Canonical: https://www.strataigize.com/insights/best-ai-agent-development-companies/
Description: Compare six AI agent developers on published prices, minimum project sizes and what happens after launch, then use three questions to choose.
Published: 2026-10-22T00:00:00.000Z
Modified: 2026-10-22T00:00:00.000Z

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# Best AI Agent Development Companies: Prices and Fit

By [**Ian McGavin**](https://www.strataigize.com/about/team/ian/), Founder & CMO · Published October 22, 2026 · 10 min read · [Editorial standards](https://www.strataigize.com/trust/editorial-standards/)

Hire the AI agent developer whose written quote covers the first year after launch as well as the build. Among the six firms compared here, Intuz lists $40,000 to $150,000 for a production build and $8,000 to $25,000 a month for ongoing support. Accenture, LeewayHertz, Markovate and Master of Code Global show no price on the pages we read; on Clutch, the last three list minimum projects of $10,000 to $50,000. Ask each firm three questions: the build and first-year price, who owns the code and prompts, and what result stops the pilot.

In this article

1.  [Six AI agent developers and what they publish](https://www.strataigize.com/insights/best-ai-agent-development-companies/#six-ai-agent-developers-and-what-they-publish)
2.  [Price the year after launch with the build](https://www.strataigize.com/insights/best-ai-agent-development-companies/#price-the-year-after-launch-with-the-build)
3.  [Decide who owns the agent and where it runs](https://www.strataigize.com/insights/best-ai-agent-development-companies/#decide-who-owns-the-agent-and-where-it-runs)
4.  [Make the pilot prove something before the larger build](https://www.strataigize.com/insights/best-ai-agent-development-companies/#make-the-pilot-prove-something-before-the-larger-build)
5.  [Which kind of firm fits which buyer](https://www.strataigize.com/insights/best-ai-agent-development-companies/#which-kind-of-firm-fits-which-buyer)

The price that decides whether an AI agent was worth building is the price of the year after launch, and only one outside firm in this comparison publishes it. An AI agent here means software that uses a language model to decide its next step and then acts in your systems: it reads a support ticket, looks up the order and drafts or sends the reply, or it qualifies a lead and writes the result into your CRM. The build gets the agent working once. Keeping it working means testing it again when its underlying model is retired, fixing it when a connected system changes, and checking its output against the result you paid for.

One published price ladder shows the scale. Intuz, one of the firms below, lists $40,000 to $150,000 for a production build connected to your CRM and other systems, and $8,000 to $25,000 a month for ongoing optimization and support ([Intuz](https://www.intuz.com/ai-agents-for-business-automation)). Twelve months of support at the low end is $96,000, by our arithmetic, which is more than the low end of the build. The same arithmetic applies to any monthly support fee, ours included. So compare developers on both numbers, in writing, before you compare their demos.

## Six AI agent developers and what they publish

We started from eleven agency-published lists we read for this search, from Bitcot, BotsCrew, Chop Dawg, Deviniti, Empat, IdeaUsher, Leanware, LowCode Agency, Omdena, Riseup Labs and Vasundhara Infotech. Every one of the eleven includes the firm that published it, and eight list their own firm first, so read any single list as a sales page. We kept the development firms ranked on at least three of the eleven: Accenture, Intuz, LeewayHertz, Markovate and Master of Code Global. Moveworks also appears on three lists, but it is a product you license rather than a firm that builds your agent, so it gets its own paragraph below the table.

Strataigize publishes this comparison and builds AI agents, so we have a commercial interest, and we added ourselves as the sixth row. The firms appear in alphabetical order. On October 22, 2026 we read each firm’s own pages and its profile on Clutch, a business directory where firms list their own minimum project size, hourly rate and headcount. For Accenture, the agentic AI service page we tried returned not found, so its row rests on its March 2025 announcement. On October 27, 2026 we read our own Clutch profile again and corrected our staff range in the table to the 10 to 49 it shows. Those Clutch figures are self-reported, not audited. This table covers what each firm publishes. It does not test anyone’s delivery.

