Most companies that build AI agents for other businesses will not tell you what it costs until you are on a call with a salesperson. We read nine of them on October 21, 2026. Three publish a starting price, six publish none, and nearly all of them describe a buyer much larger than a 20-person company. Here is what each one says about itself.
| Company | Who it says it serves | Published price | After launch |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Makers | "10-500 person companies" | None. Bands from under $5k | Your server or his cloud |
| DEVCOM | "Fortune 500 companies" | None, read Oct 21 | "Support and maintenance" |
| JADA Squad | "Your enterprise" | None, read Oct 21 | "Handover to your team" |
| LeewayHertz | Enterprises, many industries | None, read Oct 21 | "AgentOps" and monitoring |
| LuMay | Enterprise, plus packaged agents | From $249/mo | Monthly per-agent plans |
| Moveworks | "AI for the Enterprise" | None. "Tailored" | "Scalable packages" |
| Neurons Lab | "Mid-sized to enterprise" finance | None, read Oct 21 | "Continuous support" |
| VantaSoft (ours) | Small US businesses | $1,000 build, $200/mo | We run it for you |
| Winder.AI | Enterprises | Rates from £150/hour | Monthly retainer |
Which AI agent development companies publish a price?
Three of the nine. LuMay lists a monthly rate next to each kind of agent. Winder.AI publishes hourly and fixed-price ranges with a real past project beside each one. We publish our build and monthly figures. The other six want a conversation first, which is a choice rather than an accident.
LuMay's pricing page puts a number next to each agent it sells: $249 a month for voice agents, $999 for insight agents, $1,499 for workflow automation agents, and $7,500 or $10,000 a month for its regulated legal and compliance agents. Custom work "start[s] at a $25,000 pilot." The page is honest that these are floors, and that volume, the tools you connect, and where the agent runs all move the final number.
Winder.AI goes further than anyone else on the list by showing what finished work actually cost. Its rates page pairs each way of working with an example and an indicative price: £150 to £300 an hour for a nine-month engineering engagement, £350 an hour with a £5,000 monthly minimum for one-off consulting, £20,000 fixed for a two-month analysis and redesign of an existing system, and £100,000 to £250,000 for the larger research and build projects. That is genuinely useful. It also tells you, politely, that the floor is high.
Our own figures sit on our pricing page. The build starts at $1,000 one time and includes three coaching sessions for your team, and hosting and maintenance start at $200 a month. We publish them because "what does this cost" should not require a meeting. For the wider market range with sources, how much an AI agent costs collects the published numbers.
The six that publish nothing are not hiding a scandal. Custom work is hard to quote before anyone has looked at your systems, and a posted figure can lose a firm more deals than it wins. The practical effect on you is the same either way: you cannot cut this list by price, so you cut it by fit and ask about money on the first call.
Which of these companies will work with a business under 50 people?
Two of the nine describe a buyer your size, and a third sells something small enough to try. AI Makers says it builds for "10-500 person companies worldwide." We work with small US businesses. LuMay's packaged agents start at $249 a month even though the rest of its site is written for large organizations. The other six describe enterprises.
AI Makers is the most interesting outlier on the list, because it is one person. The site says it is "Mark Austen's custom AI software studio (AI Makers LLC)", and the pitch is exactly that: "You get me: one dedicated senior dev. No salespeople, no hand-offs. I reply within 24 hours." The agents he describes are the ones a small business actually wants, "a receptionist, a sales follow-up agent, a support desk, a bookkeeper's assistant", each "built inside your systems, owned outright", reading and writing "your CRM, inbox, calendar and ERP", running "on your server or my managed cloud". Terms are "written quote once. No seat fees, no lock-in."
There is no price on the site, but the quote form asks you to pick a band, and the lowest is under $5,000. The contact details are a Dutch phone number and a WhatsApp link, so if you need someone awake during your afternoon, ask about that before anything else. One person is also one person: brilliant when he is free, and a single point of failure when he is not.
The enterprise end of the list says so plainly, which is a courtesy. Moveworks calls itself "Agentic AI for the Enterprise", sells employee support, and gives a whole section of its site over to ServiceNow customers. Neurons Lab says it "work[s] best for mid-sized to enterprise financial institutions". JADA Squad sells "Production-grade AI Agents for your enterprise". DEVCOM counts "280+ Engineers" and "500+ Successful Projects". None of that is a flaw. It tells you where a 15-person business would sit in their week.
