Comparison
PURIST vs Hiring In-House
An automation developer costs £50–90k/year and delivers 1–2 workflows per month after a long onboarding. PURIST delivers 12+ workflows in under a week, at a fraction of the cost.
| Factor | PURIST | In-house hire |
|---|---|---|
| Time to first result | < 7 days | 3–6 months onboarding |
| Monthly cost | From £797/mo | £4,000–£8,000/mo salary |
| Workflows delivered | 12+ in month one | 1–2 depending on scope |
| Availability | 24/7 automated | 40h/week, holidays, sick days |
| Knowledge retained | 100% code you own | Leaves with the employee |
| Scales instantly | Yes unlimited | Hire again |
| AI capabilities | Claude Opus built-in | Depends on individual |
| Error monitoring | 24/7 90s alert | Only when at desk |
| Guarantee | 30-day money back | Probation period only |
| Risk if it fails | Full refund | Redundancy cost + time lost |
6×
Cheaper than a hire
PURIST Full Stack at £1,197/mo vs a mid-level automation dev at £72k/year fully loaded.
12+
Workflows in month one
A new hire spends months onboarding. PURIST is live in under 7 days.
100%
Knowledge retained
Every workflow lives in your infrastructure. No knowledge walks out the door.
The hidden costs of hiring an automation developer
When a business decides to hire an automation developer, the salary figure on the job posting understates the true cost by 40–60%. The fully-loaded cost of a UK-based mid-level developer includes employer National Insurance contributions (13.8% on earnings above £9,100), pension contributions (3–5%), equipment and software licences (£3,000–5,000/year), benefits (healthcare, gym, etc.), recruitment fees (15–20% of salary if using an agency), and management overhead.
A developer earning £55,000 costs the business approximately £70,000–78,000 per year in fully-loaded terms. At that cost, they are available 40 hours per week during business hours, excluding holidays (28 days statutory minimum), sick leave (average 4.6 days/year in the UK), and the inevitable weeks of reduced productivity during onboarding.
Even a productive automation developer builds 1–3 new workflows per month once ramped. PURIST deploys 9+ workflows in under 7 days then maintains them indefinitely.
The knowledge problem
The most underestimated risk of in-house automation is knowledge concentration. When your automation developer leaves and average developer tenure in the UK is 2.4 years they take their understanding of your workflows with them. If the automation was poorly documented (most is), the business is left with running code that nobody fully understands and cannot safely modify.
PURIST treats documentation as a first-class deliverable. Every workflow includes a technical specification, business context notes, error handling documentation, and a runbook for common failure modes. If PURIST disappeared tomorrow, your team could hand the code to any developer and they could understand, maintain, and extend it within hours.
When in-house is the right answer
PURIST is not the right choice for every business. Hiring in-house makes sense when: you need custom application development beyond automation, your workflows require deep integration with proprietary internal systems that resist external access, you have security requirements that prevent any external engineering engagement, or you are at a scale where a full internal automation team (3+ engineers) delivers better cost efficiency than managed services.
For most businesses under 200 employees, PURIST delivers better automation outcomes than an in-house hire faster, cheaper, and with lower risk.
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Book your free audit →Frequently asked questions
What does an automation developer actually cost in the UK?
A mid-level automation developer in London earns £45,000–£65,000 base salary. Add employer NI (13.8%), pension contributions (3–5%), equipment, benefits, and management overhead, and the fully-loaded annual cost reaches £55,000–£80,000. That is £4,600–£6,700/month for a single person who covers your automation needs only during working hours, only when not sick or on leave, and only until they find a better offer.
What does PURIST cost compared to hiring?
PURIST's Full Stack plan which includes both Automation Pro (9 production workflows) and AI Agent Deploy (4 AI capabilities) starts at £1,197/month. That is roughly one-sixth the cost of a mid-level hire, with deployment in under 7 days, 24/7 monitoring, a 30-day money-back guarantee, and no knowledge risk if the relationship ends.
What happens to our automations if we stop working with PURIST?
You own everything PURIST builds. All workflows are deployed on your infrastructure, documented, and version-controlled. If you stop working with PURIST tomorrow, every automation continues running exactly as before. You can hand the code to any developer, modify it yourself, or simply let it run. There is no lock-in, no data extraction process, and no workflow rebuilding required.
Can PURIST do everything an in-house developer could?
PURIST focuses specifically on workflow automation and AI agent deployment. For teams that need custom application development, mobile apps, or deep backend engineering, an in-house developer is the right choice. For operations automation the work that accounts for 60–80% of what most businesses hire their first developer to do PURIST delivers faster, cheaper, and with better reliability than a single hire.
How does PURIST handle our specific business logic?
Every PURIST engagement starts with an audit call where we map your exact processes, business rules, and edge cases. Unlike a SaaS automation tool with fixed templates, every workflow is built to your specification from scratch. Complex branching logic, multi-system data flows, custom validation rules these are standard, not premium add-ons.
What industries does PURIST specialise in?
PURIST has completed 500+ production deployments across dental and healthcare practices, real estate and property management agencies, marketing and creative agencies, DTC e-commerce businesses, commercial law firms, and staffing and recruitment agencies. Each industry has specific compliance, data, and workflow requirements that we understand deeply.
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