Stop Paying Your Best People to Do Your Worst Tasks
If your team spends hours every week on quoting, invoicing, follow-ups, document drafting, or report preparation, that is exactly what we automate. Governance-first. Fixed-price. Delivered in weeks.
Working with Australian small businesses, not-for-profits, and professional services firms across Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane.
In short
Free Me Up AI is a Melbourne-based AI consultancy delivering practical, governance-first automation to Australian small businesses, not-for-profits, and professional services firms. Most engagements start with a short AI Risk Snapshot or our 90-Day AI Pilot: fixed scope, fixed price, one live workflow plus a documented governance framework within the quarter. We are not Big 4. We are not vendor resellers. We work inside the tools you already pay for and leave you owning every workflow.
AI consultancy Australia: practical, governance-first, fixed-price
Free Me Up AI is an AI consultancy serving Australian small businesses, not-for-profits, and professional services firms. We work nationally from Melbourne, scope engagements in weeks rather than quarters, and price every piece of work up front so you know what you are committing to before we start.
What kind of work we automate
The work below is what most Australian small businesses, not-for-profits, and professional services firms ask us about first. None of it requires new platforms. All of it leaves your team in control of the final output.
Quoting, follow-ups, and proposals
Drafting structured quotes, sending follow-up sequences, and tracking win or loss reasons consume hours each week for owners and senior staff. AI drafts the quote from your job notes and standard pricing, schedules the follow-ups, and surfaces who replied and who went cold. You stay in the conversation; the admin disappears. Common in professional services AI automation.
Document drafting and report preparation
Proposals, contracts, board papers, client briefings, and internal reports often start from scratch even when a similar document exists from last quarter. AI assembles a first draft from your previous work and the relevant inputs in seconds. You edit and approve. Pair this with our Microsoft Copilot meeting minutes guide for the meetings around them.
Email and inbox triage
Most teams lose 30 to 60 minutes a day to inbox sorting, decision-making, and short replies. AI categorises inbound mail, drafts responses for predictable threads, and flags items that genuinely need a human. The personal touch stays intact, the queue clears faster, and nothing important goes missing. See our take on keeping the personal touch in client follow-ups.
Meeting and call summaries
Teams meet, decide, and then forget what was decided. AI listens to the call, transcribes it, extracts the action items with owners attached, and distributes the summary inside the channels you already use. Especially powerful inside Microsoft Copilot rollouts where the meetings live in Teams.
BAS prep, invoicing, and reconciliations
The lead-up to BAS lodgement and end-of-month reconciliations typically generates a week of clean-up work across the quarter. AI reviews transactions for likely GST coding errors, flags reconciliation mismatches, and prepares the file for your accountant. See BAS and GST admin automation for the dedicated service.
Client intake and onboarding
New client paperwork, intake forms, CRM entry, and the welcome sequence are repetitive enough that they drift to the bottom of someone's list. A configured workflow turns the first form submission into a fully populated CRM record, a personalised welcome email, and the right calendar invitation. See AI workflow automation for the underlying pattern.
Featured engagement
Most engagements start here: the 90-Day AI Pilot
One live workflow, a governance framework, and a board-ready summary. Fixed scope, fixed price, real outcomes within 90 days.
Up to 20 staff
90-Day AI Pilot, Essential
From $5,500
Plus GST. Fixed scope, governance built in.
- One live workflow implemented end-to-end
- Governance framework tailored to your tools
- Team training and adoption support
- Board-ready summary at 90 days
20 to 50 staff
90-Day AI Pilot, Full Stack
From $8,500
Plus GST. Multi-team rollout, deeper governance scope.
- All Essential pilot deliverables included
- Multi-team workflow design and rollout
- Extended governance and policy artefacts
- Stakeholder briefings across the organisation
How an engagement works
Audit
We map your team's time. Where do hours go each week? Which tasks are formulaic enough that AI can draft them, but consequential enough that a human still reviews them? The audit is grounded in your actual work, not a generic capability matrix.
Select
We choose the right tool for your context, often what you already pay for. Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, Zapier, or a purpose-built workflow. We do not take commissions from vendors, so the recommendation reflects fit, not a kickback.
Configure and integrate
We wire the tool into your existing systems (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Xero, your CRM) so it works inside your daily workflow, not alongside it. Adoption fails when AI lives in a separate tab; this avoids that.
