Custom AI for small businesses · Philadelphia

AI agents that handle the repetitive work nobody wants to do.

Keystone Automations builds custom AI workflows for small businesses — one painful, recurring task at a time. Your team becomes the reviewer instead of the typist. Most clients save 10-20 hours every week within 30 days.

Based in: Philadelphia, PA Serving: PA · NJ · DE · regionally Average build: 14–30 days Average ROI: 250–400% Year 1
The Problem

Every small business has the same five problems.

5 to 15 hours a week per employee on tasks AI can already handle. Reporting. Drafting. Intake. Lookup. Follow-up. Boring. Predictable. Process-driven. The kind of work no one signed up for.

01

The drafting tax

Your team types the same kinds of documents week after week — quotes, reports, certificates, summaries — from data that already exists somewhere else.

02

The follow-up gap

Leads, renewals, claims, and clients fall through the cracks because no one has time for the personalized 3-touch sequence that would have saved them.

03

The lookup loop

Your best people spend 20-40% of their week pulling data from one system, formatting it, and pasting it into another.

04

The reporting chore

Monday mornings, Friday afternoons, end-of-month — recurring reports that take hours to assemble and ten minutes to read.

05

The "we tried AI" disappointment

You opened ChatGPT, got a generic answer, and concluded AI wasn't ready. ChatGPT is a chatbot. Real workflow AI is a different category entirely.

The Solution

We don't sell software. We build one thing that works.

No subscriptions. No transformation projects. No platforms to learn. We build a custom AI agent that does one specific painful task in your business — end to end — and then we measure exactly what changed.

"I just got my Friday afternoons back. The CSR is happier. We did the math — it's saving me about $20K a year on a $5K build."

— Independent agency owner, Bucks County, PA

Every output is reviewed by your team. Every send is human-approved. The agent handles the typing; humans handle the deciding. The result is software that actually feels like an employee — except it never gets tired and it never types the wrong policy number.

How it works

Four weeks. One workflow. Measurable results.

A clear, predictable engagement designed for small business operators who don't have time for vague projects or open-ended timelines.

01
Discover
Week 1 · 4 hours of your time
We sit with your team. We watch how the work actually gets done. We measure baseline times. We pick the one workflow worth automating first — usually the one your most experienced person complains about most.
02
Build
Weeks 2–3 · No work for you
Custom AI agents configured for your tools, your data, your voice. Multi-stage agents that check each other's work before anything reaches a human. We demo every 3-4 days so you see what's shipping.
03
Test
Week 4 · Shadow mode
The agent runs on real data for three days without sending. We compare every draft to what your team would have done. Then we go live — with full review on every output for the first 14 days.
04
Ship
Day 30 · ROI report
Live system. Team training. A measured before-and-after report with hours saved and dollars recovered. Optional ongoing support for refinement and new automations.
Who we serve

Built for small businesses with repetitive workflows.

We work with regional operators in eight industries where the same five-task pattern shows up every week.

Independent insurance agencies

Certificates of insurance, renewal reviews, lead follow-up, endorsement drafting, policy audits.

Real estate brokerages

Listing descriptions, comparative market analyses, client follow-up, market reports.

Accounting & bookkeeping firms

Client communications, monthly close summaries, billing narratives, advisory reports.

Marketing agencies

Client reporting, content production, competitive analysis, SEO briefs.

Professional services

Proposals, SOPs, client onboarding, case summaries, billing narratives.

Home services

Quote drafting, scheduling follow-up, customer communication, review responses.

Healthcare practices

Patient intake summaries, prior-auth drafts, appointment reminders, clinical documentation.

Logistics & freight

Quote requests, status updates, document processing, customer communication.

If you don't see your industry above and you have 5+ recurring weekly workflows, talk to us anyway. The pattern is what matters, not the vertical.

Pricing

Three ways to start. One predictable price.

Fixed-fee engagements with measured outcomes. No hourly billing. No surprises. No retainers required to start — though most clients add one once the first build is live.

Starter Automation
For 3–15 person teams that want one obvious win.
$3,500–$5,000
One-time · 14 days
  • 1 custom AI automation, end-to-end
  • Discovery + workflow documentation
  • Multi-agent design with QA layer
  • Integration with your existing tools
  • Team training session
  • 30 days post-launch support
  • Measured ROI report
Typical ROI: 8 hrs/wk saved × 50 wks = $16K/yr value. Pays back in ~16 weeks.
Book a call
Premium Operations
For 20+ person teams wanting a full ops suite.
$12,000–$18,000
One-time · 6–10 weeks
  • 5–7 connected automations
  • Multi-state / multi-location customization
  • Custom API integrations where available
  • Operations dashboard with weekly metrics
  • SOPs documented for ongoing maintenance
  • Hands-on owner + ops team training
  • 90 days post-launch support
  • Quarterly ROI review for year one
Typical ROI: 35 hrs/wk × 50 wks = $78K/yr value. Pays back in ~10 weeks.
Book a call

Optional ongoing support

Care Plan: $500/month — monitoring, bug fixes, quarterly check-in. Growth Plan: $1,000/month — adds 3 hours/month of refinements + a new small automation each quarter.

