What "Custom" Actually Means
A truly custom agent has: a reasoning engine (LLM) + access to your specific tools (APIs, databases, email, calendar) + memory of your business context + guardrails appropriate to your risk tolerance. Building all of that well is what takes time and expertise.
The Development Process at SaTekk
Phase 1: Discovery (Week 1)
We map the target workflow end-to-end — what triggers the task, what information sources are needed, what the output looks like, and what edge cases matter. We also audit your existing tools and APIs to understand integration complexity.
Phase 2: Architecture & Prototype (Weeks 2–3)
We design the agent architecture: which LLM backbone, what tools it needs, how memory and context will work, where humans stay in the loop. Then we build a functional prototype covering the core happy path and demo it with your team.
Phase 3: Build & Integration (Weeks 3–6)
We build production-quality integrations with your systems, implement error handling, add logging and observability, and write tests. This is also where we tune prompts extensively — well-engineered prompts account for 40–60% of output quality in production.
Phase 4: Testing & Hardening (Week 6–7)
We run the agent against real or realistic inputs, measure performance against the success criteria defined in Phase 1, and fix edge cases. We set up monitoring dashboards so you can see what the agent is doing in production.
Phase 5: Deployment & Handoff (Week 7–8)
We deploy to your production environment, walk your team through monitoring, and provide documentation. Every engagement includes 30 days of post-launch support.
Realistic Cost Ranges
- Focused single-task agent: $5,000–$12,000 one-time
- Multi-step workflow agent: $12,000–$30,000
- Multi-agent system: $30,000–$75,000+
- Ongoing API costs: $100–$3,000/month depending on volume and model
Is the ROI There?
For the right use cases, yes — often dramatically. A $15,000 custom support agent that handles 70% of your tickets autonomously for a team processing 3,000 tickets/month at $8/ticket in labor is saving $168,000/year. That's an 11x return in year one.