Hire Agent

Everyone wants to talk about superintelligence. Nobody is answering your phone after five.

Hire an agent to do one boring job properly. One answers the calls you miss. One turns a voice note into a priced quote. One chases your invoices. From R1 450 a month, nothing upfront, let it go any month. It will not take leave in December.

Hire Agent is a South African company that builds AI agents and automations for small and medium businesses. Each agent does one job for a published monthly fee starting at R1 450, with no setup cost and no contract, the way you would hire a part-time staff member.

Book a free audit See what it costs WhatsApp 079 705 9374
A closed workshop counter at the end of the day, a phone glowing on the counter beside a pair of work gloves

The agents you can hire

Each one does a single job, properly, for a monthly fee. The simple ones go live the same week, everything else inside two weeks. Find the one that describes your week, and if it is not on the list it is probably still possible, so ask.

A tradesperson checking their phone in a bakkie at a job site in the late afternoon

Answering, and reaching back

Missed call becomes a WhatsApp

Nobody answers, so within sixty seconds the caller gets a WhatsApp from your business asking what they need, before they phone the next name on Google. It comes from your own WhatsApp business number with your business name on it, so it reads as you and not as a stranger. Needs: a business WhatsApp number, not the owner's personal one.

R1 450 p/m

After-hours answering

A voice agent takes the call, asks what is wrong and where, books the slot. Replaces: voicemail.

R3 900 p/m

Outbound booking calls

A voice agent works through your own customer list, speaks to them, books the slot and writes it up. Your existing customers only, never cold calling, which South African law does not allow. Replaces: a job nobody wants.

R3 900 p/m

Enquiry to the right person

Routed by rotation or by area, with returning customers sent back to whoever they dealt with last time. Replaces: a shared inbox nobody owns.

R1 450 p/m

Instant acknowledgement

A real reply in under a minute, not an autoresponder saying your enquiry is important to us. Replaces: silence.

R1 450 p/m

Web form straight into WhatsApp

The lead lands on the rep's phone with everything attached, because nobody checks email in a workshop. Replaces: a daily email digest nobody opens.

R1 450 p/m

Quoting and ordering

Voice note becomes a quote

Customer rambles for ninety seconds, out comes a priced quote with materials, labour and travel. Replaces: an hour at the kitchen table.

R3 900 p/m

Order to picking list

Orders arrive however the customer likes, come out priced and ready to pick. Replaces: retyping into a spreadsheet.

R3 900 p/m

Supplier price list to your prices

Their PDF or spreadsheet lands, your prices update everywhere, margins kept. Replaces: a quarterly nightmare.

R1 950 p/m

Quote follow-up ladder

Day one, day three, day seven, each one different, all of it stopping the moment they reply. Replaces: never following up.

R1 450 p/m

Options configurator

Customer picks their own options and sees a real price, built only from what you can actually supply. Replaces: a morning per quote.

R5 900 p/m

Getting found, and getting answers

Search visibility report

A monthly scorecard: where you rank, what you earn in clicks, what your three closest competitors are doing, how your Google listing is holding up, and the three fixes worth doing next. Replaces: an agency retainer with no reporting behind it.

R2 450 p/m

Mentioned by the AI assistants

Tracking whether ChatGPT, Claude and Google's AI actually name you when someone asks for a business like yours, and fixing your site so they can. Replaces: being invisible in the place people now search.

R2 450 p/m

Competitor price watch

We watch your rivals and your suppliers, and tell you the morning a price moves or something goes out of stock. Replaces: finding out from a customer.

R1 950 p/m

The staff handbook, answered

A private assistant trained on your own procedures and price lists, so new staff stop asking the owner things that are already written down. Your documents stay yours. Replaces: the same five questions, forever.

R2 450 p/m

Proposals built while you are still talking

Fill in a few fields and a branded proposal comes out, on your template, same day instead of next week. Replaces: waiting three days for a deck.

R2 450 p/m

Short clips from your long video

Eight to ten vertical clips a month cut from what you already record, captioned, checked by a human and posted. Replaces: a video editor you keep meaning to hire.

