Custom AI development is a system built for one business rather than sold off a shelf: internal tools, AI agents, dashboards or quoting engines scoped to a problem you already have. DoubleDown AI builds and hosts these for South African companies.
It is quoted from the scope of the work rather than sold from a price list. It goes live in 30 minutes during business hours.
There is no price list for this one — a custom build is scoped from the problem. Describe it here and we come back with an approach, a timeline and a number.
We will get back to you within 24 hours.
A quoting engine for one workshop, an agent that files site reports, a reconciliation that runs itself — built around your process, on your data.
Internal tools, agents, dashboards, quoting engines — scoped to the problem you actually have.
Not a chatbot that answers — an agent that reads, decides, writes and files, inside the tools you already run.
Describe the friction — what takes too long, what gets dropped — and within 24 hours you have an approach, a timeline and a fixed number.
Sage, Xero, QuickBooks, Shopify, Sheets, your ERP. If it has an API — or even just a login and a spreadsheet — it can be part of the system.
Not the solution — the actual friction. What takes too long, what gets dropped, what nobody wants to do.
Within 24 hours: how we would build it, what it plugs into, and a fixed number. Scoped to your problem, not to a package.
On your data, in your tools, documented and handed over with a walkthrough for your team.
Trained only on your business. Never sold, never pooled, POPIA-aligned end to end.
Your sheets, your CRM, your inbox, your database, the tool nobody else integrates with. If it has an API — or even just a login and a spreadsheet — it can be part of the system.
It is monitored, updated and adjusted as your business changes. A custom build that nobody maintains becomes the problem it was meant to solve.
Live in 30 minutes, Mon–Fri 08:00–16:30 SAST. Outside that window, 08:30 the next business day.
Pick your product and tier, answer the onboarding questions, and settle setup plus your first month in one go.
Trained on your business, your products, your tone and your FAQs — automatically, while you wait.
It lands in your dashboard. Test it, tweak the tone, change the answers from your phone.
One line of code, or a number you already own. Then we monitor, update and scale with you.
Between R600 and R100,000-plus, quoted per job. R600 is a single automation that removes a recurring task; R100,000 is a multi-system build with integrations, data migration, testing and training. Most projects start with a small fixed-price proof of concept on one process. The scoping conversation is free and this product is never sold online — there is no checkout for a bespoke build.
A single automation, and we take them happily. Removing one recurring hour a week from somebody's job is often worth more than a large system that nobody adopts, and it is the best way to find out whether working with us suits you before anyone commits real money.
We tell you, and you buy that instead. A large share of the enquiries that reach this page are already solved by one of our productised systems — website chatbot, email agent, mass email, lead generation, booking or invoicing. Those go live in thirty minutes and cost a fraction of a bespoke build. It costs us a quote and saves you months.
Usually one of five reasons: the pilot worked on clean demo data and died on real data; nobody owned it after handover; it automated a process that was about to change; staff were never brought along; or it was impressive rather than useful. We scope small first, build against your real data, keep a human in the loop where a wrong answer is expensive, and hand over documentation rather than a black box.
You do — the code, the workflows, the prompts, the data and the documentation. We build on standard, portable components and hand over a pack explaining how it works, how to change it and how another developer would pick it up. There is no proprietary runtime holding your business in place.
No. Your data is not used to train any public model. Where confidentiality demands it we run components inside your own environment, and we sign an NDA before the scoping call if you want one. Data handling follows POPIA principles throughout.
AI systems can produce confident wrong answers; that is a property of the technology, not something any vendor has solved. What you can control is where a wrong answer is allowed to land. Anything financial, legal or customer-facing is designed to escalate to a person rather than guess, with an audit trail behind every decision, and we will tell you plainly which parts of a proposed system we would not automate end to end.
In our experience it moves them off the work they least want to do. The systems that succeed remove rekeying, chasing and searching, and give people back the judgement work. The ones that fail are the ones sold as headcount reduction and then quietly need two people to run. We will tell you which one your project looks like.
A single automation can be a few days. A proof of concept is typically one to three weeks. A multi-system build runs one to three months depending on integrations and how clean the data is. Note this is not our thirty-minute product line — custom work is scoped, built and tested properly.
Not perfect data, but you do need to know where it lives. Half of most projects is getting information out of the places it is currently trapped — spreadsheets, PDFs, an old system nobody supports. That is normal, it is part of the scope, and any vendor who tells you data quality is a non-issue has not looked at yours.
In many cases yes, and for regulated or confidentiality-sensitive work it is often the right answer. We will tell you honestly which components can run on your infrastructure and which depend on an external model provider, along with what each choice costs in money and in maintenance.