| Firm | Price on the firm’s own pages we read | Clutch minimum project, hourly rate, staff (self-reported) | After launch, as the firm describes it | Own agent platform |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Accenture](https://newsroom.accenture.com/news/2025/accenture-expands-ai-refinery-and-launches-new-industry-agent-solutions-to-accelerate-agentic-ai-adoption) | None | No Clutch profile found | Not covered: we read only its March 2025 announcement | AI Refinery, with an agent builder for business users |
| [Intuz](https://www.intuz.com/ai-agents-for-business-automation) | Consultation $5k to $10k (2 to 3 weeks); prototype on your data $15k to $40k (4 to 6 weeks); production integration $40k to $150k (8 to 12 weeks); support $8k to $25k a month | $10,000+; $50 to $99 an hour; 50 to 249 staff | Weekly reviews of performance measures, round-the-clock monitoring and quarterly retraining | None named |
| [LeewayHertz](https://www.leewayhertz.com/ai-agent-development-company/) | None | $10,000+; $50 to $99 an hour; 50 to 249 staff | AgentOps: monitoring agent behavior, errors, quality and cost, then refining prompts, models and workflow logic | ZBrain |
| [Markovate](https://markovate.com/ai-agent-development-company/) | None | $50,000+; $50 to $99 an hour; 50 to 249 staff | Monitors performance in production and optimizes as you scale | None named |
| [Master of Code Global](https://masterofcode.com/ai-pilot) | None; its 30-day pilot runs on a fixed budget set at the start | $25,000+; $50 to $99 an hour; 50 to 249 staff | An optional maintenance and support package after the pilot | None; describes itself as platform-agnostic |
| [Strataigize](https://www.strataigize.com/services/ai-agent-development/) | One workflow automated end to end on your own data, with scope, a success metric and stopping rule agreed in writing before start | 10 to 49 staff; scope agreed before work begins | A separate monthly production retainer: monitoring, maintenance and a monthly check of outputs against measured baselines | None |

Read the minimums as a floor, not a quote. Markovate’s $50,000 minimum rules it out for a small first project and says nothing about what a larger one costs. Four of the five outside firms list the same $50 to $99 hourly band, so the rate alone will not separate them; the scope each one quotes will. Our own row has the smallest team in the table. Ask any firm, ours included, who will work on your project and how many other projects that team is carrying.

Intuz is the only outside firm here that publishes a full ladder, from a $5,000 to $10,000 consultation to monthly support. That makes it the easiest firm to compare against, and it is the reason the arithmetic above uses its numbers. Master of Code Global’s pilot announcement of May 2026 describes a fixed budget and fixed timeline with a flexible scope, which means the price and the end date are set on day one while the technical approach can change ([Master of Code Global](https://masterofcode.com/blog/master-of-code-global-formalizes-ai-pilot-program)). The fixed budget is not published, so ask for it.

Two firms bring a platform of their own, and that changes what you are buying. LeewayHertz has been part of The Hackett Group, a Nasdaq-listed consultancy, since an acquisition announced on September 16, 2024, and the two announced plans to combine Hackett’s AI XPLR platform with LeewayHertz’s ZBrain in a joint venture ([Business Wire](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240916855055/en/The-Hackett-Group-Announces-Strategic-Acquisition-of-Leading-Gen-AI-Development-Firm-LeewayHertz)). Accenture’s March 18, 2025 announcement added a no-code agent builder to its AI Refinery platform and set a goal of 100 industry agent solutions by the end of that year; the clients it named include ESPN, HPE and the United Nations. If your agent will run on a firm’s platform, ask what the licence costs after the build and what you can take with you if you leave.

Moveworks is the other choice the lists raise. It is an AI assistant and search product for employees, and ServiceNow completed its acquisition of Moveworks on December 15, 2025 ([ServiceNow](https://newsroom.servicenow.com/press-releases/details/2025/ServiceNow-completes-acquisition-of-Moveworks/default.aspx)). If the job is an internal assistant of that kind, licensing a product like it may beat a custom build. Our [build versus buy decision rule](https://www.strataigize.com/insights/build-vs-buy-ai-agents/) covers that choice.

## Price the year after launch with the build

An agent’s costs keep arriving after launch because the parts it depends on keep changing. The clearest example is the language model itself. Anthropic’s model deprecation page lists the Claude Sonnet 4.5 version named claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929 as deprecated on September 30, 2026, with a tentative retirement date of November 30, 2026, and says requests to a model past its retirement date fail ([Anthropic](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/model-deprecations)). Anthropic promises at least 60 days’ notice for publicly released models and recommends testing applications with newer models well before the retirement date. An agent launched on that model in October 2025 would need a model change, and a fresh round of testing, about 13 months later.