Govern and train
We write the AI policy, define the controls, and train your team. The result is AI as a documented, accountable part of how the organisation works, not a quiet personal-tool experiment that quietly creates risk.
Why Australian small businesses need a different approach
Most AI consulting in Australia is built for enterprise.
Big 4 engagements run 6 to 18 months and cost $250,000 or more. That is not what an Australian small business or NFP needs, and most of that scope is irrelevant to a team of 15. You end up paying for governance frameworks designed for ASX 200 companies and change-management plans built around a 5,000-person workforce.
Most AI consultants are vendor resellers.
They recommend the tool they take commission on. We do not. Our recommendation is whatever fits your context, often the tools you already pay for, used properly. If the answer for your business is the Microsoft Copilot you already have via your 365 licence, we will tell you.
Australian privacy and governance is its own thing.
The Privacy Act 1988 differs materially from GDPR. The Voluntary AI Safety Standard from the Department of Industry, Science and Resources is a real benchmark. A consultant who has read both is reading your operating environment, not borrowing US frameworks that do not map cleanly to Australian compliance, contractual, or sector-specific obligations.
Other ways we work
The 90-Day Pilot is the most common shape, but it is not the only one. If your situation is more focused, longer-running, or specialised, one of the engagements below will fit.
AI Readiness and Risk Check
60 to 90 minutes, paid one-off, approximately $500
Two or three places AI realistically saves your team time, the governance you would need to do it safely, and a clear next step. Comes with a written summary you can share internally. See pricing for the full list.
Fixed-scope project
4 to 12 weeks, $5,500 to $25,000
Scoped after the Readiness Check. One workflow, fully implemented and trained. Suits organisations that already know which problem to solve and want a finished result, not a roadmap.
Ongoing advisory retainer
Monthly, from $1,500 per month
For organisations scaling AI use over time. Regular reviews, new use cases each month, and a sounding board when something new lands. Suits operations leads who want a second pair of eyes without hiring in-house.
Microsoft Copilot rollout
Specialised, scoped to your tenant
For organisations on Microsoft 365 wanting Copilot used well rather than just licensed. See Microsoft Copilot consulting for the dedicated service detail.
Governance built in from day one
Every engagement is delivered inside our written AI governance framework. Four principles hold throughout.
Your data stays yours.
No client data leaves your tenant without explicit policy approval. Tools are configured to not train on your inputs.
Human oversight at every step.
AI drafts, humans approve, decisions are accountable. We do not deploy autonomous AI for any client-facing or compliance-critical task.
No lock-in.
You own every workflow we build. We document it. You can take it elsewhere, hand it to your team, or pause it without penalty.
Privacy Act 1988 and Voluntary AI Safety Standard alignment.
Standard, not optional. Every workflow is checked against both before going live.
Frequently asked questions
For Australian small businesses and NFPs, fixed-scope projects typically run $5,500 to $25,000. The 90-Day AI Pilot starts at $5,500 plus GST. Hourly advisory sits at $200 per hour. Ongoing retainers from $1,500 per month. See our full cost breakdown.
No. Most engagements start with teams who have either never used AI formally, or who have staff using ChatGPT informally without governance. Both are normal starting points.
Most clients see measurable time savings within the first two weeks of pilot execution. The 90-day pilot is designed to produce one live, used workflow plus a governance framework within the quarter. Strategy without execution is not the goal.
That is the most common starting point we see. We do not shut it down. We bring it under governance. Within four weeks, your team has a written policy, approved use cases, and clear escalation paths. Productivity gains preserved, risk closed.
Yes. We are Melbourne-based but deliver across Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra, Hobart, and Darwin. Most engagement work happens remotely (Teams or Meet) with on-site visits at key milestones for Melbourne-area clients. We have particular depth working with not-for-profit organisations across the eastern states.
Scope, speed, and price. Big 4 engagements run 6 to 18 months at $250,000 or more with PowerPoint-heavy deliverables. We deliver one working workflow in 90 days at $5,500 to $8,500. We are built for organisations that need AI working, not AI strategised.
Serving Australian businesses nationally
Melbourne (HQ), Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra, Hobart, Darwin. National remote engagements available.
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