Agency Comparison
DEPT vs OstraconAI
Comparing AI Marketing options: Amsterdam vs Helsinki.
Comparison updated · Newest review
Side by side
Published data on both agencies. Where one side measurably differs, the dot marks it: the higher score, the lower published rate, the larger team, the more recent review. Which of those is an advantage depends on your brief.
| Attribute | DEPT | OstraconAI |
|---|---|---|
| Editorial score | Higher score: 64/100 | 60/100 |
| Hourly rate | Lower published rate: €130-170/hr | €250-400/hr |
| Team size | Larger team: 1000-9999 | 10-49 |
| Location | Amsterdam, Netherlands | Helsinki, Finland |
| Founded | 2016 | 2024 |
| Last reviewed | Aug 6, 2026 | More recent review: Sep 23, 2026 |
What we said about each
Our take on DEPT
Signs is the most visible AI work here: a sign-language learning platform using computer vision to check the learner's signing, which reached more than 20 million people in its first week and recorded 20,000 signs learned in ten days. It is a collaboration with NVIDIA and the American Society for Deaf Children rather than a commissioned client project, which is worth knowing when you read it as evidence. The commissioned AI work is more ordinary and more useful as a guide: a return-value…
Reviewed Aug 6, 2026
Read the full assessment →Our take on OstraconAI
Eleven case studies are published and every client is named, splitting into five internal tools, three AI-assisted outbound campaigns and three strategy or roadmap engagements. The deployment detail is strongest at Singa: an n8n and Gemini pipeline that enriches, scores and routes inbound leads into HubSpot, live in week three, with a Slack channel for flagging errors and prompts tuned weekly—manual lead sorting went from 45 minutes a day to single-digit minutes. Nordic Healthcare Group's Azure…
Reviewed Sep 23, 2026
Read the full assessment →Best for
Where each agency measurably leads on the published data — team capacity, declared specializations, editorial scoring, and rates where both publish them. Use these to match an agency to your project priorities.
Choose DEPT if you need
- a more cost-effective engagement (~54% lower rate)
- larger team capacity for multi-stream or enterprise-scale programs
- broader service offering — also covers AI Development and Generative AI
- a higher overall editorial score
Choose OstraconAI if you need
- closer collaboration at a smaller team scale
- disclosed specialization in Healthcare / E-commerce
- broader service offering — also covers AI Consulting and AI Automation
Strengths and watch-outs
Both upsides and risks, straight from our editorial assessments.
DEPT
Strengths
- Named clients with figures attached across three sectors: retail returns, clinical search, sports fan engagement
- Computer vision applied to genuinely hard interaction problems, not generative demos
- International delivery capacity, so multi-market rollouts do not need a second agency
Watch-outs
- Signs is collaborative work with NVIDIA, not a client engagement—judge the commissioned cases separately
- Published AI work is weighted toward audience-facing products—ask for an operated system with an SLA if that is what you need
- At this scale, insist on knowing the named team, not the agency's aggregate credentials
OstraconAI
Strengths
- All 11 case studies name the client, and most quote a named executive with title—Sanoma Media Finland's Chief Commercial Officer, S-Group's Head of Marketing Strategies, Singa's CCO
- The Gosta Labs study publishes its funnel: 3,930 messages, 198 replies and 62 opportunities across three oncology congresses, with the best campaign near a 19% reply rate
- Handover is part of the delivery: Claude Code training at Barona and Claude training at Olo-apteekki so the client team maintains the tools itself
Watch-outs
- Several headline numbers are forecasts or quotes—Attendo is 'about to save' 9,000 hours, Sanoma's 'millions of euros' is an estimate—ask which figures were measured after launch
- The hourly rate on this listing sits well above the European range on our rate index, while the site prices by project and monthly retainer—ask how many hours the retainer buys
- Builds run on n8n, Copilot Studio, Azure, Clay, Apollo and Instantly—ask who owns the workflows and accounts, and who monitors them after the engagement ends
Service coverage
Where the two overlap, and where each covers ground the other does not.
Industry coverage
Where the two overlap, and where each covers ground the other does not.
Pricing math
What a 12-week engagement at one full-time equivalent (~480 hours) costs at each agency’s published rate. An arithmetic projection, not a quote — real scopes move with seniority mix and team shape.
DEPT
Rate: €130-170/hr
€62,400–€81,600
OstraconAI
Rate: €250-400/hr
€120,000–€192,000
At this scope the published midpoints are about €84,000 apart, with DEPT lower. OstraconAI publishes Healthcare work that DEPT does not — that is the one difference on this page that bears on the gap. If your brief does not touch it, the gap is buying something this comparison cannot see.
Frequently asked questions
- Which is cheaper, DEPT or OstraconAI?
- DEPT is cheaper by roughly 54% — €150/hr median vs €325/hr at OstraconAI. 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 SaaS & B2B experience, DEPT or OstraconAI?
- Both agencies show documented SaaS & B2B work. OstraconAI has the broader industry stack overall, with disclosed experience in Healthcare, E-commerce, FinTech beyond their shared focus.
- Which scores higher overall, DEPT or OstraconAI?
- DEPT scores 64/100, 4 points higher than OstraconAI at 60/100. Both portfolio quality and business credibility feed into the score — see our methodology for the full breakdown.
- Which is faster to engage, DEPT or OstraconAI?
- Neither publishes lead times, so this is a read on team size rather than a measured answer. OstraconAI runs the smaller team, which usually means fewer procurement gates and a shorter path to kickoff. DEPT runs a larger one, which tends to mean more steps but more capacity to start parallel workstreams. Current kickoff availability is the number that actually decides it — ask both.
- When should I consider both DEPT and OstraconAI?
- Consider running parallel discovery briefs with DEPT and OstraconAI 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.
Read the full reviews
A side-by-side is a starting point. The full assessments carry the portfolio analysis, documented engagements, and the evidence behind every strength and watch-out above.