The system drafts the quote from the batch size, the process version and the cost sources. The process engineer approves the assumptions, and the salesperson the price.
Automation, paid once
from €3,000 net
Test on your process: €0
You pay 50% after acceptance
How much does quote automation for a manufacturer cost, and when does it pay back?
Short answer
Quote automation for a manufacturer costs from €3,000 net. In our scenario it pays back in 1.7 months. Today, pricing 60 enquiries by hand costs €2,094 a month. With the system, the same work costs €315. The process engineer approves the assumptions, and the salesperson the price and lead time. A line with no basis stays unpriced and goes to the engineer. The test on your process is free.
Statistics
Quotes and AI: statistics 2026
−95%
According to Anthropic (2025), compiling information from reports takes an estimated 95% less time with AI.
According to the European Commission (2026), 42% of EU small and mid-sized companies already use AI or automated management systems, mostly in a limited way.
We count the payback from the time saved. The process also brings extra margin from sales: about €1,032 a month in this scenario (the assumptions are under “How we calculate it”). According to Harvard Business Review (2011), in a study of 1.25 million sales leads, firms that tried to contact a lead within an hour were nearly 7 times more likely to reach a decision-maker than firms that tried an hour later.
60 × 60 min = 60 h × €34.90 = €2,094 a month. With the system, a person checks the output in 15% of the old time (€314) and the model costs €1. That leaves €315. The saving is €1,779 a month, so €3,000 pays back in 1.7 months. The payback counts the time saved only. On top of it comes extra margin from sales: about €1,032 a month in this scenario.
Assumptions: 60 minutes to price an enquiry with a drawing and checking in 15% of the old time are our assumptions. €34.90 an hour is the EU average hourly labour cost for 2025 according to Eurostat, for companies with 10 or more employees. Model cost: Claude Sonnet 5.5, about 4,000 + 1,500 tokens per draft quote, at the ECB rate of 1.1205 USD per euro on 22 October 2026. The extra margin is a scenario: we assume that 1 in 40 enquiries quoted the same day ends in an order that a slow reply loses today, with a margin of €688. In the review we count it on your sales process.
What changes when a customer orders a smaller batch
Today
An RFQ arrives with a drawing and a quantity
Client
The salesperson passes it to the engineer
Team
The engineer looks for similar quotes
Team
A smaller batch changes the unit cost
Team
The quote goes out a week later
Team
With the system
The enquiry arrives in the inbox
Client
Splits it into items and operations
AI
Matches costs from history for this batch
AI
The engineer and the salesperson approve
Person
A quote with its sources
System
What stays with people: The process engineer approves the assumptions, and the salesperson the price and lead time. A line with no basis stays unpriced and goes to the engineer.
foap.com customer service: 95% of replies are sent automatically.
Users from several countries write to foap.com, in several languages. The system reads the entire conversation and the terms of that person, and then sends a response in that person's language. Questions about money and exceptions go to the team with a ready draft, so they have to check and send them.
the system sends the answers itself, without human typing
95%
the system sends the answers itself, without human typing
time from the arrival of the e-mail to the ready response (median)
30 s
time from the arrival of the e-mail to the ready response (median)
e-mails that require a response receive a ready-made draft
100%
e-mails that require a response receive a ready-made draft
less work for every 1000 answers (estimate)
47 h
less work for every 1000 answers (estimate)
Data from foap.com production, October 20-21, 2026. Estimate: 3 minutes for handwritten response.
It splits an enquiry into line items and looks for the basis of each price in past quotes and approved rules. A line with no basis stays unpriced and goes to the right person with a specific question. Reading one enquiry costs about €0.0008 of model work.
“We started with my own AI agent. During the training that followed, I learned to build new applications myself. Today I am bringing this way of working with AI into my business. Working with Syntalith gave me exactly the skills and tools I needed.”
You choose the test cases. We anonymise them on request.
They stay in the EU and we delete them after the test.
We sign the NDA and the data processing agreement before we receive anything.
After acceptance you keep the code, the test set and the documentation. You pay for licences and model usage directly to the provider.
Questions
How much does quote automation in manufacturing cost?
From €3,000 net, paid once. After the 5-day test the build takes 2 to 6 weeks for one type of quote, and a full system 6 to 16 weeks. You get a fixed price before the contract: 50% on signing and 50% after acceptance on your own enquiries.
Would a spreadsheet or the ERP be enough?
We start from them: the system reads your costing spreadsheet or data from the ERP. It makes sense when the engineer looks for similar quotes by hand and enquiries arrive as PDFs and drawings.
When does it not pay off?
Below 9 enquiries a month the payback takes more than a year. Then it is better to start with ChatGPT or Claude for the team, from €1,150 net.
Who is responsible for the price?
The salesperson, after the engineer accepts the assumptions. The system shows which earlier quote or rule each amount comes from.
What do we need to prepare?
20 to 100 enquiries from recent months with the quotes you sent, the costing spreadsheet or a cost export from the ERP, and the person who approves quotes today.
What our OpenAI and Anthropic partnerships mean for you.
OpenAI makes ChatGPT and Anthropic makes Claude. We belong to the partnership programs of both companies, so we work with their tools every day and learn from the creators themselves.
Claude Partner Network
01We will select a tool for the task
We implement both ChatGPT and Claude. We check both on your documents, and you choose the one that makes fewer corrections and saves more time.
02Knowledge straight from the creators
We learn from official OpenAI and Anthropic courses and materials. Your team learns about the features and settings that work today.
03Licenses without our margin
You buy accounts directly from OpenAI or Anthropic and receive an invoice from them. We do not add anything to the license.
04Certified engineers
On the team, we have an AWS certification in machine learning and an Anthropic certification in systems architecture on Claude.
Participation in programs does not mean that OpenAI or Anthropic endorses our services.
customer service
