$10–20K/mo in payroll. Replaced by 14 agents.

On Autopilot — yes, for the deal-cycle back office: voice answering, comping, underwriting, negotiation, TC, dispo, contracts, marketing. The full 14-agent stack runs the path from inbound seller call to assignment fee in your account. We do NOT replace your bookkeeper (that's a separate role we deliberately scoped out — we'd rather ship a great 14-agent ops team than a half-built 15th). Keep your part-time bookkeeper or use Bench / Pilot for the books.

Hermes runs on a dedicated VPS we provision and manage per Autopilot customer. The setup covers provisioning, agent onboarding to your config (brand voice, buy-box, CRM, contract templates), and the first 30 days of managed-ops time. Non-refundable because the work is done in week one. The recurring subscription has a 30-day money-back guarantee on top of that.

Hermes provisioning is currently a multi-hour founder/engineer setup per customer. We're productizing the provisioning playbook (target: 60 days) so it becomes a self-serve flow. Until then, we cap at 10 active Autopilot seats. If the cohort is full, you go on a waitlist and Operator ($1,197/mo) is still the fastest path to live.

Closer ($497/mo) or Operator ($1,197/mo) is the right fit — you don't have the volume to justify Autopilot yet. Closer replaces the marketing VA + early-stage CRM hygiene; Operator adds the TC, analyst, and dispo lead. Most operators get to Autopilot in 6-12 months once volume warrants the dedicated infrastructure.

You. The founder. The agents run the back office; you run the business — relationship-building, deal-strategy decisions, the final yes/no on a marginal deal, your specific market expertise. The 14 agents replace the *executors*, not the *decision-maker*. Most Autopilot customers we work with operate as solo founders or 2-person teams (founder + assistant). The math gets better the smaller your human team gets.