Price research
How Much Does a Custom AI Agent Cost in Canada? (October 2026)
Canadian agencies that publish their prices charge $3,500 CAD for a first single-purpose build at the low end (Kaizan Labs, FIFTH Digital, Aurora Designs), $7,500 to $30,000 CAD for custom agents with integrations (Flowgrammer, Kaizan Labs), and $30,000-60,000 to take a pilot into production (Mihron AI). Managed monthly plans run from $180 CAD a month (EngageFit AI) to $8,500 CAD a month (BlueprintBeam), and fractional AI leads list $3,000 to $7,500 a month.
By Scott Holmes · Published October 6, 2026
Last updated: October 6, 2026. Prices change, so check each provider's page before buying.
What do Canadian AI agencies publish?
Twelve agencies with prices on their own sites, checked October 6, 2026. Sorted by the lowest price each one lists to get started, whether that's an audit, a pilot, a setup fee or a build.
| Provider | Published price | What's included | Pricing model | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nextimate (Canada) | Setup "typically less than CAD $1,000" for most SME projects; $25 CAD/month running cost | A custom application with AI agents built in, meant to replace SaaS subscriptions. Data kept in Canada. | Setup plus low monthly running cost | nextimate.ca |
| BlueprintBeam (Toronto) | Audit from $999; Essentials $1,500/mo, Growth $4,000/mo, Command $8,500/mo (CAD) | Essentials includes setup and 1 custom automation; Growth 2 to 3; Command 6 to 8. Audit credited within 90 days. | Monthly subscription | blueprintbeam.com |
| EngageFit AI (Toronto) | $1,250, $2,950 or $5,750 CAD one-time setup, plus $180, $300 or $550 a month | 2 integrations, up to 5, or unlimited. The top tier adds multi-agent workflows. 15% off for annual prepay. | Setup plus monthly | engagefitai.com |
| Orbys (Milton, ON) | Custom agent pilot $2,500 CAD; each additional agent $1,800 CAD, once; plans $650 to $1,900 CAD/month + HST, with $3,500 to $8,500 implementation | Plans sized by headcount (15 to 200 employees). AI and voice usage within fair-use limits. Pilot fee credited if you continue. | Pilot, then subscription | orbys-ai.com/pricing |
| Kaizan Labs (Toronto) | Workflow Audit $2,500 CAD; Quick Win Pilot $3,500 CAD; Done-For-You Build $8K-$30K CAD; Monthly Optimization $1,500-$3,500 CAD/mo | Pilot is one automation live in 14 days. Builds take 2 to 6 weeks. Audit credited toward the first build. | Fixed-price projects, optional monthly | kaizanlabs.com |
| DeployLabs (Toronto) | AI Workflow Assessment $2,500 (currency not stated) | Two weeks, credited in full toward any build. No build price published. | Assessment, then quoted build | deploylabs.ca |
| Flowgrammer (Toronto) | Strategy Day $2,500 CAD + expenses; AI automation from $7,500 CAD; Fractional CAO from $3,000 CAD per month | A defined workflow built with testing, documentation, training and human review. Broader projects quoted at $12,500-$25,000 CAD. | Project, or monthly fractional lead | flowgrammer.ca |
| The Automators (Calgary) | Projects $3,000+; USD $125/hour; CAD $175/hour | Discovery, a build tested on your data, integrations, documentation and a monitoring window. Model usage billed separately. | Project or hourly | theautomators.ai |
| FIFTH Digital (Calgary and Toronto) | From $3,500 CAD setup, then $1,500 CAD / mo | Custom chat or voice agent trained on your data, CRM and calendar integration, monthly tuning and reporting. 2 to 4 weeks. | Setup plus monthly | fifthdigital.ca |
| Aurora Designs (Toronto) | Custom Automation Build $3,500 to $25,000 CAD; Aurora AI-OS $7,000 to $25,000 CAD; AI Audit $5,000 CAD | Documentation, training and full infrastructure ownership. AI-OS adds an agent layer, audit logging and an operator dashboard. | Fixed-price projects | aurora-designs.ca |
| Webom AI (Mississauga) | Custom Build from $4,999 one-time; Part-time Developer $2,499/mo (currency not stated) | Custom builds, or a developer on retainer with the company's software suite included. | Project or retainer | webomai.com/pricing |
| Mihron AI (Toronto) | AI Readiness Sprint $5,000-9,500; Pilot to Production $30,000-60,000; Fractional AI Lead $3,500-7,500/mo, 3-month minimum | Sprint takes 2 to 3 weeks; production build 6 to 10 weeks. Also sells AI receptionist plans at $299 and $499 CAD/mo. | Fixed-range projects, or monthly fractional lead | mihronai.ca |
What are the price bands for a custom AI agent?
