TL;DR: There is no single answer to who to hire, because agencies differ on region, industry, size of client and what you end up owning. Pick by those four things first. Aivy fits Australian mid-market firms in six named sectors. The Crunch fits Malaysian, Singapore and Hong Kong businesses that want a WhatsApp agent. AY Automate fits larger teams that want an embedded engineer. NextAutomation is built for commercial real estate. We fit founders who want a fixed-scope build they own. I founded 2pizza.team, so weigh my entry accordingly. Everything about the others comes from their own websites, read on 9 November 2026.

Founders ask me this every week: which AI automation agency should I use? I run one, so I am a biased source, and I would rather say that in the first paragraph than have you find out in the last. What I can offer is a way to sort the options and a straight description of each, including ours, with the limits I know about.

One rule for how I wrote this. For every agency below I used only what its own site says, and where the site is silent I wrote that it does not say. I do not quote their prices, and I do not rate their quality, because I have not worked with them and a ranking from me would be a guess. If you spot something that has since changed on their site, their site wins.

How do I choose an AI automation agency for a small business?

Start with four filters, in this order: where the agency works, which industries it names, how it scopes and prices a first project, and what you own when it finishes. Skills matter less than you expect at this stage, because most agencies in this space build on the same handful of tools. The filters decide whether the engagement can work at all.

The four filters

  • Region and law. If you hold customer data under a specific privacy regime, check whether the agency says it builds for it. Some state this on the site, some do not.

  • Industry. A team that names your sector has probably seen your documents and your messy inputs before. A generalist can still do the work, it just spends the first weeks learning your vocabulary.

  • First project shape. Look for a fixed scope with a named deliverable and a rough timeline. Open-ended hourly work is harder to judge from the outside.

  • Ownership and handover. Ask who holds the accounts, the workflows and the documentation when the project ends, and how changes get made afterwards.

What are the main options?

Seven, by my count: four named agencies, our own studio, and two routes with no agency at all. I have put ours in the middle of the list on purpose, since the order is not a ranking. Each entry says who it fits, what its own site shows, and where it may not suit you.

1. Aivy (Melbourne, Australia)

Aivy describes itself as an Australian AI automation agency based in Kensington, Victoria, with a Sydney offering and national delivery. Its site names six sectors: accounting and advisory, e-commerce and retail, healthcare, NDIS providers, professional services and real estate. It lists AI agents across web, email, WhatsApp and voice, finance automation, document processing and consulting.

  • Fits: mid-market Australian businesses in those sectors, especially where Australian data handling matters. The site says it is designed around the Australian Privacy Act 1988 and keeps data in Australia.

  • How it works, per its site: a free first conversation, an architecture study with a fixed-scope proposal, one pilot workflow live in about four to six weeks, then handover with documentation, training and SLA-backed support.

  • Integrations it names: Xero, MYOB, HubSpot, Salesforce, Shopify, WooCommerce, Stripe, WhatsApp Business, plus Anthropic, OpenAI, Azure and AWS.

  • Limits: the site targets mid-market firms, so a one-person business should check whether a pilot fits its budget. Ownership terms are not stated on the page I read.

2. The Crunch (Malaysia)

The Crunch says it is an AI chatbot and automation agency in Malaysia, operating since 2019, serving Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong. Its offer is a set of agents: customer service, sales and lead qualification, voice for phone calls, CRM automation and marketing content.

  • Fits: small and mid-sized businesses in the region that want WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook or website chat answered by an agent. The site says it uses the official WhatsApp Business API and that the client keeps their number.

  • How it works, per its site: a free 30-minute demo call, tool selection from platforms it has tested, training the agent on your products, prices and FAQs with your approval of replies, then go-live. Mid-sized scope is stated as about 30 days.

  • Languages stated: English, Bahasa Malaysia, Mandarin and Cantonese. It says it builds to Malaysia's PDPA.

  • Limits: the focus is customer-facing agents, so back-office workflow automation is not what the site leads with.

3. 2pizza.team (ours)

I founded this studio. We are a five-person team building on Claude, and our site says we have 28 AI systems in production across e-commerce, finance, logistics, healthcare and SaaS. We build workflows in Make, n8n or code, AI agents, document processors, voice bots and RAG systems, and larger products where AI is the core. We also build white label under an agency's brand.

  • Fits: founders and small ops teams with one painful, repetitive process, and growing teams with several. Pricing on our site: fixed-price scopes from $1,000 and monthly retainers from $1,500, with no hourly billing.

  • How it works: you pick a tier, we ship a defined deliverable with error alerts and a handover session, and the larger tiers include a support window. Hosting is set up by us and owned by you.

  • Limits: we are small, so we take a limited number of projects at once. We have no industry specialism the way Aivy or NextAutomation do. We are not an on-site embedded team. If you need someone in your office five days a week, look at the next entry.

