- Shopify stores with a sizeable catalogue
- Brands selling on Shopify plus wholesale or retail
- Stores that spend on Meta or Google ads
- Retailers and wholesalers with stock in Xero
On Autopilot’s AI Inventory Watch is a daily AI agent for Australian Shopify and e-commerce businesses. Every morning before your team starts, it checks stock in Shopify (and Xero if you use it) and sends a short Slack or email report of stockouts, low stock, slow sellers and listing errors such as missing images or wrong prices. It costs $497 to set up and $99 a month (AUD, ex GST), and is live in 5–7 working days.
How much does AI inventory monitoring cost?
With On Autopilot, AI stock monitoring costs $497 to set up and $99 a month, ex GST and month to month: $1,685 in year one, then $1,188 a year. The monthly fee covers hosting, scheduling, Claude API usage, monitoring and small changes to the checks.
| What you pay for | Cost (AUD, ex GST) |
|---|---|
| Setup, one-off: store connection, checks set to your catalogue, report format, testing | $497 |
| Monthly: hosting, daily scheduling, Claude API usage, monitoring, small changes | $99 a month |
| Year one in total | $1,685 |
Not the same as the Quick Start. Two things on this site cost $497. The Quick Start build is $497 one-off for one automation of your choice, built and handed over. No monthly fee to us; running costs such as SMS, Claude API or an automation platform are billed to your own accounts. AI Inventory Watch is this specific stock agent, which we host and run for you every day, hence the monthly fee.
What does the daily report look like?
A short message in Slack or your inbox, readable on a phone. An illustration with sample data:
Stock report, Tuesday 6:00am (sample data)
Out of stock (2): Night Cream 50ml, Gift Set Large
Running low (3): Face Oil 30ml (6 left, ~4 days at current sales), ...
Selling faster than usual (1): Lip Balm, 3x last week's daily rate
Not selling (90 days, 4): Travel Kit Blue, ...
Listing problems (2): Hand Wash 250ml has no image; Body Scrub price differs from price listNo dashboard to remember to open, and no export to read. The checks and thresholds are set to your catalogue during setup.
How do we build it?
AI Inventory Watch is live in 5–7 working days:
- Kick-off (day 1). A 45-minute call. You create read-only access for us (a Shopify custom app with read permissions, and Xero if you use it) and choose Slack, email or both.
- Build (days 2–3). We set up the agent against your real catalogue. The first runs go to a private channel only you can see.
- Review (day 4). You look at the first reports. We remove noise, add checks you want and set thresholds.
- Go live (days 5–7). The report starts arriving in your team’s channel on the schedule you chose.
- First month. We watch the runs and tune anything noisy.
Under the hood: Claude Code running on a schedule on a server we manage, reading your store through the Shopify Admin API and, optionally, Xero. It is a small, single-purpose agent with read-only access, which makes it one of the safest ways to put AI to work in a business.
Why is it read-only?
Because a report that is occasionally wrong costs you a few seconds, and an agent that changes your store when it is wrong can cost you sales. The package only reads. Once you have trusted the reports for a while, actions such as hiding sold-out products can be added as a custom upgrade.
What is not included?
- Automatic reordering or purchase orders. Possible as a custom build, not part of the package.
- Demand forecasting. The report flags what is selling faster or slower than usual; a forecasting model is a separate custom project.
- Fixing the problems it finds. It tells your team what to fix; your team fixes it.
- Marketplaces and other systems without a readable API, and your Shopify or Xero subscriptions.
AI Inventory Watch vs the alternatives
| Option | Cost | What you get | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Checking stock by hand | Staff time | Whatever someone remembers to check | Problems found late, often by a customer |
| Shopify Flow or an inventory app | Your plan or the app’s subscription | Alerts on thresholds you configure | You set up and maintain the rules; listing checks need more work |
| On Autopilot AI Inventory Watch | $1,685 in year one | One daily report across stock and listings, tuned to your catalogue | Read-only: it reports, people act |
Who is it for, and who is it not for?
It suits Shopify and e-commerce businesses with a catalogue big enough that problems slip through, especially if you run ads (sending paid traffic to a sold-out product wastes money) or sell through wholesale or retail as well as online.
If you have only a few dozen products, or your stock lives in a spreadsheet, a one-off Quick Start build at $497 is probably a better fit.
Where does this come from?
AI Inventory Watch is a smaller, read-only version of the inventory system we run for our own Shopify skincare brand, Hey Bud Skincare. That system syncs warehouse stock and Shopify sales at 6am every day, raises stock and reorder alerts, drafts purchase orders for a person to approve and puts a Claude-written daily brief on the dashboard. Hey Bud is our business, not a client. Read how that system was built.
What do I own?
You own the code, prompts and settings from day one. While we run an agent it uses our hosting and our Claude API account, and that usage is included in the monthly fee. If you stop, we move it to hosting and an Anthropic account in your name so it keeps running. The documentation and the schedule are yours too. Want stock monitoring plus other agents run for you? See managed AI, or every price on the pricing page.