The Workflow Automation Margin Curve: Why Delivery Economics Shift After the Third Validated Workflow

Workflow automation pays back in stages, and most agencies misprice the first stage as if it were the last. The build is a one-time integration fee; the margin lives in the maintenance retainer and in expansion modeled from the client's process inventory, not from the platform's integration count. Agencies that skip the baseline and the exception paths win the project and lose the account at renewal.