How long does a business automation project take?

Question

VX-N · Accepted Answer

The first deliverable — a written plan, a mock, or a working demo — lands within 24 hours of the first call. Full builds are scoped from there; a well-defined SMB system is typically weeks, not months, and payback on a properly scoped project usually lands inside two to six months. Timelines stretch for one reason more than any other: the scope was never written down, so it kept moving. A plan that says what is being built and what is explicitly not being built is worth more than an extra developer. If a proposal quotes you months before anyone has seen how you work, that is a scheduling estimate, not an engineering one.