R3 900 p/m

Paperwork and money

Documents collected and filed

The customer uploads from their phone, everything lands named and filed against the right file. Replaces: two weeks of chasing.

R1 950 p/m

Signed with a one-time pin

Prefilled from what they already gave you, signed on a phone, no printer involved. Replaces: print, sign, scan, resend.

R3 900 p/m

Invoice chasing

Polite, then less polite, then escalated to you, straight off your accounting system. Replaces: the conversation you keep avoiding.

R1 950 p/m

Job photos to a customer report

Site photos and notes from the technician's phone become a tidy report the customer actually reads. Replaces: an evening of admin.

R1 950 p/m

Statements and POPs matched

Proof of payment arrives by WhatsApp, gets matched and filed without anyone looking at it. Replaces: squinting at screenshots.

R1 950 p/m

Keeping the business visible

One catalogue, every site

Listings, prices and offers change once and appear across every branch, brand and marketplace. Replaces: a webmaster.

R5 900 p/m

Reviews, asked for every time

Every customer gets the same request at the same point, with a direct link. No cherry picking the happy ones, which Google bans and punishes by deleting your whole review history. Replaces: remembering to ask.

R1 450 p/m

The six o'clock briefing

What came in, what is outstanding, what needs you today, on your phone before you open the gate. Replaces: phoning three people to ask.

R1 450 p/m

Inbox triage

Sorted, summarised, and the obvious replies drafted for you to approve. Replaces: the first hour of every day.

R1 950 p/m

Real prices, monthly, excluding VAT. Nothing to pay upfront and no contract, so hire one, see whether we are worth it, then decide about the next. Build times are typical rather than promised, and you pay nothing until your agent is working.

None of this is theory

Every agent on that list exists because a business asked for it and then paid to keep it. These are the ones that have been running the longest.

Six websites, one source of truth

Prices and listings change in one place and appear across six separate branded sites within minutes. Nobody edits a page, and nothing on any of them is ever out of date.

Enquiries answered in seconds, not mornings

Every enquiry routed to the right person's phone with the detail attached, and returning customers sent back to whoever dealt with them last time.

Paperwork done on a phone

Forms prefilled from what the customer already gave you, signed with a one-time pin, documents uploaded and filed against the right record. No printer anywhere in the process.

Follow-ups that nobody has to remember

Reminders and check-ins going out at sensible hours, spaced the way a good person would space them, stopping the moment the customer replies.

What it costs, in rands, on a public web page

Everyone else says contact us for a quote, because a number makes you comparable. Here is ours. If it is more than you want to spend, you have saved us both a meeting.

An empty desk with a closed appointment diary and a mug, in early morning light before opening

Junior agent

R1 450 a month

One simple job. Answering a missed call, acknowledging an enquiry, routing a review request, sending you the morning briefing.

Standard agent

R1 950 a month

A job that touches your other systems. Chasing invoices, collecting documents, reminders and rescheduling, search reports, competitor watching, proposals.

Senior agent

R3 900 to R5 900 a month

The heavy ones. Answering the phone in a real voice, turning voice notes into quotes, taking orders, cutting your video into clips, or feeding every website you own.

What is included, and what is not

The monthly covers everything: building it, hosting it, the platforms underneath it, watching it, and fixing it when something upstream changes. No setup fee and no contract. Give us a month of notice and it stops.

Calls and WhatsApp messages are billed on what you use, at cost, with no markup. Voice works out around R3 a minute, so a two minute booking call costs about six rand. A phone agent doing twenty calls a day lands near R1 800 a month of call time on top of the agent.

Why monthly and not a big build fee

Because an agent is not a website you buy once and forget. WhatsApp changes its rules, your supplier changes their spreadsheet, a model gets retired. Something has to keep it alive, and that something costs money every month whether we charge you for it or not.

It also keeps us honest. If the agent stops being worth R1 950 a month, you stop paying us, which is a far better arrangement for you than having already handed over R30 000.