The same numbers, grouped by the kind of work you'd be buying.
| Band | Published prices | Typical scope |
|---|---|---|
| Paid audits and assessments | From $999 (BlueprintBeam) to $5,000 CAD (Aurora Designs); $5,000-9,500 for Mihron AI's sprint | Workflow mapping and a ranked build list. Kaizan Labs, DeployLabs and BlueprintBeam credit the fee toward a build. |
| Quick-win builds | $1,800 CAD (an additional Orbys agent) to $4,999 (Webom AI); $3,500 CAD at Kaizan Labs, FIFTH Digital and the low end of Aurora Designs | One automation or one agent doing one job, live in 2 to 6 weeks on the published timelines. |
| Custom agents with integrations | From $7,500 CAD (Flowgrammer) to $30,000 CAD (Kaizan Labs); Aurora Designs up to $25,000 CAD | Several connected systems, business rules, testing with your data, human review. |
| Multi-agent and enterprise | Aurora AI-OS $7,000 to $25,000 CAD; Mihron AI $30,000-60,000; EngageFit Business Suite $5,750 CAD setup + $550/month | Several agents sharing data, audit logging, an operator dashboard, larger teams. |
| Managed monthly plans | $180 to $550 CAD (EngageFit AI); $650 to $1,900 CAD (Orbys); $1,500 CAD (FIFTH Digital); $1,500 to $3,500 CAD (Kaizan Labs); $1,500 to $8,500 CAD (BlueprintBeam) | Hosting, tuning, fixes, reports, and in some plans new automations each month. |
| Fractional AI leads and retainers | From $3,000 CAD/month (Flowgrammer); $3,500-7,500/month (Mihron AI); $2,499/month developer retainer (Webom AI); CAD $175/hour (The Automators) | A senior person owning your AI roadmap, or developer time on call. |
What drives the cost of a custom AI agent?
Two quotes for "an AI agent" can differ by $20,000 and both be fair. These are the five things that move the number most.
Integrations
Every system the agent reads from or writes to is its own piece of work: logins, data mapping, error handling, testing. EngageFit AI's tiers show it, stepping from 2 integrations to 5 to unlimited as the setup fee rises from $1,250 to $5,750 CAD. An agent that reads email, checks your ERP, updates the CRM and posts to Teams costs far more than one that only reads email.
Approvals and an audit trail
If the agent can send money, change orders or email customers, someone should approve its riskier actions, and you need a record of what it did. Building approval steps, a log and a dashboard takes real time. Aurora Designs, for example, lists audit logging and an operator dashboard as part of its AI-OS, priced at $7,000 to $25,000 CAD.
Volume
A few hundred tasks a month rarely moves the budget. Thousands do. Voice is the clearest case: Retell AI's published rate for AI voice agents runs $0.07 to $0.31 a minute, so a busy phone line has a real running cost. Ask whether a monthly fee covers usage, as Orbys' fair-use limits do, or passes it through.
Model choice
The AI model is billed by use. The Automators gives an illustrative $40 to $180 a month for model usage on its builds. Larger models cost more per task; smaller ones are cheaper and often good enough for sorting, extracting and drafting. A good builder tests both on your real data before picking.
Hosting and data residency
A hosted agent on a vendor's cloud is the cheapest to run. Keeping data in Canada (Azure Canada Central, AWS ca-central-1) or running open-weight models such as Llama, Qwen or Mistral on your own hardware with Ollama adds setup and upkeep, but removes per-use model fees. Our private agents page covers that trade-off.
