South Africa · ZAR · AI systems
Ranges for automation that saves real work: WhatsApp assistants, internal copilots, document flows, and guarded LLM integrations tied to your data and ops tools.
AI project cost is driven less by model hype and more by guardrails, observability, and what happens when the model is wrong. We price for production behaviour: escalation paths, logging, and human oversight where it matters.
Use these drivers when you compare quotes. Two proposals with the same page count can differ sharply once integrations, roles, and post-launch load are included.
WhatsApp, web chat, email, or internal tools, plus peak message and token load.
RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), document stores, and permissions on sensitive data.
Whether the agent only answers questions or also updates CRM, tickets, or orders.
Test sets, refusal rules, PII handling, and review workflows before wide rollout.
Inference spend, caching, and South African latency and connectivity constraints.
Admin review queues, handoff to staff, and audit logs for regulated or high-trust use cases.
| Project type | Typical range (ZAR) |
|---|---|
Pilot assistant One channel, bounded knowledge, manual review, limited actions. | R80k – R200k |
Production WhatsApp or ops bot Live channel, CRM or ticket hooks, monitoring, admin oversight. | R200k – R500k |
Multi-workflow AI platform Several agents, document pipelines, analytics, strict reliability targets. | R500k – R1.2m+ |
Ranges are planning guides for South African delivery in 2026. Final quotes follow discovery. Third-party fees (stores, APIs, messaging) are excluded unless stated in scope.
Models, APIs, and business rules change. AI systems need ongoing evaluation, prompt and workflow updates, and incident response like any production service.
Lightweight systems with predictable upkeep · maps to Essential tier
R18 000 / month from
Single assistant with low traffic and predictable knowledge updates.
Active product iteration for evolving businesses · maps to Growth tier
R45 000 / month from
Active tuning, new intents, and integrations with sales or support stacks.
Complex platforms that cannot afford downtime · maps to Ecosystem tier
R85 000 / month from
AI across multiple products with high volume, compliance, or platform uptime needs.
Send your brief on WhatsApp or run the estimate tool for a ballpark on greenfield builds. Retainer fit is agreed after we review your live stack and roadmap.