What another hire costs
In short
The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median yearly wage of a general administrative assistant at 47,540 dollars in May 2025. Benefits come on top: across private industry they made up 30 percent of what employers spent on compensation per hour worked in June 2026.
The median means half of these assistants earned more and half earned less, in the occupation the BLS calls secretaries and administrative assistants, except legal, medical and executive. A part-time hire costs a share of that, plus the weeks it takes to find, train and manage the person.
A person also brings what software cannot, such as judgment on an odd request or a friendly voice on the phone. The question is not which is better, but which of your tasks need those things.
What automation costs
In short
An automation sprint from us starts at $3,800 for three to five workflows connected across your tools, running on an n8n account in your name. After that, the tools' own subscriptions run on your card.
A single small workflow can be hourly work at $150 an hour, with a four-hour minimum, priced in writing before it starts. A Growth site at $11,900 already includes two automations, such as a note to your team about each new inquiry or a weekly summary.
Once the workflows are live, something has to watch them, because an automation that breaks stops quietly. Our automation ops retainer covers that, or anyone else can, since the account and the notes are yours.
| Another hire | Automation | |
|---|---|---|
| Up front | Time to recruit and train | A build price, from $3,800 for a sprint |
| Each month | Wages, plus benefits and payroll costs | Tool subscriptions, plus an ops retainer if you want one |
| Good at | Judgment, conversations and anything new | The same steps every time, at any hour |
| When volume doubles | More hours, or another person | Sometimes a larger plan on the tool |
| When something goes wrong | They notice and ask | It fails quietly unless someone watches it |
Swipe sideways to see every column
Which tasks belong to which
In short
Give software the tasks with a clear trigger and fixed steps, and give people the ones that need a decision. The two combine well: automation takes the copying, so a person's hours go to the part that needs them.
Keep people on the calls, the complaints, the quotes that need judgment and anything a customer would be upset to learn a machine had decided. The list below holds good first candidates for software instead.
Small firms are not behind on new tools, either. Between September 2024 and August 2025, 8.2 percent of US businesses with fewer than five employees used AI, second only to firms with more than 250 employees, according to the SBA Office of Advocacy.
- A confirmation to each customer the moment they book or order
- A reminder the day before an appointment, with a link to reschedule
- Each new inquiry copied into the CRM, with a note to whoever follows up
- A weekly summary of new inquiries, orders or unpaid invoices
- A draft invoice when a job is marked done, for a person to approve
A worked example (hypothetical)
In short
A landscaping company whose office manager spends mornings confirming visits and evenings typing invoices could hand both jobs to automations and keep the person for the calls.
Picture a landscaping company with two crews and one office manager, who starts each day phoning customers to confirm the visits and ends it turning finished jobs into invoices. A sprint at $3,800 could send each customer a confirmation and a reminder the day before, and draft an invoice when a crew marks a job done, for the office manager to check and send.
The office manager keeps the work that needs a person: the complaint, the quote for a new garden, the customer who wants to talk it through. When a third crew starts, the automations carry the extra confirmations, and the next hire, when it comes, is a second voice for the phone rather than a second typist.
What this means for a small business
In short
Write down the tasks that fill the week, mark the ones with fixed steps, and automate those first. If the list that remains still needs more hours than your team has, that is the hire.
Time each task for one week, even roughly, and note who does it. A task that takes minutes a day and follows the same steps is usually the cheapest one to hand to software.
In the Los Angeles area we can sit for an hour with whoever does the work, which shows more than any list. For businesses elsewhere, a screen share of the same hour does the job.