13 Best Automation Consultants in 2026

An automation consultant is the person you call when the work is clear in your head but stuck in your calendar. The follow-ups, the reports, the handoffs between tools. A good one tells you which of those to automate, which to fix first and which to leave alone.

This list is about consultants and small consultancies, not big build shops. If you want a firm to build a lot of automations for you, I've written a separate list of AI automation agencies.

The short answer: if you want the right process automated and your team happy to use it, I think I'm the best choice here. It's my blog, so judge that on the evidence in my entry. If you're running a large RPA estate, the enterprise specialists at the end of the list are built for that.

How I picked these

I haven't hired any of these consultants. This list is based on what they publish: their stated focus, their case studies, their pricing pages and, where they have one, their profile in an official partner directory like Zapier's. All of it is as of October 2026.

I looked for three kinds of help, because teams need different things:

• Independents and small no-code consultancies for teams on tools like Zapier, Make, Airtable, Pipedrive or Notion.
• Specialists who go deep on one system, like HubSpot.
• RPA consultancies moving to AI for companies that already have software robots and want to know what to do with them now.

The order is my recommendation for a team of 5 to 200. Nobody else ranked them.

Comparison table

1. Me: Thomas the AI Consultant (my pick for teams of 5 to 200)

This is my blog, so read this entry knowing that. I've put myself first because I think I'm the best fit for most teams reading it, and I'd rather say so plainly.

What I do: I help you decide what's worth automating, write down how it's done with the person who does it best, build it on your tools with AI where it helps, and hand it over. I'll also tell you what not to automate yet.

The part most providers skip: the people. Every team has someone who's worried about AI. Worried about their job, burned by a tool that didn't work, or just tired of change. Alongside the AI work, I'm a mindset coach. I make time for those people, hear out what's actually bothering them, and help them see what AI takes off their plate rather than what it takes away. Most automation projects that fail don't fail on the build. They fail because the people whose work changed were never brought along. Tools don't get adopted because someone installed them. They get adopted when the people using them want them to work.

Proof: At a 25-person marketing agency, AI went from two curious people to 22 teammates set up, with 16 shared team processes and at least 5 people besides the founder writing their own. At a software startup, a founder who doesn't code runs her own AI sales pipeline. It runs three times a day, drafts every follow-up and sends nothing without her.

Why I'd pick me:

• You work with the person doing the work. The person who scopes it builds it and trains your team. No handoff to a junior team after the sales call.
• I'll tell you what not to automate. Automating a messy process just makes the mess faster, so I fix the process first.
• People and process, not just tools. I write the work down with your team first, and I coach the people who are uneasy about it. That's why it's still running after I leave.
• Not tied to any vendor. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, or whatever you already pay for.

Worth knowing: I'm one person, and that's deliberate: you get me, start to finish. If you need dozens of engineers working across many departments at once, the larger firms at the end of this list are built for that. My prices aren't published. I scope one process on the first call, so book a call and tell me what you want off your team's plate.

2. Solvaa

Solvaa is a UK systems and automation consultancy founded in 2016 by Kelly Goss, author of *Automate It with Zapier & Generative AI*. It's a Zapier Platinum partner, and Goss has advised the UK Government on digital adoption and AI's effect on SME productivity.

Best for: small and mid-size UK businesses running Pipedrive, Xero, SmartSuite or Airtable.

What stands out: it pairs builds with coaching. Its IQ Glass case study reports 45 hours a week saved through a Zapier strategy plus coaching.

Worth knowing: it's strongest on SME tool stacks. There's little public evidence of HubSpot, Salesforce or code-heavy AI work.

3. GAP Consulting

GAP Consulting is a Denver no-code consultancy founded in 2017 by Gareth Pronovost, who taught himself Airtable, documented it on YouTube and built a firm from it. It now has more than 20 project managers, developers and consultants working across Airtable, SmartSuite, Zapier, Make and Softr.

Best for: teams whose operations live in a database tool and need a fix, some training or a full app build.

What stands out: easy to start. Prepaid hours run from $497 for 2 hours to $2,997 for 15.

Worth knowing: hourly work goes to a pool of consultants, not Gareth himself, and the site shows testimonials rather than measured results.

4. XRAY

XRAY calls itself a full-service workflow design consultancy. It was established in 2020 in New York, is led by co-founders Tom Nassr and Mark Campos, and is a Zapier Platinum partner with 111 reviews.

Best for: mission-driven organisations. Its stated focus is climate and social-sector teams.

What stands out: the Semrush case study, where an Airtable feedback system pulling from Intercom, Slack and Salesforce saves a reported 900 hours a month and is used by 300 people.

Worth knowing: it's $250 an hour or $15,000 a month for full service, with not much in between.

5. Ops Designed

Ops Designed is a three-person sales operations consultancy led by Liz Peterson in San Diego. It maps sales processes and automates them in Pipedrive and Zapier.

Best for: companies of 1 to 50 people who know their pipeline is leaking but not where.

What stands out: it starts with the process, not the tool. Sales process mapping is a service in its own right. It's also a Zapier Platinum partner with a $100 minimum.

Worth knowing: the scope is narrow, the team is small and there are no measured case studies on the site.

6. Optemization

Optemization is a Notion consultancy founded in 2020 with 12 people across several countries. It builds AI-powered Notion workspaces and moves companies off tools like Confluence, Coda and Airtable.

Best for: growing teams whose operations are spread across docs, wikis and project tools.