What should you ask before signing?
Six questions that separate a clean deal from a surprise invoice.
- Who owns it? The accounts, the workflows, the prompts and the code. Aurora Designs and The Automators both say on their sites that the client owns what's built. Get that in your contract.
- Who pays the model and API bills? Ask for a monthly estimate at your volume and whose card the provider bills.
- Who watches it? Ask what monitoring is in place, who gets the alert when something fails, and the response time.
- What documentation do you get? Enough that another builder, or your own staff, could take it over.
- What happens if you stop paying monthly? Does the agent keep running in your accounts, or does it switch off?
- Is the audit fee credited? Kaizan Labs and DeployLabs credit their assessment toward a build, BlueprintBeam credits its audit within 90 days, and Orbys credits its pilot fee if you continue. If yours isn't, ask why.
Where do our prices sit?
We sell agents too. Our prices are below so you can compare.
A first custom AI agent is from $995, integrated with your business systems, with approvals and an audit log, at a fixed price agreed before work starts. That is below every custom-agent build price published above, including Orbys' $1,800 CAD additional agent and EngageFit AI's $1,250 CAD basic setup. Each extra business system connected is from $499. A single automation is from $499. Optional monthly support is from $99/month, and includes 150 AI voice minutes a month plus normal text-model use, with any overage billed at cost.
Every build starts with a free 30-minute agent audit and a free working prototype in 5 business days, includes a staging version you review before anything goes live, and comes with documentation and 2 weeks of support. If one of the quick-win builds in the table fits your job better, we'll say so. The details are on our pricing page, and you can book the free audit here.
How we collected this
On October 6, 2026 we opened each agency's own website, found the page with its prices, and copied them as written. Every source is linked in the first table. We didn't convert currencies: a figure labelled CAD or USD keeps that label, and a plain dollar figure with no label is marked "currency not stated".
Some agencies were left out because we couldn't confirm a price:
- TML Agency: its Mississauga AI automation page returned a "not found" error, and its home page shows no prices.
- Majestic AI Services: the site wouldn't load for us, so we couldn't read a price.
- DeployLabs build prices: only the $2,500 assessment is published. A build figure we'd seen quoted elsewhere wasn't on the site, so we left it out.
Where an agency gives a range, we show the range. We didn't average, round or estimate anyone's price.
Questions about AI agent pricing
How much does a custom AI agent cost in Canada?
Among Canadian agencies that published prices on October 6, 2026, a first single-purpose build started at $3,500 CAD (Kaizan Labs, FIFTH Digital, Aurora Designs). Custom agents with integrations ran $7,500 to $30,000 CAD (Flowgrammer, Kaizan Labs), and Mihron AI listed $30,000-60,000 to take a pilot to production.
What do agencies charge per month to run an AI agent?
Published monthly plans ranged from $180 CAD a month (EngageFit AI Essentials, after a $1,250 CAD setup) to $8,500 CAD a month (BlueprintBeam Command). FIFTH Digital lists $1,500 CAD a month after setup, and Kaizan Labs lists $1,500 to $3,500 CAD a month for optimization after a build.
Why do some agencies charge for an audit before building?
A paid audit maps your workflows and ranks what to build first. Kaizan Labs and DeployLabs each list a $2,500 assessment credited toward a build, BlueprintBeam's audit starts at $999 and is credited if you buy within 90 days, and Aurora Designs lists a $5,000 CAD AI audit.
Are AI model and API costs included in the build price?
It varies, so ask. The Automators bills model usage separately and gives an illustrative $40 to $180 a month. Orbys includes AI and voice usage within fair-use limits in its monthly plans. Get the answer in writing before you sign.
Is a fractional AI lead worth it instead of a one-off build?
Only if you have several agents or a roadmap to manage. Flowgrammer lists a Fractional CAO from $3,000 CAD a month and Mihron AI lists a fractional AI lead at $3,500-7,500 a month with a 3-month minimum. For one agent, a fixed-price build plus a support plan usually costs less.
Want a fixed number for your first agent?
Book a free 30-minute agent audit. You get a scope and a fixed price in writing, and you can hold it up against every quote on this page.
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