Both. We work alongside in-house teams regularly, and we are often called in to finish or repair a stalled build. For a rescue we start with an honest assessment of what is salvageable — sometimes the answer is that restarting is cheaper, and we would rather say so before you spend more.
Yes to both. Support and maintenance are quoted with the project rather than assumed, so you know what year two costs before you start. Training is included on any system your staff have to operate — a system nobody was shown how to use is a system nobody uses.
We agree the measure before we build: hours removed, response time, error rate, throughput, revenue touched. If a project cannot be measured, that is a strong sign it should not be built yet, and we will say so at scoping rather than at invoicing.
Short version: every AI agency in the country will book you a call. Almost none of them will tell you a number first.
Custom AI development is what happens when the thing you need is not on anybody's pricing page. Depending on who is asking it gets called AI automation, business process automation, workflow automation, an AI agent, internal tools, an AI integration, bespoke software, or a digital employee. Some people want an AI consultant to tell them what is possible; some already have a spec and want an AI developer to build it.
In practice it is usually one of a few shapes: document processing automation, a custom CRM or custom dashboard that fits how you actually work, a quoting engine that prices the way your business prices, or a system that will extract data from invoices automatically and stop three people rekeying the same numbers.
Between R600 and R100,000-plus, quoted per job. That is a wide range and it is wide honestly: R600 is a single automation that removes a recurring hour of somebody's week; R100,000 is a multi-system build with integrations, migration, testing and training.
Most projects start with a small proof of concept — one process, a fixed price, a short deadline — because a business that has never automated anything should not begin with a six-figure commitment. The AI project scoping conversation is free and it is a real conversation: we map the process, find where the time actually goes, and tell you what it would take. If the answer is that it is not worth doing, we say that. This product is never sold online; get a quote and we will scope it.
Worth naming, because it is the risk you are carrying. Why do AI projects fail: the pilot works on clean demo data and dies on real data; nobody owns it after handover; it was built for a process that was about to change; it needed staff to work differently and nobody told them; or it was impressive rather than useful.
So we scope small first, build against your real data rather than a sample, and keep a human in the loop wherever a wrong answer would be expensive. AI systems hallucinate — that is a property of the technology, not a bug we have solved — so anything financial, legal or customer-facing is designed to escalate rather than guess, with an audit trail behind every decision.
You own it. Who owns the system when it is finished is a question that should have a boring answer, and here it is: the code, the workflows, the prompts, the data and the documentation are yours. We sign an NDA before the scoping call if you want one.
On vendor lock in: we build on standard, portable components and there is a handover and documentation pack at the end — how it works, how to change it, where everything lives, and how another developer would pick it up. Your data is handled under POPIA. On the question every enterprise buyer asks, is our data used to train models — no. Your data is not used to train any public model, and where confidentiality demands it we will run components in your own environment.
Here is the difference between us and the ten other South African AI agencies you are about to look at. They all start every project at zero. We do not: we run nine productised systems in live production, and the parts are already built and already running. That is off the shelf in the useful sense — a custom build starts from working components, and you can look at them before you commit rather than reading a case study about somebody else.
Which leads to the build vs buy answer we give more often than any other: a large share of the briefs that reach this page are already solved by something on the price list. If you need visitors answered, that is a website chatbot. An inbox nobody can keep up with, the email agent. A diary to fill, booking systems. Quotes and invoices, bookkeeping and invoicing. Those are live in thirty minutes and cost a fraction of a bespoke build. So what if one of your standard products already does it — we tell you, and you buy that instead. It costs us a quote and saves you months.
What is genuinely left for custom is the work nobody sells off a shelf. We are based in Vanderbijlpark and deliver remotely across the country, which makes AI automation in Vanderbijlpark and the Vaal as straightforward as in Johannesburg or Cape Town.
No brand names and no competitor prices — those go stale and we would be quoting somebody else’s numbers. This is the shape of each option.
| Doing it yourself | An overseas platform | DoubleDown AI | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it costs | Your team's time | Typically billed in US dollars | Quoted from scope, in rands |
| How it starts | A spreadsheet nobody else understands | You configure the platform yourself | We build it, trained on your business |
| Time to live | However long it keeps taking | Days of setup, done by you | 30 minutes, business hours |
| South African languages | Whatever your staff speak | Rarely tuned for South African phrasing | All 11 official languages |
| POPIA | Your responsibility | Usually governed by foreign law | Aligned by design, data in your account |
| Support | Nobody to call | Overseas time zone, usually email | South African hours, on WhatsApp |
| Commitment | None, and no system either | Annual plans are common | Month-to-month. Cancel anytime. No contracts. |