yes. Changes to the same job using the same tools are included. A different job that needs its own agent is a new workload, and we quote it before your bill changes.
Tell us the recurring job you’d hand off first. We’ll scope it, build it, and run it on your real work for 14 days. If it doesn’t earn its place, you owe nothing.
