What to do when your RPA vendor doubles the price
Your automation lead sends the next invoice and realizes the price has doubled. You are not the only one facing this. Many enterprise leaders report annual RPA license hikes of 30 to 60 percent, with volume-based add-ons that inflate the cost each renewal. The sticker shock is real, but the real pain is hidden in the backlog of broken bots and the endless rebuilds that eat your budget. When your RPA vendor doubles the price, the real question is no longer whether you can afford the bill. It is whether your automation can survive the cost of staying the same.
Why RPA breaks here
Most enterprise RPA tools work by binding to specific UI elements: selectors, xpaths, and object IDs embedded in the application. When a product updates its UI, those bindings break. You cannot run the bot without rebuilding the flowchart. Gartner estimates that up to 70 percent of an RPA budget can go to maintenance and exception handling, not new automation. A single UI change can require hours of developer time per bot, and teams often end up with a maintenance backlog that outpaces new projects. The cost of staying on RPA is not just the license. It is the relentless rebuild work that prevents you from scaling.
What changes with computer use agents
- ●Survives UI changes. Coasty agents see the screen and act like a human. They do not rely on fragile selectors, so a redesigned application does not halt the workflow.
- ●No brittle selectors. Agents read the screen, understand the context, and continue without needing flowcharts updated for every UI tweak.
- ●Recovers from exceptions. If a step fails, the agent observes the result, adapts its actions, and continues rather than halting the entire process.
- ●Follows the SOP as written. A standard operating procedure in plain English is already a prompt. Coasty agents can execute it directly without building a bot.
- ●Works on legacy and Citrix. RPA struggles on virtualized desktops and legacy systems with unstable UI. Computer use agents operate on any desktop that a human can access.
When your RPA vendor doubles the price, the durable answer is to stop maintaining brittle bots and start automating the SOP itself.
How to move without the risk
A phased approach lets you replace brittle RPA with computer use agents without a single point of failure. First, identify a high-pain, SOP-driven process that is expensive to run. Examples include onboarding new hires, processing vendor invoices, or logging incidents. The process should have a stable written SOP and tolerate occasional human review. Second, pilot the process with Coasty agents on a cloud VM or desktop app. Measure the time saved, error reduction, and how the agent handles UI changes or unexpected states. Third, expand to other high-pain processes only when you see clear value. At the same time, keep RPA for high-volume, stable, backend tasks where it still makes sense. This hybrid model allows you to reduce maintenance costs while building a more resilient automation portfolio.
If your RPA vendor doubles the price, you can choose to pay the bill and rebuild bots forever, or you can start automating the SOP directly. Coasty computer use agents see the screen, follow plain English procedures, and survive UI changes. To see how agents can reduce your maintenance burden and lower your total cost of ownership, book a demo with the Coasty team at https://cal.com/coasty/15min.