AI in the trades, 29 October 2026
Is Nexley worth it? Admin hours UK trades have saved (case studies)
Nexley is worth it if admin takes you more than about four and a half hours a week and your time is worth £45 an hour or more. At £799 a month, that is roughly the break-even. Firms we work with report the biggest wins on quotes and supplier bills: one builder went from two days a week of admin to about 30 minutes a day.
Where do these numbers come from?
They come from 54 sales and onboarding calls with 28 UK and Irish trade firms between July and October 2026, recorded and transcribed. That is a small sample of firms who were interested enough to book a call, so treat every figure as one firm's experience, not an average. We describe each firm by trade, size and region and never by name.
What almost every owner said first was the same: the business runs out of their head, and the admin happens in the evenings and at weekends. A roofer with six people on the tools told us he was doing admin "until 1 or 2 in the morning". The cases below are the ones where we have a before and after.
What changed for a renovation builder?
The clearest result is a renovation and extension builder doing high-end domestic work with four or five staff. Before, he said the admin was "a bit of a shambles" and that he didn't know which jobs made money. After a few weeks, his admin had gone from about two days a week to about 30 minutes a day, mostly on his phone, and a week's backlog was cleared in under 24 hours.
About 2 days a week on adminnowAbout 30 minutes a day
I don't know if I'm making money on jobs.
What he used most: supplier bills going into Xero on their own, cost per job, a price list built from his merchant invoices, take-offs he checked against his quantity surveyor (roof timbers came out "pretty much bang on"), shopping lists sent to merchants, and variations added by voice note. Before Nexley he had signed a 12-month job management contract and paid £500 for training on the wrong package, which is why month-to-month mattered to him.
Does it pay for itself? A worked payback sum
Here is that builder's change as a sum. The hours come from what he told us; the value of an hour is an assumption you should replace with your own.
Payback for a builder going from 2 days a week to 30 minutes a day
Assumes an 8-hour admin day, a 5-day week, 48 working weeks and an hour valued at £45.
| Admin before2 days × 8 hours | 16 hrs a week |
| Admin after30 minutes × 5 days | 2.5 hrs a week |
| Hours saved16 − 2.5 | 13.5 hrs a week |
| Value of the time saved13.5 × £45 × 48 weeks | £29,160 |
| Nexley for a year£799 × 12 | £9,588 |
| Value left after the subscription£29,160 − £9,588 | £19,572 |
Put in your own hours and rate. If the yearly figure is below £9,588, the subscription costs you more than the time it saves.
Your numbers, not a promise. Change any figure to match your firm.
What happened at the other firms?
Results vary a lot by trade and by how much admin was there to start with. These are the ones with numbers we can stand behind.
| Firm | Before | After or result |
|---|---|---|
| Emergency plumbing and drainage, Dundee, 7 engineers | "The phone never stops" | On trial: 284 tasks handled, 15 hours saved |
| Electrical contractor, Essex, one-man band | 60–70% of his time on admin | One admin-free week brought 4 new-lead meetings |
| Roofing and cladding, Ireland, 8 workers | Every job in one Excel sheet | Flagged a non-compliant adhesive on XPS board and corrected board coverage from 0.75 to 1.44 m² |
The roofer's catch is a different kind of saving. Pricing boards at 0.75 m² each when they cover 1.44 m² nearly doubles the board count on the quote, which either loses the job or, if you'd ordered on it, leaves a pile of wasted stock.
What went wrong?
Not everything worked first time, and you should know what to expect. Early problems we've seen include inbox setup, a footer rule that was forgotten, the wrong time zone on messages, and admin staff who resisted the change. A small builder doing hard landscaping and brickwork said "It feels like it's not finished", after a quote was marked accepted by mistake, and stayed on an extended trial without committing.
A metal fabrication firm with eight staff put the cost question plainly: "It's a lot of money, isn't it?" They were weighing it against paying their accountant more. That is the right comparison to make, and what AI costs against what it replaces sets it out line by line.
Who is it not worth it for?
It is hard to justify for a sole trader with two or three hours of admin a week, a simple price list and no supplier bills to match. At £45 an hour, three hours a week is worth about £6,480 a year, under the £9,588 cost. A general AI chat tool at around 20 US dollars a month, or a good voice to text app, will cover most of what that owner needs.
It is also a poor fit if you won't approve things from your phone. Nexley drafts and you approve, so a firm where nobody checks WhatsApp during the day gets slower answers.
How should you judge a trial?
Measure it. Write down your admin hours for one normal week before you start, then again in the second week of the trial. Count quotes sent and how long each took. Seven days is enough to see whether quoting and bills get faster; it is not enough for everything to be set up, so judge the direction of travel.
Where Nexley fits
Nexley is the AI back office for UK trade firms: five AI assistants run your tenders, quotes, buying, scheduling and invoicing. It connects to the tools you already work in, you run it all from WhatsApp, and you approve everything. £799 a month.
Nexley runs quoting, supplier bills, chasing, scheduling and tenders for a trade firm over WhatsApp. You send a voice note or a photo, it drafts the quote, invoice or message using your own prices and rules, and nothing goes to a customer until you approve it. It costs £799 a month, month to month, with a 7-day free trial.
Common questions
How much admin time do trade firms save with Nexley?
It depends on where you start. One renovation builder went from about two days a week to about 30 minutes a day; a Dundee plumbing firm logged 15 hours saved in its trial. Firms with little admin save little.
Is there a contract?
No. Nexley is £799 a month, month to month, with a 7-day free trial. Several owners we spoke to had been caught by 12-month software contracts before, which is why this matters.
Is this a survey of Nexley customers?
No. These are details from calls with 28 firms, some paying, some on trial, some still deciding. Each number is one firm's experience and shouldn't be read as an average.
What if it gets something wrong?
It will, sometimes, especially in the first weeks. That's why everything that goes to a customer waits for your approval, and why setup matters. Read the frustrations above before you start.
Sources
Every rule, rate and date above was checked against these sources on the date shown at the top.
Topic: AI in the trades
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