Agent Operations Retainer
Your agent gets better every month — or we tell you why it isn't.
Agents drift. Models update. Tools change. Your business evolves. This retainer keeps your deployed agent sharp: weekly eval review, drift monitoring, prompt tuning, tool additions, monthly cost optimization, and a written report so you know exactly what we did and what changed. Cancel any month.
Compare flagship offers
Five engagements. Pick what matches your situation.
| Engagement | Price | Timeline | Mode | Best for | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AI Implementation Consulting | from $1,000 | 2 weeks | Audit | Don’t know where AI fits | View |
AI Agent Development | from $2,600 | 4 weeks | Build | Repetitive ops work eating your week | View |
AI Voice Agent | from $1,800 | 3 weeks | Build | Missed inbound calls | View |
AI Lead Engine | from $2,200 | 4 weeks | Build | Targeted outreach without spam | View |
Agent Operations RetainerYou’re here | from $600/mo | Monthly | Operate | Already shipped — keep it sharp | — |
Your agent has an on-call team. That team is us.
Agents drift. We catch it before your customers do.
AI agents fail in slow, quiet ways: a vendor changes a tool API, a model gets updated, eval scores creep down, costs creep up, edge cases stack up. Without monitoring you find out from a customer. We watch eval pass rates, spend trends, and the activity log every week. We tune prompts, add test cases, ship guardrails, and write a monthly retro you actually want to read. Cancel any month — no annual lock-in.
The architecture, end to end
No black boxes. Here\u2019s the actual shape of the system you get \u2014 with the guardrails, eval loops, and human approvals where they belong.
What we monitor every week
A real ops loop, not a dashboard you forget about.
Real use cases we ship
You shipped the agent, now what?
Production AI is a moving target. Models update, APIs change, edge cases stack up.
No internal AI team yet
Buy ops capacity by the month instead of hiring a $180k role for a part-time job.
Multi-agent stack
Voice + ops + lead engine all running? Coordinated tuning so they don’t fight each other.
Compliance-sensitive industries
Documented changes, eval evidence, and audit-ready retros every month.
The dashboard you actually use
Every flagship engagement ships with a stylized control panel \u2014 live activity, eval pass rate, spend cap, and an approval queue you can act on from your phone.
Agent Ops — This week
Sample retainer report. You get this every Monday.
- MonTuned quote-drafting prompt: cut hallucinated SKUs from 3% to 0% in evals
- TueAdded 4 test cases from this week’s approval-queue rejections
- WedAnthropic API change — updated client lib, no agent downtime
- ThuSpend cap raised $500 → $750 (you approved) — reflects 30% volume growth
- FriSent monthly retro: 3 wins, 1 close call, 2 changes for next month
- Refund request > $250 — review
- Outbound email batch — 12 ready
- 1 more queued
What you get
How the agent thinks
The decision graph behind the engagement. Inputs, branches, and the point where a human stays in the loop.
How we run this engagement
Concrete phases, concrete artifacts. You always know where we are and what comes next.
Eval review + drift check
Sample 20–50 real agent runs. Score against eval criteria. Flag anything that drifted. Review cost trends.
Tuning + improvements
Apply prompt + tool fixes based on eval findings. Add new tools or workflow expansions. Re-run evals to measure improvement.
Cost optimization
Review model choice + prompt length + caching opportunities. Test cheaper alternatives where quality holds. Document savings.
Report + planning
Monthly performance report. Loom walkthrough of changes. Plan next month's priorities with you.
Typical results
What ships
- Weekly eval review on a sampled set of real agent runs
- Drift monitoring with alerts when quality scores drop
- Prompt + tool tuning based on eval findings
- Up to 2 new tool integrations or workflow expansions per month
- Monthly cost optimization review (model choice, prompt length, caching opportunities)
- Monthly performance report (PDF + Loom)
- Slack channel with 1–2 business day response on issues
- Quarterly strategy call to review trajectory
Out of scope
- Brand new agent builds (use AI Agent Development)
- Major architecture rebuilds (separate engagement)
- On-call / 24/7 support (use Reliability Retainer for that)
Extend the engagement
Additional agent
+$360/moAdd a second agent under the same retainer scope.
On-call support
+$600/mo24/7 pager for agent-down incidents with 1-hour response.
See the artifact, not the marketing.
Real shape, redacted content. Pick a tab to preview what ships.
Twelve-page audit excerpt: scope, methodology, findings ranked by impact, and a prioritized fix list. Redacted.
Sample provided after intro call · ask sage@sageideas.dev
Money-back if you're not happy in week 1
Reset the engagement before momentum builds. No invoices to dispute, no awkward email.
Async-first, weekly demos, no surprises
You see exactly what shipped each week. No status meetings to attend, no reports to chase.
Code is yours from day 1 — no lock-in
Your repo, your infra, your accounts. We work in your stack. You can take the work in-house at any time.
Honest answers
Why do agents need ongoing operations?
Three reasons: (1) Models change — what worked on GPT-4-0314 may not work on GPT-5. (2) Your business changes — new tools, new processes, new edge cases. (3) Drift is real — without monitoring, quality degrades silently. The retainer makes this someone's job.
What if I built my agent with someone else?
We can take over operations on agents we didn't build, but we need a 1-week onboarding to map the architecture and stand up our eval harness if you don't already have one. Onboarding is included in the first month at no extra cost.
Can I cancel?
Any month, no commitment. We give you the playbook and dashboard access on the way out so your team can take it over.
How does this compare to hiring an AI engineer?
An in-house AI engineer costs $8–15k/mo loaded. This is a fraction of that, with a tighter scope (agent ops only). If you have multiple agents and need broader engineering, hire an engineer. If you have one or two agents and need them maintained well, this is the play.
Ready to scope this for your business?
Book a 30-minute discovery call. No pitch deck. We'll either confirm fit and send a proposal, or tell you straight that this isn't the right move.