# Buildo vs xtream

> Two top-rated AI Development agencies in Milan. Side by side: published rates, team size, service and industry coverage, and the curator's assessment of both — pairings are never sold.

Canonical page: https://www.aiagencies.eu/compare/buildo-vs-xtream
Generated: 2026-10-21 · Curated by Gabor Kiss · No paid placements — inclusion, score, and rank are never sold.

## Facts
| | Buildo | xtream |
|---|---|---|
| Editorial score | 55/100 | 60/100 |
| Hourly rate | €85-130/hr (directory-listed) | €45-85/hr (directory-listed) |
| Team size | 10-49 | 10-49 |
| Location | Milan, Italy | Milan, Italy |
| Founded | 2013 | 2018 |
| Last reviewed | 2026-09-03 | 2026-09-03 |
| Services | AI Development, AI Consulting | AI Development, AI Consulting |
| Industries | Healthcare, FinTech, SaaS & B2B | FinTech, SaaS & B2B, E-commerce |

## Our take on Buildo
Reviewed 2026-09-03 by Gabor Kiss against published evidence.

The Banksealer study is the one that shows a machine-learning system in production: fraud-ranking algorithms developed with Politecnico di Milano and reimplemented in Scala, running on-premises without an internet connection at 200 transactions per second, with the Kafka, Elasticsearch and Docker choices explained rather than hidden.

The other two AI studies are a shipped LLM conversation-intelligence feature for Superlayer, where the prompt-engineering and token-windowing decisions are written up, and an MLOps platform selection for Freeda Media (Valohai over SageMaker and Kubeflow); neither publishes an outcome number, so the business effect of that work is yours to ask about.

Of the 9 published case studies, 3 involve AI and the rest are software, design and accessibility delivery, and the team page names 32 people of whom 1 carries an AI Engineer title, so expect a software boutique that builds ML features into products rather than a data-science practice.

The weaker fit is buyers who need a research-grade modeling team or a vendor to operate the model after handover—the studies show Buildo's engineers working inside the client's own technical organization.

### Key strengths
- All 5 case studies close with a quote from a named client executive (CTO, Head of Data Analytics, CEO, Head of Sales), so references are visible before the first call
- Regulated delivery is documented: the Inpeco study describes safety and cybersecurity risk analysis, requirements tracking and an automated verification suite under medical-device processes
- Published rates of €85–130/h for a 2013 firm with ISO 9001 certification and FT 1000 (2023) and Sole 24 Ore Growth Leaders (2022, 2023) listings

### Good to know
- The Banksealer study gives throughput (200 transactions per second) but no detection outcome—ask what the fraud-catch rate or analyst time saved looked like after go-live
- The AI Engineering service page is an unfilled template at review time—ask for the current AI offer in writing and who on the team would staff it
- The Inpeco study is written in the present tense ('we are developing')—confirm the status of any in-progress engagement offered as a reference

## Our take on xtream
Reviewed 2026-09-03 by Gabor Kiss against published evidence.

Three of the 10 published projects describe machine-learning or optimization systems that reached production with numbers attached: hourly power-load forecasting for an unnamed Italian utility that cut relative error by 24% (residential) and 26% (industrial) and became the utility's official tool, demand forecasting for an unnamed food-and-beverage group, retrained monthly on Azure ML, that reduced planning effort by 25%, and WeRoad's tour planner, where 84% of departures now fall on a date chosen by the solver.

The stack is named each time (scikit-learn, PyTorch, a Luigi pipeline deployed on-premises, Azure ML with a Power BI front end) and the DeepPsyMe research write-up states plainly that its prototypes are not ready for production, which is the kind of disclosure most portfolios omit.

The two strongest ML deployments are anonymized, so the speakable reference is WeRoad, and the AI Solutions page rules out dashboards and image processing outright—useful scoping if your brief is forecasting, a mismatch if it is computer vision.

The weaker fit is buyers who want a large bench or a generative-AI showcase—the team page lists 20 people and every published AI study is predictive modeling or optimization, with no LLM deployment among them.

### Key strengths
- Published rates of €45–85/h against production forecasting systems with measured error reductions
- 7 of the 20 named team members carry data-science or AI-engineer titles, led by a founder who is Head of AI
- Engagement terms are written down: a service-oriented iteration model and a product-oriented fixed-scope model, each with its prerequisites, are published on the AI Solutions page

### Good to know
- The utility and food-and-beverage studies are anonymized—ask for a reference call behind at least one of them before relying on the error-reduction figures
- The portfolio page claims 30-plus projects and 20-plus customers against 10 published—ask for the list behind the number
- The WeRoad system is a mixed-integer-programming optimizer, not a learned model—if your brief is generative AI, ask for an LLM engagement they can show

## Which to choose
Choose Buildo for:
- disclosed specialization in Healthcare
- an overall editorial score of 55/100

Choose xtream for:
- a more cost-effective engagement (~65% lower rate)
- disclosed specialization in E-commerce
- a higher overall editorial score

## Questions buyers ask

### Which is cheaper, Buildo or xtream?
xtream is cheaper by roughly 65% — €65/hr median vs €108/hr at Buildo. Published rates cover different things at different agencies — seniority mix, discovery and included revisions are the usual variables — so treat the gap as a question to ask, not a verdict.

### Which has more FinTech experience, Buildo or xtream?
Both agencies show documented FinTech work and have similar industry breadth. Compare directly on the agency profiles: Buildo and xtream.

### Which scores higher overall, Buildo or xtream?
xtream scores 60/100, 5 points higher than Buildo at 55/100. See our methodology for how scores are calculated.

### When should I consider both Buildo and xtream?
Consider running parallel discovery briefs with Buildo and xtream if your project spans multiple workstreams, you want competitive proposals to compare scope and approach, or you're undecided between the specialization angles each brings (see the Best for cards above). Most engagements ultimately go with one — but the parallel-brief phase is a low-cost way to validate fit.

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Source: AIAgencies.eu — the curated register of European AI agencies. Rate provenance: "agency-confirmed" = disclosed via submission or claimed profile; "directory-listed" = Clutch or two agreeing B2B directories (lone unverified sources are never written). Full method: https://www.aiagencies.eu/methodology · Rate index: https://www.aiagencies.eu/rates