How to choose an AI agency as an SMB

Why it's hard to compare

The AI agency market is young, and the vocabulary does the rest: "agent", "automation", "copilot" cover everything and anything. Two quotes promising the same thing can describe a €300 Zapier script and a €3,000 supervised system.

The right method isn't comparing promises but comparing proofs. Here are the seven criteria we would use ourselves.

The seven criteria

In order of importance:

• 1. Demand a demo on your cases, not a generic video. A serious provider shows their system on your context.
• 2. Public pricing, or at least communicated before the first meeting. "On request" prices often hide arbitrariness.
• 3. Ownership of workflows and data: if you leave, you leave with everything. Refuse any technical lock-in.
• 4. Explicit human supervision: who checks what the agent sends to your customers?
• 5. A short prototype: 7 to 15 days to see your real cases running, not a six-month tunnel.
• 6. Verifiable proof: products in production, interactive demos, figures explicitly labelled as illustrative rather than unverifiable testimonials.
• 7. Cancellable subscriptions: you stay with a provider because it works, not because a contract holds you.

Warning signals

A few formulations should trigger immediate caution:

• "Guaranteed revenue" or unconditional figures — nobody can guarantee a commercial outcome.
• "6-month integration" for a simple need — a first prototype should be measured in days.
• No price displayed anywhere, not even a range.
• A demo only visible in a sales call, never on your own.

Start small, measure fast

The classic SMB trap is the project that's too broad. Pick one time-consuming process — email triage, quote follow-ups — and measure the recovered time for a month. If the value is there, extend. If not, stop without regrets: that's exactly what monthly commitments are for.

Where we stand

In full transparency: Agence IA ticks most of these criteria — public pricing, freely accessible interactive demos, prototype in 7 days, monthly subscriptions, workflows that belong to you. Our known limit: we are a young structure, without years of client references to display. That's precisely why everything we show is directly verifiable on the site, and why every engagement starts with a free, no-commitment audit.