Choosing an automation company in Mallorca has become harder over the last two years, because the market has grown a great deal and the proposals all look alike: everyone talks about artificial intelligence, agents and saving hours. The difference between a project that keeps working for years and one that is abandoned within six months almost always comes down to how it was contracted. These are the ten questions that, in our view, any business owner in Palma or elsewhere on the island should ask before signing, together with how we answer each one so that you can compare.
Price, scope and ownership
1. Do you publish your prices?
A company that publishes its prices has decided what it sells and for how much. One that only quotes "depending on the project" may be perfectly serious, but it forces you through a sales meeting just to find out whether you are in the right range. We publish three figures: a fixed €1,500 for the assessment, €3,000 to €6,000 for a single automation, and a managed agent from €500 per month. If a project does not fit those figures, we say so before starting.
2. What is put in writing before work begins?
Ask for a scope document that states what the automation does, what it does not do, which systems it connects to, what counts as finished and what happens with anything that comes up along the way. Without that document, the project drags on because everyone had a different idea of what was agreed. Our assessment produces exactly that for the first three automations.
3. Who owns the accounts and the code?
This is the question that prevents the most problems. The WhatsApp Business API accounts, the server and any service contracted must be in your company's name, with your credentials, from day one. The workflows and code written for you belong to you. If the provider hosts them in its own account "to keep things simple", the day the relationship ends you will have to start from scratch. We create everything in the client's accounts and hand over the credentials when each project closes.
Data and operation
4. Where does the data live?
Ask which country the servers are in that your customer and business data passes through, and which artificial intelligence providers are used. The answer should be specific (the provider's name and region), not "it is all in the cloud". We work with servers in the European Union, install automation platforms on our own infrastructure or the client's within the EU, and use language models with European processing or on our own server when the data requires it. We sign a data processor agreement before touching any real data.
5. What happens when it breaks?
Every automation fails at some point: a supplier changes its API, WhatsApp updates its rules, someone renames a column in a spreadsheet. What matters is whether anyone notices and how long it takes to fix. Ask whether there are alerts, who receives them and what the committed response time is. Our automations send error notices to us and to the client, and the managed service includes the fix.
6. Who maintains it and what does that cost?
An automation delivered without a maintenance plan degrades. Ask whether maintenance is included, for how long, and what it costs afterwards. Our automations include a support period after delivery; the managed agent includes maintenance, adjustments and log review in the monthly fee.
7. What do you refuse to automate?
An honest answer to this question says a lot. Some things should not be automated: pricing decisions, replies to serious complaints, any communication that could lose a customer on a bad day, processes that change every week. We say so in the assessment, with a list of what we recommend leaving as it is. A company that promises to automate everything has probably not been inside many real businesses.
Presence, references and exit
8. Are you based in Mallorca?
For a family business on the island this matters for practical reasons. Whoever builds the automation has to sit in your office, understand how the season works, talk to the person who currently does the job by hand and come back when something does not add up. It can be done remotely, but it is done worse. We work in Mallorca and the assessment is carried out in person.
9. Can you give me references from businesses like mine?
Ask to speak to a client in your sector or of your size. A provider with experience in hotels, restaurants, clinics or the marine sector will have concrete examples and will be able to tell you what went well and what cost more than expected. Be wary of references that are nothing more than logos on a website.
10. What happens if I want to stop working with you?
The exit terms should be in the contract: what is handed over, within what timeframe, what documentation exists and whether there is a penalty. The reasonable position is that you can leave with your accounts, your workflows, your documentation and your data, and that the system keeps running while you look for another provider or maintain it yourself. That is what our contracts set out, with one month's notice on the managed service and no minimum term.
How to use this list
No provider will answer all ten questions perfectly. What matters is that they answer specifically and in writing, and that the answers to questions 3, 4 and 10 (ownership, data and exit) put your mind at rest. If you get vague replies on those three, keep looking even if the price is good.
A simple way to compare two proposals is to ask each for the scope document for the first automation and set them side by side. Within five minutes it is usually clear who has understood your business.
Frequently asked questions
Is a local company better than an online platform offering standard automations?
It depends on what you need. If your process is identical to that of thousands of other businesses, a standard platform may be enough and will be cheaper. If your process has its own particularities (your booking system, the way you work in season, your suppliers), a company that builds it bespoke on top of your tools will give you something that works in your real situation.
How much should a reasonable automation cost?
For a business of 3 to 50 people, a specific automation (one process, several connected systems, testing and delivery) normally falls between €3,000 and €6,000. A quote well below that usually means an unadapted template; well above it, a project that should perhaps be split into phases.
Do I need to understand technology to contract well?
No. The ten questions in this article can be asked without technical knowledge and the answers can be understood without it. What you do need is a good grasp of your own process, who does it today and how long it takes them, because that is the information a good provider will work with.
If you would rather start with a concrete scope document than a generic proposal, our €1,500 initial assessment produces one in a single session and is deducted from the first project. Request an assessment
We implement it for you
We work at the leading edge of artificial intelligence and agents: we build on the most advanced agent platforms of the moment and we do it at your business, in Mallorca, with published prices and a person from your team approving anything that goes out. We start with an initial assessment and a written plan.