Discuss
A concrete example

What an actual build looks like.

Here's a recent build for a 14-person independent insurance agency in Bucks County, PA. The pattern — drafting, lookup, follow-up — translates to any industry on this site.

Insurance · COI Auto-Generator

From 47 weekly typing tasks to a 90-second review.

The agency was processing 47 Certificate of Insurance requests every week. Each one took a CSR 12 minutes — read the email, look up the policy, fill the ACORD 25, draft the email, send, file, log. Nine and a half hours a week of typing.

We built a six-agent system: one to read the request, one to find the policy, one to validate compliance, one to fill the form, one to QA the output, one to deliver after CSR approval. Two weeks later the CSR was a reviewer, not a typist.

"It paid for itself in 90 days. The CSR went from drowning to caught up in one weekend."
— Owner, 14-person agency, Bucks County PA
12 → 1.5
Minutes per task
8.3
Hours saved / week
$16.6K
Annual value
232%
Year 1 ROI

More case studies coming as builds wrap. If you'd like to be one of the first three named studies on this page, ask about our free pilot program.

Why us

Built by one person, by design.

Keystone Automations is a one-builder practice. That's not a stage we're growing through — it's the model. You talk to the person doing the work. Decisions happen in hours, not weeks. There's no junior staff to train on your business.

Most agencies that promise "AI transformation" hand the work to a project manager who hands it to a developer who hands it to an offshore contractor. By the time something ships, your business has changed and the build is already stale.

Here, you get one builder, one phone number, and the same brain in every meeting. That's the whole pitch.

Talk to me directly

What you get with a one-builder practice

  • SpeedDecisions in hours. Most builds ship in 14-30 days. No project managers, no committees.
  • ConsistencyThe person who scoped your build is the person who ships it and the person who supports it on day 31.
  • Lower priceNo agency overhead. You're paying a builder, not a building.
  • Clear accountabilityOne name on every email. One number to call when something breaks. One brain that knows your business.
  • Honest scopingIf your project isn't a good fit for one person, we'll tell you up front and recommend someone else.
FAQ

Questions we hear most.

How is this different from ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a chatbot. You drive it; it answers. What we build is workflow software with AI inside, running on a schedule, with explicit guardrails for your industry. The agent reads the request the same way every time, looks up data the same way every time, fills the form the same way every time. It's boring on purpose — that's what makes it reliable.

What if it makes a mistake?

Every output is reviewed by a human on your team before send during the first 30 days. Every agent has explicit guardrails — it can't invent data, it flags ambiguous cases, and every output is traceable to source data. Most clients find their error rate goes down after launch because the agent never copy-pastes from the wrong record the way a tired human does at 4pm.

Do you need access to our systems?

Almost always less than you'd expect. Most builds run on a daily CSV export from your main system, plus your email, plus a shared folder. Direct API integration is available for clients who want it but isn't required to start.

Will my data be used to train someone else's AI?

No. Your data stays in your environment. We don't train models, we don't aggregate client data, and we don't share anything with anyone. At the end of the engagement we return or destroy any data we held, at your choice.

What's the catch on the free pilot?

We currently offer one free pilot per month to a regional small business in exchange for permission to use the measurable results as a named case study. Four hours of your time, real numbers measured before and after. No contract beyond the pilot. If you want to be considered, mention "pilot program" when you book a call.

How long does a build actually take?

A Starter build is 14 days from kickoff to live use. A Workflow System is 4-6 weeks. A Premium engagement is 6-10 weeks. We're tightly scoped for solo delivery — if your project would take longer than 10 weeks, we'll tell you up front and either restructure or recommend someone bigger.

What if it doesn't work?

We measure baseline before we start. Acceptance criteria are written into the SOW. If the system doesn't hit them after the testing period, we don't go live and we work until they're hit. No client to date has needed a refund, but the offer's in writing.

Are you in Philadelphia or remote?

Based in Philadelphia. We work in person with clients in PA, NJ, and DE when it's useful — and remote everywhere else. Most discovery and demo sessions are over video; the majority of clients never need an in-person meeting.

Get started

A 15-minute call to see if there's a fit.

Walk us through your most painful weekly workflow. We'll tell you honestly whether AI is the right tool, what it would cost to build, and what the time savings would look like. No pitch deck. No follow-up sequence.

Book a 15-minute call

Email

keystone.aiautomations@gmail.com

Schedule

Book a 15-min call

Based in

Philadelphia, PA