Automation & RPA Consulting
The shortcut: Half of RPA consultants sell expensive bots to clients who actually need a better spreadsheet — or a Power Automate flow they're already paying for and don't know it. Diagnose the process before you scope a tool, and lead with Power Automate inside Microsoft 365 shops because the license is already on the invoice.
Industry: Software & Tech | Investment level: Small — $2,000-$10,000 | Time to launch: 4-8 weeks (UiPath/Power Automate cert + one documented pilot gate the launch)
Best for: A developer or analyst who can read someone else's broken Excel macro, sit through a 45-minute "show me what you do every Monday" walkthrough without losing patience, and explain to a non-technical operations manager why the bot will break the next time IT changes the login screen. What you'll likely make: $2,000-$3,500 month 3, $5,000-$9,000 month 6, $10,000-$18,000 month 12 (one or two builds plus a small maintenance retainer book). Math is in Section 4.
Market Opportunity
The dirty secret of RPA is that most "bots" sold to small and mid-size businesses are wallpaper over a process nobody bothered to fix. The AP clerk copies invoice data from a PDF into SAP because SAP has no API. A consultant builds a UiPath bot to mimic the clerk's clicks. Six months later, SAP pushes a UI update, the bot crashes silently, the clerk goes back to copy-paste, and the client calls the consultant who's now on a new contract.
That's the failure pattern. It's also the opportunity. The consultants who survive diagnose the process first, recommend the cheapest tool that solves it (often Power Automate, sometimes Zapier, occasionally a 30-line Python script), and price ongoing maintenance from day one.
The crowded part is "we do RPA" generalists fighting over UiPath enterprise gigs. The quiet part is the SMB segment running on Microsoft 365 Business Premium ($22/user/month, Microsoft 365 plan comparison) where Power Automate is already included in the seat license. Most of those clients have no idea they're paying for it. You walk in, automate three approval workflows in a week, and they pay you $4,000-$6,000 because it feels like magic — the tool was already in their tenant.
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