An honest comparison
Why not just set it up yourselves?
You can. Anyone can buy a business plan and sign the team in by lunchtime. The question is what happens in the months after: who can see what, where your customers' data goes, and whether the assistant actually does the work. Here is the comparison, including the cases where you do not need us.
Three ways to get there
| What has to happen | Do it yourselves | The vendor's onboarding | Tech Bureau setup |
|---|---|---|---|
| Choosing the plan and the terms | You compare plans and read the data terms yourself | Their plan, their terms, their upsell | Claude or ChatGPT chosen for your team, with the terms explained |
| No training on your data, retention, sharing policies | Defaults, unless someone finds the settings | Defaults, with a help article | Configured, written down, and checked against the Privacy Act |
| Who can see what | Everyone is an admin, or nobody is | Roles explained; you set them | Admin and member roles set up per person, projects per team |
| Email, calendar and files connected | Each person connects their own, or not | Built-in connectors, if someone turns them on | Connected for everyone, read-only by default |
| Accounting, CRM, job systems | Not connected | Not their job | Integration endpoints configured on Professional and Ultimate |
| The assistant knowing how your business does things | Each person writes their own prompts, differently | Generic templates | A starter library, and on Ultimate, skills written with each role |
| Rules for staff | None, or a memo nobody reads | Their acceptable-use terms | A one-page staff AI use policy, in your name |
| When it stops working | Whoever set it up, if they still work there | Vendor support, about the product | Five weeks of maintenance, then optional AI Care |
| Cost | Licences, plus the hours of whoever does it | Licences; onboarding is usually free | Licences, plus a one-time setup from $2,200 |
When you do not need us
Do it yourselves if
- You are one or two people and nothing you paste into an AI belongs to a customer
- Someone in the business enjoys this, has a free afternoon a week, and will still be there next year
- Your work does not touch email, files or business systems the assistant would need to read
- You want to try it before you commit; our Claude vs ChatGPT guide is written for exactly that
When it is worth paying for
Get it set up if
The value of an assistant comes from the setup around it, not the licence. If any of these is true, the setup pays for itself within weeks, and the Privacy Act changes on 10 December 2026 make the data settings a matter of compliance, not preference.
- Staff are already using personal AI accounts with customer details in them
- Three or more people would use it, in different roles
- The work lives in your email, files, accounting or job system
- You want every quote, report and reply to come out the way the business does it, not the way each person does it
- Nobody has time to own it, and you want it to keep working after the first month
Still not sure? Ask.
Book a free 30-minute call. If doing it yourselves is the right answer for you, we will say so and tell you how.