The short version
If you've got someone on the team with a few spare hours and the patience to time a workflow honestly, start with the checklist. If you need numbers you can put in front of a budget owner, or you want the first fix built for you, buy the audit, since its full fee comes off a build or your first month of advisory anyway.
Side by side.
What each option costs, who does the work and what you have at the end.
| Detail | DIY checklist | OperatorZero AI workflow audit |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free, plus your team's time | $2,500 per workflow |
| Who does the work | Someone on your team | Mitchell, from your recording or a live walkthrough |
| How long | However long your team gives it | Report in 5 business days from the call or recording |
| What you end up with | Your own spreadsheet of steps and hours, some of them guesses | Every step priced in hours and dollars, 3 to 5 AI wins ranked by money saved, and a written plan |
| The first fix | You build it yourself | The biggest win gets fixed during the audit, with a written guide your team can follow |
| Walkthrough | None | A 30-minute call with Mitchell to go through the report |
| If nothing's worth building | You might not be sure | The report says so, with the numbers behind it |
| What happens to the money | Nothing to credit | The full fee comes off a build (from $6,000) or goes toward your first month of advisory (from $2,500) |
The DIY AI workflow checklist.
This is the same order the paid audit follows, so if you do it well you'll have most of what you need. Give it one workflow; doing five at once is how these spreadsheets die.
Choose the one that eats the most hours. Weekly client reporting and ticket triage are common picks.
A plain screen recording works. Watch it back before you write anything down, because people forget the steps they do on autopilot.
Copy-paste between tools counts as a step. So does waiting on a manager.
Use what the recording shows, and if you're guessing, write "guess" next to it.
Use a fully loaded hourly cost (pay plus benefits and overhead), then multiply hours a week by that cost and by 48 working weeks to get a yearly cost per step.
AI can take it, AI can draft it and a person checks it, or keep it human. Anything involving judgment calls with clients or money usually stays human.
Use the tools you already pay for. Time the step again at the end, and if the hours didn't move, the win wasn't real.
What an example looks like. The audit page has an interactive version of this. Its example is a five-person account team doing weekly client reporting at $55 an hour: pulling numbers from 3 tools (6 hours a week, $15,840 a year), writing each client summary (5 hours, $13,200) and building the slides (4 hours, $10,560) come out as the AI wins, while manager review and sending replies stay human. Those are example numbers on the site; your workflow will look different. Play with the example report.
When the checklist is enough
It's enough when the workflow is small, you already know roughly where the time goes, and somebody on the team can build and test the fix in tools you pay for. Plenty of teams stop at step 7 and that's fine.
When you'll want the audit
Usually one of these is true:
- You need numbers a budget owner will sign off on, with every step priced from the real workflow.
- Nobody inside has time to record, time and rank anything this month.
- You've already tried AI on this workflow, it didn't stick, and you'd like to know why before spending more.
- You want the first win built during the audit so the team sees it working, with a guide they can follow afterward.
And if the audit finds nothing worth building, the report says that plainly. You'll know not to spend money on AI for that workflow.
Somewhere in between
Two free options sit between the checklist and the audit. The five-minute self-service AI assessment gives you an instant starting-point profile from your own answers, with no logins or files. The free 30-minute call is a conversation with Mitchell about one AI decision, and you leave with your three best next actions whether we work together or not.
Who does the audit
Mitchell Moses, who spent 8 years building enterprise systems and works on real AI builds every day. Every first call is with him, so the person you talk to is the person leading your work.
Questions.
Still unsure? Email contact@operatorzero.ai or bring it to the free call.
Can I do an AI workflow audit myself?
Yes. Pick one weekly workflow, record it, list every step with hours and a fully loaded hourly cost over 48 working weeks, mark what AI can take, and test the top win for two weeks. The checklist on this page walks through it.
How much does an AI workflow audit cost?
The OperatorZero AI workflow audit is $2,500 per workflow. The full fee comes off a build, which starts at $6,000, or goes toward your first month of advisory.
How long does the paid audit take?
5 business days from the discovery call or recording to the written report, plus a 30-minute walkthrough with Mitchell.
What does the audit give me that the checklist doesn't?
Every step priced in hours and dollars by someone outside your team, the 3 to 5 AI wins ranked by money saved, the biggest win fixed during the audit with a written guide, and a 30-minute walkthrough of the report.
What hourly cost should I use for the checklist?
Use a fully loaded cost: pay plus benefits and overhead. The example on the audit page uses $55 an hour for an account team, but that's only an example; use your own figure.
What if the audit finds nothing worth building?
Then the report says so, with the numbers behind it. You'll know not to spend money on AI for that workflow.
Is the free five-minute assessment the same thing as an audit?
No. The self-service assessment is a planning snapshot built from your own answers, and it doesn't look at your real workflow or data. The audit prices one real workflow step by step.
Can I bring my DIY checklist to the free call?
Yes. Bring your spreadsheet to the free 30-minute call and we'll use it to pick the workflow worth looking at first.
Done the checklist and want a second opinion?
Bring your spreadsheet to a free 30-minute call.
Ready for real numbers?
$2,500 per workflow, with the report in 5 business days. The full fee comes off a build or your first month of advisory.
Related: AI Workflow Audit, $2,500 · Free self-service AI assessment · Free 30-minute call · AI builds