Business Butler vs. hiring an AI consultancy.
An AI consultancy advises you on what AI to use. Business Butler installs the operational layer that runs. Here is the honest difference, including when each is genuinely the right answer.
If you need an AI strategy roadmap spanning multiple business units, board-level positioning work, vendor evaluation across an enterprise stack, or risk frameworks for a regulated industry, hire an AI consultancy. That is what they are good for.
If you need the back-office to actually start running better next month, hire Business Butler. We do not write strategy decks. We install the operational layer.
You need an AI consultancy when the problem is figuring out what to do.
A good AI consultancy is the right answer when you have genuine strategic uncertainty. You are a larger organisation with multiple business units, each with different AI exposure. You are in a regulated industry where the risk frameworks need explicit thought before any deployment. You have a board that needs convincing before you spend serious money. You need someone with breadth across vendors, methodologies and case studies to help you decide what to do.
What you get from a consultancy is advice. Strategy decks. A roadmap. Vendor recommendations. A risk framework. If you are well-positioned to act on advice (you have the internal capacity to deliver what they recommend), the spend pays back. Day rates are typically £1,000 to £3,000. A full scoped project is £15,000 to £50,000 over three to six months. Some take ongoing retainers at £5,000 to £15,000 a month.
If you genuinely have that strategic uncertainty, do not skip the work. The consultancy spend is well spent.
You need Business Butler when you just need it to start running.
For most 5 to 25 person UK service businesses, the strategic uncertainty is not the bottleneck. You already know what is broken. You know the team is buried in admin, you know things fall through the cracks between tools, you know you are doing paperwork on Sunday evenings. You do not need a six-month assessment to confirm any of that.
What you need is the operational layer installed. Discovery call (free, 45 minutes), Findings Report within 48 hours with a recommended tier and confirmed setup price, two-week Setup, then live. From the moment Setup completes, the Business Butler is running: capturing inbound work, moving information between your existing tools, drafting the outbound paperwork for your sign-off.
No deck. No multi-month assessment. No vendor recommendations to evaluate. You get an operational layer that runs, configured to your business, with the human staying in the loop on anything that goes out under your name.
The honest side-by-side.
Advice vs. delivery. Two genuinely different services that get mixed up because both have "AI" in them.
| AI consultancy | Business Butler | |
|---|---|---|
| What they deliver | Strategy deck. Roadmap. Vendor recommendations. Risk framework. Sometimes a proof-of-concept. | An operational layer that runs. Inbound captured, work moved between tools, outbound drafted for sign-off in your inbox. Continuously. |
| Cost | Day rate £1,000 to £3,000. Scoped project £15,000 to £50,000 over 3 to 6 months. Retainers £5,000 to £15,000/mo. | Discovery free. Setup from £400 to £1,000. Then £450 to £1,495 a month including ongoing operation. |
| Time to value | Three to six months of assessment and roadmapping before anything operational happens. Often longer. | Two weeks from Discovery to live. Operational from day one of Setup completion. |
| Who does the building afterwards | You. Or a delivery partner they recommend. The consultancy walks away with the deck. | We do. Business Butler is the productised service. The same multi-tenant platform configured to your business, run by Time Back. |
| When the AI landscape moves | The recommendations age. Six months in, some of the vendor recommendations are outdated and you are paying to revise. | The platform evolves underneath you. Anthropic Claude updates, new tool integrations, improved drafts. Included in the monthly fee. |
| Best for | Larger organisations with strategic uncertainty. Multi-unit AI exposure. Regulated industries needing risk frameworks. Board-level positioning. | 5 to 25 person UK service businesses where the problem is well understood (the team is buried in admin) and you want it solved. |
| What it does not do | A consultancy does not run operations. Once the project ends, the work of actually making it happen is yours. | Business Butler does not write AI strategy. It does not advise on vendor selection. It does not run workshops. It does the operational running. |
The honest test.
Ask yourself: are you trying to figure out what to do, or do something?
If you are figuring out what to do (genuine strategic uncertainty, multiple business units, regulated complexity, board to convince), a consultancy is the right answer. Pay for the advice, then act on it.
If you already know what to do (the team is buried in admin, the tools do not talk, the owner is the bottleneck) and you just want the operational layer installed, Business Butler is the right answer. You do not need a £30,000 strategy project to confirm what you already know.
The Discovery call covers everything a consultancy's assessment phase would cover, for free, in 45 minutes. The Findings Report you get back is yours to keep whether or not you proceed. If we tell you Business Butler is not the right fit and you need wider AI strategy work, we will tell you that too.
Frequently asked
Is Time Back an AI consultancy?
No. Time Back installs an operational layer. Business Butler is the product. We do not advise on which AI tools to buy. We do not write AI strategy decks. We do not run AI workshops for the leadership team.
The product is the operational layer itself, not advice about it.
How much does an AI consultancy cost?
Day rates for AI strategy consultants in the UK are typically £1,000 to £3,000. A scoped strategy project (assessment, roadmap, vendor recommendations) is typically £15,000 to £50,000 and runs three to six months. Ongoing retainers, where they exist, are usually £5,000 to £15,000 a month.
By the time you finish the project, the AI landscape has moved on and a chunk of the recommendations are out of date. The work has to be revisited.
Could a consultancy install Business Butler for me?
No. Business Butler is a productised service we install ourselves at Time Back. It is the same underlying multi-tenant platform configured to each client. There are no implementation partners and no licensed resellers, by design.
If a consultancy proposes "we will set up your AI back-office", what they are actually proposing is a bespoke build on top of DIY tools (Zapier, Make, custom code) that they will then walk away from. That is a different shape of answer to Business Butler, with the maintenance burden landing on you afterwards.
Do I need an AI strategy before installing Business Butler?
No. The Discovery call exists for this. In 45 minutes we map where your team is losing time, what tools are in play and which Butler tier fits. The Findings Report covers what we would change in your operations.
You do not need a separate strategy phase. If during Discovery we identify that you genuinely need wider AI strategy thinking that goes beyond operations, we will say so and recommend you talk to a consultancy. It is the honest version of the answer either way.
Still not sure?
Book a free 45-minute Discovery call. We will look at whether the answer for your business is advice (consultancy), delivery (Business Butler), or both in sequence. Written Findings Report within 48 hours, yours to keep.