Yearly running cost Assuming 24,000 appointments a year
By hand $80K / year 3,200 hours of work
Subscription $2.4K+ / year
This workflow $922 / year Machine usage only; setup, hosting and review are extra. What should it do for each appointment? Manage appointments in a scheduling page, or connect them to your transportation system.
Arrange appointments by email Request slots and record confirmed times. $1,152 – 3,360 setup Connect my transportation system Also read loads and save appointments in your system. $1,944 – 5,520 setup
Which transportation system holds your loads?McLeod LoadMaster Turvo Aljex Revenova Other It requests and records appointments only within each load’s window. Your team approves anything outside it, and it never cancels an appointment or books through a facility portal.
What is included Email each facility a request with the load references and window, follow up unanswered requests, read replies and record the confirmed date, time and number, raising offers outside the window.
Start with your facility contacts and receiving rules, the pickup and delivery windows on your loads, and past appointment email threads. The connected option reads loads needing appointments from your transportation system, writes confirmed appointments back and sends reschedule requests your team approves.
How accurate should the recorded appointments be? Set targets for correct dates, times and confirmation numbers, with conflicts flagged for review.
Standard Correct appointment details, with unclear replies and conflicts raised to your team. Appointment details correct: ≥98% Inside the load window: ≥99% Included Strict A second check of every recorded appointment against the reply, with more difficult test threads. Appointment details correct: ≥99% Inside the load window: ≥100% Setup +$288 – 840 My own targets Agree your own acceptance requirements with the provider. Quote separately
How these standards are measured Test on held-out appointment email threads from facilities not used for setup. Check every recorded date, time, time zone and confirmation number against the facility’s reply, and confirm that offers outside the load window, unclear replies and portal-only facilities go to your team. A recorded time without the reply behind it counts as a failure.
Targets for your selected standard What is checked Target Appointment details correctCorrect dates, times, time zones and confirmation numbers compared with the facility replies, divided by all such details in the test threads. ≥98% Inside the load windowRecorded appointments that fall inside the load’s pickup or delivery window, or were raised to your team, divided by all recorded appointments. ≥99% Unclear replies raisedLabelled unclear replies, conflicting offers and portal-only facilities raised to your team, divided by all such labelled threads. ≥95% Appointments with sourceEvery recorded appointment must link to the facility reply it came from. ≥100%
A confirmed time and number must come from the facility’s reply. A proposed time is not a confirmation, and a recorded appointment without a reply behind it is an error.
How quickly should requests and confirmations be handled? Choose how soon a request is sent after a load needs an appointment, and how soon a facility’s reply is recorded. The facility’s own response time is separate.
Within 5 minutes Included Within 2 minutes Setup +$144 – 480 Within 60 seconds Setup +$288 – 840
Timing details Time from a load becoming due for an appointment, or a reply arriving, to the request sent or the appointment recorded, including reading, checks, queueing and retries. Follow-ups on unanswered requests run on the schedule you agree.
The target applies to at least 95% of agreed test runs, with 6 in progress at a time.
How much do you want to spend per appointment? Set the AI processing budget for each appointment.
Up to $0.08 Included Up to $0.05 Setup +$72 – 360 Up to $0.04 Setup +$216 – 600
Cost details Includes model calls, retries and a shared hosting allocation across the request, follow-ups and the reply. Your email service, transportation system, facility portal fees and your team’s time are separate. Long reschedule threads cost more.
Reference machine cost: $0.05 – 0.07 per appointment at 2000 appointments a month. The selected cap is a target to test, not a replacement for this estimate.
Where do you want it to run? Run it in your cloud or on your own server. Choose whether appointment emails may go to an approved AI service.
Run it onYour cloud Local environment AI model accessApproved model API Private model only
Data and access details Runs in a cloud account you control, with access controls and logs.
Appointment emails go to the selected external model for reading and drafting. Agree access and retention first.
Send from a scheduling mailbox you approve and only to facility contacts on file. Private model only keeps email text on your hardware; the workflow still connects to your mailbox and transportation system.
How do you want to use it? Choose where you want to use it. You can select more than one.
A scheduling page See requested, confirmed and conflicting appointments by load, with the email thread behind each one. Included My existing AI agent Let your agent request an appointment for a load or read its confirmed time and number. Setup +$72 – 240 Alerts in team chat Conflicts, unanswered requests and portal-only facilities are posted to your team chat channel. Setup +$144 – 360