4. AY Automate

AY Automate describes itself as an AI transformation and automation agency. Its site says it has shipped work for more than 60 companies and lists three tracks: automate (agents, workflows, retrieval pipelines, maintenance), build (SaaS MVPs, security audits of Claude Code projects) and grow (engineer placement, strategy, workshops). It also offers free tools such as a readiness assessment and an ROI calculator.

  • Fits: larger teams, in particular US and European enterprises as its site frames it, that want an embedded engineer who maps how the work happens and builds around it.

  • How it works, per its site: a free 30-minute strategy call and audit, strategy in week two, implementation in roughly weeks three to eight, then ongoing optimisation. It states that month one is refundable if it does not deliver.

  • Integrations it names: n8n, Make, Zapier, Claude Code, MCP, HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, Stripe, Shopify and others.

  • Limits: its location is not stated on the page I read, and the enterprise framing means a very small business should ask whether the engagement is sized for it.

5. NextAutomation (commercial real estate)

NextAutomation presents itself as an agentic AI sourcing platform for commercial real estate, configured around each firm. It covers off-market deal sourcing, owner resolution, underwriting and deal documents for investors, brokers, lenders and developers. Its site says tools, data access, AI providers and deployment are agreed before implementation, and offers managed, cloud or on-premises deployment.

  • Fits: commercial real estate firms. If that is you, a vertical specialist knows your documents and workflow already.

  • Limits: it is a poor match outside that sector. Pricing, location and who owns what is built are not stated on the page I read.

6. A freelancer or a marketplace builder

One person who builds in Make, Zapier or n8n is the cheapest route to a single working automation, and for a simple, well-defined task it is often the right one. The risks are practical. A single person is a single point of failure when they move on, and documentation is whatever they chose to leave. Ask for the workflow export, a written description and access under your own accounts before you pay the final instalment.

7. Build it yourself

If you or someone on your team enjoys tinkering, the no-code tools are approachable and you will understand your own process better afterwards. This works well for one or two linear workflows. It gets expensive in attention when the process has exceptions, when an AI step needs checks on its output, or when the person who built it leaves. I wrote more about the platform choice in our Make vs Zapier vs n8n comparison and about the cost side in AI automation vs hiring.

Which one fits which kind of small business?

Match on region and sector first, and size second. If you are in Australia in one of Aivy's named sectors, start there. If you are in Malaysia, Singapore or Hong Kong and your pain is customer messages, start with The Crunch. If you are in commercial real estate, NextAutomation is the specialist. If you want an embedded engineer and have a larger team, look at AY Automate.

If none of those describes you, you are probably the person we are built for: a founder or ops lead with a specific, repetitive process, outside a regulated niche, who wants a fixed price and the keys at the end. If you are outside that, I will tell you on the first call and point you to a better fit, which is a thing I have done before.

What should I ask before signing with any agency?

Five questions, and the answers matter more than the pitch. They apply to us as well, and you should ask them of us.

  • What exactly is delivered, by when, for a fixed amount? Ask for it in writing.

  • Whose accounts do the workflows, API keys and data live in?

  • What happens when a step fails at 2 a.m.? Who is alerted, and who fixes it?

  • If an AI model is in the loop, how are its outputs checked, and what caps the spend on model calls?

  • What does it cost to change something a month after launch?

When should I not hire an agency at all?

When the work is not repetitive. Automation pays on consistent inputs and rules you can write down. If every case needs judgment, or the process changes weekly, a person is the better answer, and an agency will take your money to prove it. If you have not yet done the task by hand enough times to describe it, do that first.

A second case: you cannot name an owner. Every automation needs someone inside your business who reads the alerts and decides when the rules change. Without that person, even a well-built system drifts. Agencies, ours included, can maintain what we built, but we cannot decide what your business should do.

Frequently asked questions

How long does a first AI automation project take?

It depends on scope. The agencies above state their own figures: Aivy says a pilot goes live in about four to six weeks, The Crunch says about 30 days for mid-sized scope, and AY Automate describes implementation in roughly weeks three to eight. Treat these as their claims and ask for a date in the proposal.

Do I need an agency in my own country?

Not always, but check data rules. If you hold personal data under a regime like Australia's Privacy Act or Malaysia's PDPA, prefer an agency that states it builds for it, or ask in writing how it handles that data. For internal back-office processes with little personal data, location matters less.

Is it cheaper to use a freelancer than an agency?

Often at the start, yes. The cost shows up later if the freelancer disappears or the workflow was never documented. Compare the total over a year, including who maintains it, not just the build price.

Originally published at 2pizza.team. We build AI and automation systems for small teams - fixed price, two to six weeks. See the work.