Model changes are one item. The firms’ own descriptions of after-launch work list the rest: Intuz describes tuning the agent’s instructions, retraining it on new data, logging its errors and watching its running costs, and LeewayHertz describes tracking the agent’s errors, quality, speed and cost, then adjusting its prompts and workflow. Our production retainer checks the agent’s outputs against measured baselines every month and closes each month with a written report. Whatever the firm calls it, someone has to own that work, either the developer on a monthly fee or a person on your team who knows the system.

So ask every firm for two numbers in the same document: the build and the first twelve months after launch. As our [AI agent cost guide](https://www.strataigize.com/insights/how-much-do-ai-agents-cost/) puts it, “A quote with no ongoing line item is incomplete rather than cheap.” If a firm will hand the agent to your team instead, ask what your team needs to know to retest it when the model is retired, and get that in the handover.

## Decide who owns the agent and where it runs

An agent is more than code. It includes the prompts that instruct the model, the configuration that connects it to your systems, the tests that show it still works, and the accounts it runs under. A contract that transfers the code but not the tests leaves you unable to change models safely.

The firms say different things about this. Master of Code Global’s AI development page says its handover includes dashboards, runbooks, training and clear ownership of the intellectual property. Our pilot page states that the agent, its prompts and its configuration are yours, and that we run it on your infrastructure wherever practical. Intuz says it signs a mutual non-disclosure agreement before any work, which protects your intellectual property and plans while they are shared; ask Intuz, as you would any firm, whether the code and prompts transfer to you. On a platform, such as ZBrain or AI Refinery, the question becomes what the platform licence costs after the build and what you can export.

Put four lines in the contract, whichever firm you choose: you own the code, prompts, configuration and test suite; the model provider accounts are in your company’s name; the firm hands over documentation good enough for another developer to take over; and the firm’s access ends on a date you set.

## Make the pilot prove something before the larger build

Three of the six firms publish a small first step with a set length. Intuz sells a proof of concept sprint that delivers a working agent, running on your own data, within 4 to 6 weeks. Master of Code Global’s 30-day pilot ends with a working solution, analytics measured against the business targets agreed at the start and a recommendations report. Our pilot build sets a success metric and a kill threshold before work starts: “A written statement, agreed at kickoff, of the point at which the pilot is judged a failure: a metric it must reach by a date, or a cost it must not exceed.”

The difference that matters is what happens when the pilot misses. In any fixed-budget pilot, ask what happens to the scope if the work runs long. Master of Code Global says it defines success criteria with the client at the start, and every firm should put that measure in writing before work begins. Run the pilot on your own data and your own cases, because a vendor’s demo shows you only the cases it chose. Then write down what result ends the engagement. On ours, “Hit the kill threshold and we stop and say so instead of selling phase two.” Ask every firm to state its own stopping rule in the proposal.

## Which kind of firm fits which buyer

The table’s criteria sort the six firms into a few situations. Most buyers fit one of them.

-   If you are a large enterprise automating many functions, and you want a partner with an agent platform behind it, Accenture’s AI Refinery and LeewayHertz’s ZBrain are the two platforms in this comparison. Ask both what the platform licence costs after the build and what you can export.
-   If you want to test one idea on a fixed budget before deciding on a full build, compare Master of Code Global’s 30-day pilot, Intuz’s 4 to 6 week proof of concept sprint and our 30 to 90 day pilot build on what each one commits to deliver by the end date and what happens if it misses.
-   If you have one recurring workflow and want the same firm to build the agent and look after it afterwards, every firm here except Accenture describes ongoing work after launch, as the table shows, though only Intuz and we publish how it is billed. Intuz and we publish the build price; LeewayHertz, Markovate and Master of Code Global do not publish it. LeewayHertz brings its own agent platform, ZBrain, so ask whether your agent would run on it; the others name no platform of their own. Our team is the smallest in the table, and we also run marketing and development for clients, which matters only if the agent feeds into that work.
-   If your first project is under $50,000, Markovate’s self-reported minimum rules it out; LeewayHertz, Intuz and Master of Code Global list lower minimums on Clutch.
-   If the job is an AI assistant that answers your employees’ requests and searches company information, price a licence for a product such as Moveworks before you commission a build.

Before you sign, send every shortlisted firm the same brief and the same three questions. What will the build and the first twelve months after launch cost, in writing? Who owns the code, prompts, configuration and tests, and in whose accounts does the agent run? What result, by what date, ends the pilot? Hire the firm whose answers you can check in the contract and against your own data.

Author

**Ian McGavin**

Founder of Strataigize, connecting business strategy, growth marketing and applied AI. His expertise includes paid media, measurement and AI-search visibility.

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