The DIY AI Analyst BillWhat it really takes, in hoursLead-gen edition

Every hour it takes to build and run your own AI marketing analyst on Claude or ChatGPT, line by line - for shops and lead-gen businesses. Count them for your own setup.

Free to Connect. Not to Run. Shopify's and Meta's connectors for Claude and ChatGPT cost little or nothing. Running your own AI analyst on them is paid in hours: setup, weekly checks, fixes and every platform change. Count them line by line, for your own setup.

Count the Hours First. Building your own AI analyst? Connecting your ads, Google Analytics and lead list to Claude or ChatGPT is the easy part. Keeping it honest every week - cleaning the lead list, reconciling, fixing sign-ins - is where the hours go. Count them line by line, for your own setup.

paid in hours

The hours add up

What you get

The whole bill, line by line
11 setup tasks, 5 weekly, 4 monthly, 2 for every platform change and 2 yearly, each with a low, likely and high estimate in hours and the reason for its range.
A calculator for your own setup
shop or lead-gen, Claude or ChatGPT, how many sources, which you update by export, and Google's own servers or not. Change any hour you disagree with.
Where the time goes
in the calculator's default shop setup, about four in five running hours go on checking and fixing (an illustrative estimate). Reading the answers and deciding isn't on the bill.
Euros only if you type your own rate
no vendor prices and no Trackian prices. The fair yardstick is the hours, at your rate or at what an analyst or agency would charge.
An email to forward to your boss
, filled in with your own numbers, plus a filled-in example tab in the calculator.
An honest answer on who should build it themselves
(plenty should) and how to cut the hours if you do.

Free · about 15 seconds

Who it's for, and who it's not for

The in-house marketer of a small garden-supplies shop pencils hours into a weekly planner, adding them up in the margin.

Who it's for

Owners and marketing leads of online shops and lead-gen businesses deciding whether to connect their ads, GA4 and store or lead list to Claude or ChatGPT themselves.
Agencies and freelancers scoping an AI analyst for a client, who want the running cost in writing before anyone commits.
Whoever has been asked to "just connect it": the bill shows what happens every week after the connection works.

Who it's not for

Teams with a developer and a data warehouse already reconciling these sources every week - the bill will look familiar.
Anyone who only asks one platform the odd question: connect it and ask; you don't need a bill for that.

What's inside

PDF · About 15 min read + calculator

Honest note

Every hour range is our illustrative estimate, built from the setup steps in our own connection and stack guides: nobody was timed, and two people doing the same setup can land far apart. The calculator doesn't price your tools, and it can't put a number on the biggest cost of all, a budget decision made on a wrong number. For some businesses, building it yourself is the right call, and the explainer says which.

Free · about 15 seconds