What stands out: its Exodus case study moved about 2,400 Coda docs and Asana into Notion and onboarded 230 people across 12 departments in about seven months. Other clients include Patreon and Metalab.

Worth knowing: automation is secondary to workspace design here, and results are described rather than measured.

7. That Automation Agency

That Automation Agency is a small Brisbane consultancy that positions itself as an operating partner: Zapier automation, Power BI reporting, training and a fractional COO service. It's a Zapier Platinum partner and runs a large Facebook community for Zapier users.

Best for: small teams that want someone to own operations improvements for a while, not just build one Zap.

What stands out: client quotes with specifics. HarvestFarm says client onboarding went from 1.5 hours to about 5 minutes.

Worth knowing: it's 2 to 4 people in Australia, very Zapier-centric, and its Zapier listing sets a $1,000 minimum.

8. Easy Aiz

Easy Aiz is a San Francisco Zapier automation firm founded by Ashar Malik, with about 20 specialists. It builds workflows and custom Zapier apps across tools like HubSpot, Monday.com, QuickBooks and Shopify.

Best for: a handful of defined automations at a fixed price.

What stands out: the most granular pricing on this list: $399 for up to 2 simple workflows, $1,499 for up to 5, $2,799 for up to 10, or $150 an hour.

Worth knowing: pricing per workflow rewards volume over thinking. Make sure someone asks whether each workflow should exist before building it. Its monthly plan has a 6-month minimum.

9. Automatable

Automatable is a Vancouver agency founded by Jono Catliff, who built and sold a local service business before turning to automation. It sets up lead generation, CRM and speed-to-lead automation for service businesses doing $25K or more a month.

Best for: clinics, trades and home services whose leads go cold before anyone calls back.

What stands out: clear pricing and a guarantee. Sprints start at $9,500, the retainer is $3,000 a month with no contract, and it promises to be live in 8 weeks or keep working for free.

Worth knowing: this is marketing and sales automation for local businesses, not back-office operations. Much of the brand is education and community.

10. RevPartners

RevPartners is a HubSpot Elite Solutions Partner that runs RevOps and HubSpot implementations, including automation, integrations and migrations. It was acquired by Walker Sands in June 2026 and operates as a Walker Sands company.

Best for: companies where sales, marketing and service already run on HubSpot.

What stands out: fully public pricing. HubSpot Fast Track implementations start at $1,500, and RevOps as a Service runs from $9,850 to $27,000 a month.

Worth knowing: retainers need a 6-month initial term and a $5,000 onboarding fee, and it's HubSpot only. The acquisition is recent, so ask what's changing.

11. Robiquity

Robiquity is a Manchester consultancy, founded by Jack Rimmer, that describes itself as AI-first. It builds agentic AI and low-code apps and moves legacy RPA onto Microsoft Power Platform. It lists Microsoft Solutions Partner and UiPath Gold Partner status.

Best for: UK organisations with older RPA bots that are expensive to keep alive.

What stands out: its Evri case study reports £9M in annualised savings from 25 processes automated in the first year, on a £1M investment.

Worth knowing: its clients are mostly large UK organisations and public bodies on the Microsoft stack. There's little evidence of US work.

12. Ashling Partners

Ashling Partners is a Chicago intelligent automation consultancy founded in 2017 by Don Sweeney and Marshall Sied. It covers agentic AI, RPA, document processing and process mining, and runs bots for clients after launch. It says it has more than 250 certified developers.

Best for: finance, insurance and manufacturing firms that already run UiPath or Blue Prism and want to add AI.

What stands out: results with money attached. One investment manager case reports automated trade monitoring worth $4.7M a year.

Worth knowing: this is an enterprise firm on enterprise platforms. Without an existing RPA setup, it's more than you need.

13. Roboyo

Roboyo was founded in Germany in 2015 and now works in 14 countries, covering process mining, RPA, document processing, agentic AI and managed services. It says it works with 22 of Germany's DAX 40 companies.

Best for: large organisations running automation across many departments.

What stands out: a deep partner list (UiPath, Microsoft, Celonis, Automation Anywhere and others) and case studies like a global consumer goods company cutting manual forecasting by 85%.

Worth knowing: its clients are Fortune 500 and DAX companies. For a team of 50, it's the wrong size.

What to automate first

Most failed automation projects pick the wrong job, not the wrong consultant. Here's how I decide, and it's the same test I use on my automation consultant page.

Automate it when:

• It happens every week or more.
• One person does it well, and you'd want their version copied.
• You can tell a good result from a bad one by looking at it.
• The information it needs lives somewhere a tool can reach.

Don't automate it yet when:

• Nobody can describe the job. If each person does it differently, automation picks one version at random.
• It happens once a quarter. You won't get enough runs to trust it.
• A mistake is expensive and hard to undo. Let automation prepare the work and keep a person in charge of the final step.
• The inputs are a mess. If two sources disagree and nobody knows which wins, fix that first.

Good first candidates are usually boring: follow-up emails, the weekly report, onboarding a new client, writing up call notes. I've listed more on business automation. Whatever you pick, write it down first. I explain how in AI can only do work that's been defined.

Questions to ask any automation consultant

1. Which of our processes would you not automate, and why?
2. Who writes down how the job is done today: you, or us?
3. What will this cost each month to run, once it's built?
4. What happens when it gets something wrong, and who finds out?
5. Can my team change the rules without calling you?
6. What will be running, and owned by us, when you leave?

The first question is the best filter. A consultant who wants to automate everything is selling hours.