What does each one promise after the agent is live?
All nine offer something after launch, and the wording falls into three shapes: a handover to your team, a monthly retainer, or upkeep the provider carries. Every one of them uses the word support, so the shape is in the sentence rather than the heading. Only three attach a number to it.
JADA Squad is the clearest about the first shape. Its fourth phase ends with "a structured handover to your team", which is a real and sometimes correct answer if you employ someone who can pick the agent up.
Winder.AI describes the second on its agent services page: "Managed AI agent engagements run on a monthly retainer with named senior engineers, transparent SLAs and a scoped statement of work, not a faceless ticket queue." SLAs are written promises about response times. Put that next to its published hourly rates and you can estimate a year before you ask anyone.
The rest describe the third shape in general terms. LeewayHertz provides "ongoing AgentOps, monitoring, evaluation, maintenance, incident support, and continuous improvement services", AgentOps being their word for keeping a live agent healthy. Neurons Lab promises "continuous support in monitoring performance, gathering feedback, and making enhancements" once agents are live. DEVCOM says it will "monitor your AI agent's performance, implement necessary updates, and provide valuable insights", and makes the honest point that an agent degrades even when your business does not change. LuMay folds its oversight controls into every monthly plan. Ours covers your managed environment, monitoring, routine updates, email support in Pacific business hours, and small changes as your work evolves.
Take all of it at face value. The gap is not credibility, it is arithmetic: six of these promises arrive without a figure, so you cannot budget for year two until you have asked. How to choose an AI agent development company has the nine questions that get those answers on the record, plus a scorecard for comparing two providers side by side.
What should you do with a list like this?
Use it to cut the field, not to pick a winner. Three or four names is a manageable number of calls, and the right three depend on something the table cannot tell you: which job in your business you want handled first. Pick that, then ask each provider the same questions and compare the answers rather than the brochures.
If you are not yet sure you need a company at all, the four ways to get an AI agent for business separates a chat subscription, a hosted builder, running one yourself, and a built-for-you service. If you have the engineers and are weighing whether to use them, build your own or buy a managed service works through the real cost of each.
Frequently asked questions
Which AI agent development companies work with small and medium businesses?
Of the nine we read, AI Makers names a size range that includes small companies, "10-500 person companies worldwide", and LuMay sells packaged agents from $249 a month. We build for small US businesses. The remaining six describe enterprise or mid-market buyers on their own pages.
Is there an AI agent development company near me, and does it matter?
Location matters less than overlapping hours and a named person who answers. Several on this list are not American: Neurons Lab is registered in England and Wales with offices in London and Singapore, Winder.AI lists a London consultancy, and AI Makers answers on a Dutch number. DEVCOM lists a US headquarters. If your afternoon is their evening, ask who is on the hook when an agent stops working at three in the afternoon your time. That is a contract question rather than a map question.
What does a custom AI agent development company actually build?
Software that holds one job in your business and does it without being asked each time. The jobs these nine advertise are mostly the same ones: answering routine customer questions, qualifying and following up leads, sorting an inbox, booking appointments, moving data between tools, and preparing recurring reports. Thirteen real agents and the jobs they do shows what that looks like day to day in our own company.
Why do so few publish a price?
Mostly because the real figure depends on which job you want handled and which of your tools the agent has to reach, and no web form can know that. The effect on you is that price shows up late, after you have already spent three or four calls. Ask for two numbers in the first conversation, the build and the monthly, and treat vagueness about the second one as information.
How many providers should I talk to?
Two or three. More than that and the calls blur together, and you end up picking whoever was warmest instead of whoever answered the upkeep question. Ask each one the same thing and write the answer down: who fixes the agent when one of your tools changes, and is that inside the monthly figure or billed on top.
Where to start
Start with the task your team keeps dropping. Not the biggest problem in the business, the dullest repeating one, with a clear input and an output somebody can check at a glance. That single choice narrows this list faster than any comparison will.
If you want to see how a built-for-you agent would handle it, start with a workflow conversation. Thirty minutes on the work you want off your team's plate, and you will know whether this shape of service fits it.
