LLM development · Johannesburg
LLM development company in Johannesburg
Mobile-first, low-bandwidth products with mobile money built in, from a senior team on overlapping hours.
Clarigo Infotech is an LLM development company that builds custom applications on large language models such as OpenAI GPT, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini and open-source models like Llama. We design the prompts, retrieval, tools and guardrails, connect the model to your data and systems, and run it in production with monitoring, evaluation and cost control.
South African companies most often hire us for fintech, healthcare software and AI automation.
10+
Years of delivery
600+
Projects delivered
20+
Countries served
25-30
Days to a live MVP
Get a free consultation
Tell us what you need. A senior engineer replies within one working day.
Mobile-first and built for real conditions
African businesses need products that work on any phone and any connection, with mobile money and local payments built in.
Works on any connection
Lightweight apps and sites that stay fast on slow networks and older phones.
Mobile money and local payments
M-Pesa, Flutterwave, Paystack and card payments integrated.
Overlapping hours
Two and a half to four and a half hours from India, so most of the day overlaps.
Cost-effective delivery
Senior engineers at offshore rates with full code ownership.
What we build with LLMs
Custom LLM applications
Assistants, copilots and internal tools built around your workflows, not a generic chat window.
LLM integration
Add GPT, Claude or Gemini to your existing product through secure, well-tested APIs.
Open-source and private models
Deploy Llama and other open models on your own cloud when data must stay in-house.
Fine-tuning and evaluation
Tune models on your examples and measure accuracy with test sets before and after launch.
Guardrails and safety
Input and output filtering, PII masking, grounding checks and human review where needed.
Cost and latency optimisation
Model routing, caching and prompt design that keep responses fast and bills predictable.
How we approach LLM development
Choosing the right model
There is no single best model. We compare OpenAI, Claude, Gemini and open-source options on your real tasks for accuracy, speed, cost and data handling, and design the app so the model can be swapped later without a rewrite.
Grounded in your data
Most business value comes from connecting the model to your documents, databases and tools. We use retrieval (RAG), function calling and agents so answers come from your information and actions happen in your systems.
Built for production, not demos
We add evaluation test sets, logging, monitoring, rate limits, fallbacks and cost alerts from day one, so the app keeps working well after launch and you can see exactly what it is doing.
Security and compliance
Data minimisation, encryption, access control and providers configured not to train on your data. For healthcare we build to HIPAA requirements with BAAs in place for any service that touches PHI.
Remote, but close to Johannesburg
Time-zone overlap
South Africa is three and a half hours behind India, so our working days overlap for most of your morning and early afternoon.
The Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA)
We design to POPIA's conditions for lawful processing: purpose limits, security safeguards and data-subject access, with data hosted in South African cloud regions when required. We sign NDAs before work starts.
Billing
Invoices in South African rand (ZAR) or US dollars. Typical senior rates are $25 to $49 (USD) per hour, or a fixed price for a defined scope.
Where we help Johannesburg businesses most
Johannesburg and Sandton companies in finance and insurance use us for platforms, integrations and AI automation, designed to POPIA.
Mining
Mines invest in safety, monitoring and automation systems. We start with one costly process and automate it end to end.
Financial services
Banks and insurers lead in mobile and digital channels. We build AI agents, assistants and automation around these workflows.
Retail
National chains expand e-commerce and loyalty programmes. AI here usually means faster reporting, fewer manual steps and better customer replies.
Tourism and wine
Operators and estates sell to international visitors online. We start with one costly process and automate it end to end.
Meetings in your time zone
Our team's hours, in Johannesburg time
06:30–16:00
Monday to Friday
Overlap with your working day
09:00–16:00
About 7 hours every day
Daily stand-up
09:30
Johannesburg time, plus written updates every evening
Built for how Johannesburg works
Messaging channels
Languages
Local payments
Data hosting
AWS Africa (Cape Town), Google Cloud africa-south1 (Johannesburg) and Azure South Africa North, in your own cloud account, so data stays where your rules require.
How it works
Week 1: discovery and design
We agree the use case, success measures and data, and show you a clickable design.
Weeks 2-3: build and integrate
We build, connect it to your systems and data, and demo working software every week.
Week 4: test and launch
We test with real cases, add monitoring and guardrails, then go live.
After launch: improve and scale
The same engineers keep tuning quality, cost and features as usage grows.
See what we've built
Try it yourself, free
Free browser tools from our team. No sign-up needed.
LLM development company: questions from Johannesburg
Do you work with companies in Johannesburg?+
Yes. Clarigo Infotech works with companies across Johannesburg, including Johannesburg, Sandton, Pretoria, as part of clients in 20+ countries. South African companies most often hire us for fintech, healthcare software and AI automation. We work remotely from India with one in-house team.
What time-zone overlap do we get from Johannesburg?+
South Africa is three and a half hours behind India, so our working days overlap for most of your morning and early afternoon.
How do you handle the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA)?+
We design to POPIA's conditions for lawful processing: purpose limits, security safeguards and data-subject access, with data hosted in South African cloud regions when required. We sign NDAs before work starts.
Which currency do you bill in, and what does it cost?+
We bill in South African rand (ZAR) or US dollars. Senior engineers typically cost $25 to $49 (USD) per hour, and fixed-scope projects such as an MVP in 25 to 30 days are quoted after a free consultation.
Do you support WhatsApp?+
Yes. Customers in Johannesburg often prefer WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger and LinkedIn, so we connect chatbots, notifications and support flows to them.
Do you work with mining companies?+
Yes. Mining is one of Johannesburg's key sectors, and we build AI agents, assistants and automation around these workflows.
What time are your meetings in Johannesburg time?+
Our team works 06:30–16:00 Johannesburg time, so we overlap with your day from 09:00–16:00. Daily stand-ups are usually at 09:30 your time.
How long does it take to build an LLM application?+
A focused LLM app for one workflow typically goes live in 25 to 30 days. Larger platforms are delivered in phases.
How much does LLM development cost?+
Cost depends on scope, integrations and usage. We give a scoped quote after a free consultation and explain both build cost and monthly running cost.
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