7. What hidden costs should I look for in an HVAC AI proposal?

Ask the supplier to price or expressly exclude:

• Telephone numbers, forwarding, inbound calls, transfers and outbound calls.
• AI usage, transcription, recording storage and message delivery.
• Connector subscriptions, workflow executions and retries.
• Job-software upgrades or API access.
• Data cleanup, script preparation and staff training.
• Monitoring, incident investigation and out-of-hours support.
• Routine changes to services, prices, staff and opening hours.
• Export, number transfer and migration assistance at exit.

A simple example shows why usage matters. At OMH’s published Growth rate, 800 minutes would produce a £629 monthly supplier charge: £449 plus 300 extra minutes at £0.60. Twelve identical months plus the £1,295 setup fee would total £8,843 excluding VAT, before any separately chargeable items or internal costs. This is arithmetic from that tariff, not a forecast or a market benchmark. (onlinemarketinghelp.co.uk)

Also distinguish a spending alert from a spending cap. In the proposal, specify what should happen when a limit is reached: continue with approval, downgrade to message capture, or divert to the agreed fallback. Do not allow an unspecified billing limit to become an unspecified service interruption.