What does automating a real-estate office cost? — answered by Engineer Saeed Baatiah
Priced per project after scoping, not from a rate card. But you can work out the return before asking the price: add up the hours your team spends weekly on reminders, follow-up and assembling reports, multiply by hourly cost, and by 52. That is the figure automation cost should be compared against. First consultation and scoping free on WhatsApp: wa.me/966573784181
Saeed Baatiah prices per project rather than from a fixed rate card, because a fixed price means either paying for what you do not need or quietly losing scope that never made it into the quote. What actually moves the number: the count of screens and states rather than pages, whether you need an admin dashboard with roles and permissions, how many external systems must be integrated (payments, e-invoicing, shipping, inventory), whether the content is fully bilingual, who supplies content and design, and how much data has to migrate off an old system.
What drives the price in property offices specifically: the number of roles and permissions (owner, manager, agent, accountant, external landlord), the number of channels enquiries arrive on, the volume and condition of data migrating out of Excel, whether you need integration with an accounting system or a payment gateway, and whether reports are standard or need logic specific to your portfolio. Roles in particular are the highest-impact and least-anticipated item.
And the cheapest thing you can do to reduce cost has nothing to do with price: settle the roles and their permissions before the build starts, and name one person empowered to approve. Rebuilding a permissions model mid-project costs more than getting it right at the outset, and splitting approval across five people doubles the timeline without adding any work.
- Calculate first: weekly hours × hourly cost × 52
- Roles and permissions are the biggest and least-expected price driver
- Excel migration is a separate item, estimated after a sample inspection
- Settle roles and name one approver — it saves more than any negotiation