Prices exclude VAT. The audit costs nothing whether or not you hire us. The cheapest admin assistant in South Africa still costs several thousand rand a month, every month, and takes December off.

One agent at a time

Nobody needs an eighteen month AI transformation. They need the one thing that is leaking, fixed, and then the next one.

The audit is free and takes about half an hour

You walk us through a normal week. We come back with one page: the three jobs worth automating first, what each costs to build and to run, and which one we would start with. Yours to keep, whether or not you hire us.

We build one and you watch it work

Usually live within two weeks, and you pay nothing until it is actually working. It runs on your real traffic with us watching it. If it does not earn its keep we switch it off and say so, which is cheaper for everyone than pretending.

Then the next one, if you want it

Each one is easier than the last because the plumbing is already in. Most businesses end up with three or four quiet agents rather than one giant clever one.

All of it remote

We are in Durban and we work across the country. Nothing we build needs anyone standing in your office, which is also why it costs what it costs.

Things we will not sell you

Mostly because we have watched them fail at other people's expense.

The questions people actually ask

Short answers, with the numbers in them.

How much does it cost to automate a business process in South Africa?

From R1 450 a month for a single automation, up to R5 900 a month for a large one, with nothing to pay upfront. Turning a missed call into a WhatsApp message is R1 450 a month. An AI voice agent that answers calls and books appointments is R3 900 a month plus about R3 a minute of call time.

Is it a once-off cost or a monthly subscription?

Monthly, like hiring a person, from R1 450 a month. No setup fee and no contract. The monthly covers the build, the hosting, the platforms underneath and the fixing, while calls and messages are billed at cost on top. Give a month of notice and it stops.

Whose number does the automatic WhatsApp come from?

Yours. The message is sent from your business WhatsApp number, showing your business name and verified business profile, so a customer who has just phoned you recognises it immediately. It is never sent from an unknown number, because a stranger messaging you thirty seconds after you phoned somebody reads as a scam. This does mean the agent needs a WhatsApp number that belongs to the business rather than the owner's personal WhatsApp, which for most businesses is the number already on their website.

Which automation should a small business build first?

The one that catches enquiries you are currently losing. For most small businesses that is an automatic WhatsApp reply to a missed call, because a caller who gets no answer phones the next business within minutes. It is also the cheapest agent on the list at R1 450 a month and the easiest to measure.

How long does a business automation take to build?

One to three days for a single step, about a week for something that touches your accounting or booking system, and two to four weeks for voice agents, configurators and anything feeding multiple websites.

What is included in the monthly fee?

The agent fee of R1 450 to R5 900 a month covers the build, hosting, the platforms underneath and support. On top of that you pay only for calls and messages at cost, with no markup. Voice is roughly R3 a minute, so a two minute booking call is about six rand.

Is automation cheaper than hiring an admin assistant?

Usually. An agent costs R1 450 to R5 900 a month and does one job without supervision. An admin assistant costs several thousand rand a month plus leave, UIF and management. The honest limit is that an agent only does the job it was built for, where a person adapts.

Can you automate WhatsApp without the official Meta Business API?

Yes, for low volume conversations paced like a human being. It suits service reminders and follow-ups to customers who already know you. It does not suit bulk marketing, and anyone who tells you otherwise is about to get your number blocked. High volume or marketing sends need the official API, which we will set up if that is genuinely what you need.

Will an AI voice agent understand South African accents?

Mostly yes, and noticeably better on some accents than others. We test on recordings of your own customers before going live, and if it does not hold up on your callers we say so rather than taking the money.

Do I have to replace the software I already use?

No. Almost everything we build sits alongside what you have and talks to it. Replacing working software is expensive, disruptive and rarely the actual problem.

Do you work outside Durban?

Yes. We are based in Durban and work across South Africa. Everything is built and supported remotely, which is part of why the prices are what they are.

Tell us about the worst admin job in your business

Be specific. The boring detail is where the money is hiding. It makes no difference whether you are in Umhlanga or Upington.

No newsletter, no sales sequence, no nurture campaign. One human reads it and answers. Rather talk? WhatsApp or phone 079 705 9374.