What UK agencies charge to build an AI agent, from published starting prices
UK AI agent build costs from published agency prices: median starting price £2,000 for named agent builds, £1,200 across wider projects, plus running costs.
Published · Updated · By Edgars Lapins
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Short answer: among UK agencies that publish a price for building an AI agent by name, the median starting price is £2,000. The eleven named prices run from £449 to £20,000.
Of the 55 agencies that offer AI agents and publish any price, 35 publish a project price, and their median starting price is £1,200. That wider figure covers any project they sell, not just agents, so £2,000 is the better guide to what agencies start at for an agent build.
This guide sticks to agent builds. For automation prices in general, see how much AI automation costs in the UK. If you’re not sure what counts as an agent, start with what is an AI agent?
Where the numbers come from
TrustedAIAgencies (TAI) lists 290 UK AI automation agencies, and 125 publish at least one price on their own website. 130 of them say they build AI agents, and 55 of those publish a price.
We copy each price exactly as the agency publishes it, note the date we saw it, and give it a type. One type is “AI agent, chatbot or custom build”. 17 agencies publish a price of that type. Separately, the agencies in the table below name an agent build in their published prices, with wording like “AI agent builds” or “bespoke agents”. Not all of them are in that type group. The headline figure above comes from that table.
These are starting prices (“from £X”), not what every client ends up paying. They only cover agencies that choose to publish, and plenty quote on request instead. Some exclude VAT, so read each provider’s own page.
What UK agencies publish for agent builds
Here are the 11 named agent build prices as published, lowest first. This isn’t a ranking or an endorsement.
| Agency | Published price | Region |
|---|---|---|
| VisionXY7 | Custom AI agents from £449, ex VAT | South East |
| Built Digitally | AI agents from £800 | London |
| NovaTech Systems Group | AI automation and agents from £999 | Scotland |
| Fracas Digital | AI agent builds £1,200 to £50,000+ | South East |
| BioCircuit | AI agents and assistants £1,500 per agent, ex VAT | North West |
| ClarifAI Consulting | AI agent build £2,000 to £5,000 | South East |
| FiveForward | Bespoke agents from £2,500, ex VAT | East of England |
| Augustova | First agent or implementation £4,000 to £15,000 | London |
| Code2Box | AI assistants and voice agents from £4,950, depending on scope | Wales |
| HeyBRB | AI agents £5,000 to £10,000+ | UK-wide |
| SpotDev | Custom Agents £20,000, ex VAT | South West |
Four of the eleven publish a range, not just a starting point. Their upper figures are £5,000, £10,000+, £15,000 and £50,000+. That spread is the real answer to “how much”. An agent that does one narrow job sits near the bottom. One that works across several systems sits near the top.
The wider picture: custom and agent builds
Widen the view to all 17 agencies that publish an “AI agent, chatbot or custom build” price and the median starting price is £1,800.
| Starting price | Agencies | Share of the 17 |
|---|---|---|
| Under £1,000 | 3 | 18% |
| £1,000 to £2,499 | 6 | 35% |
| £2,500 to £4,999 | 5 | 29% |
| £5,000 to £9,999 | 1 | 6% |
| £10,000 or more | 2 | 12% |
- Lowest starting price: £449
- Highest starting price: £15,000
- Highest published upper limit: £50,000
This group also takes in chatbots, voice agents and bespoke software, which is why its median starting price is lower than the one for named agent builds. Some published prices come with qualifiers such as “typically”. Treat a “typically” price as a rough guide, not a quote.
What drives the price of an agent
How many systems it touches. An agent that reads one inbox and drafts replies is a small job. One that reads email, looks up the customer in your CRM, updates a spreadsheet and books a calendar slot needs each of those connections built, tested and secured.
How much it decides on its own. It’s worth asking whether the agent can suggest an action for a person to approve rather than act alone. An approval step gives you a chance to catch mistakes before customers see them. Our n8n review shows how approvals work in practice.
Your data. If the agent answers from your own documents, those documents have to be tidied up and connected first. If customer or staff data is involved, allow time for UK GDPR work too.
Proof of concept or production. A pilot tests the idea on a small scale. A production agent also needs logging, error handling, monitoring and a proper handover. Expect the starting price for a production build to sit well above a pilot.
Who builds it. Among the 17 agencies with a custom or agent price, consultancies (6 firms) have a median starting price of £4,000. There are only 8 firms of the agency type, from £800 to £6,000, and 3 software studios, where 3 firms publish a price, too few for a median. 4 of the firms are in London, too few for a median. These are small samples, so take them as a hint, not a rule.
Running costs after the build
An agent isn’t a one-off purchase. It runs on AI models and automation platforms that charge by use, and someone has to fix it when a system it connects to changes.
Among agencies that offer AI agents and publish a monthly price, the median starting price is £150 a month (33 agencies). That covers any monthly plan these agencies sell, not just agent support.
12 of the 17 agencies with a custom or agent build price also publish a monthly plan. When you compare quotes, add up the first-year cost: build fee plus 12 months of support, plus model and platform usage, plus VAT.
Do you need a discovery first?
12 of the 17 agencies with a custom or agent price also sell an audit or discovery. For a narrow agent with one clear job, you can often go straight to a fixed-price build quote. For an agent that spans several teams or systems, paying for a discovery first makes sense. See how much an AI audit costs for the starting prices UK firms publish and what you should get.
Agent, chatbot or voice agent?
A lot of “agents” sold to small businesses are really chatbots or phone assistants. If the job is answering the phone and booking appointments, see our guide to AI voice agents and receptionists, which compares published prices. If it is answering website questions, a chatbot may be all you need. In our data, the median starting project price is £1,500 for agencies that offer chatbots (32 agencies), against £1,200 for those that offer AI agents (35 agencies).
Questions to ask before you sign
- Exactly which systems will the agent read from and write to?
- Which actions need a person’s approval, and can I change that later?
- What happens when the agent is unsure or gets something wrong?
- Is the build fee fixed, and what is excluded (VAT, licences, model usage)?
- What does monthly support include, and what does it cost?
- Who owns the workflows, prompts and accounts if we part ways?
There are more questions in our checklist for choosing an AI automation agency, and how we list agencies explains what TAI looks at and what it doesn’t.
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