Agency Comparison
Digica vs Sputnik Digital
Two top-rated AI Development agencies in Manchester.
Comparison updated August 2026
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 | Digica | Sputnik Digital |
|---|---|---|
| Editorial score | Higher score: 60/100 | 51/100 |
| Hourly rate | Lower published rate: €45-85/hr | €85-130/hr |
| Team size | Larger team: 50-249 | 2-9 |
| Location | Manchester, United Kingdom | Manchester, United Kingdom |
| Founded | 2009 | 1998 |
| Last reviewed | Aug 4, 2026 | Aug 4, 2026 |
What we said about each
Our take on Digica
The preventive-maintenance work is documented the way an engineering buyer would want it: a neural network with XGBoost decision trees and SHAP for explainability, predicting mobile-device failure at 91% accuracy. Sensor-fusion work covers training convolutional networks on synthetic images and combining RGB with near-infrared, and there is published work running language models on Arm CPUs for edge devices—a constraint most AI agencies never encounter. Clients are named as logos rather than…
Reviewed Aug 4, 2026
Read the full assessment →Our take on Sputnik Digital
Two named clients carry AI work here: Hollr, a generative-AI platform producing personalized video messages, and Invntry, which identifies and values household belongings from photographs for home-insurance claims. The Invntry write-up is the more useful of the two, describing an agnostic LLM integration and structured prompt design—an architecture choice that keeps the client off a single model vendor, and worth asking about directly. Neither case publishes an outcome figure, and the wider…
Reviewed Aug 4, 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 Digica if you need
- a more cost-effective engagement (~40% lower rate)
- larger team capacity for multi-stream or enterprise-scale programs
- disclosed specialization in Manufacturing / Healthcare
- a higher overall editorial score
Choose Sputnik Digital if you need
- closer collaboration at a smaller team scale
- disclosed specialization in FinTech / SaaS & B2B
Strengths and watch-outs
Both upsides and risks, straight from our editorial assessments.
Digica
Strengths
- Explainability is built in, not bolted on—SHAP appears in the published method, which regulated buyers will need
- Embedded and edge deployment is a stated specializm, including LLMs on Arm CPUs
- 80+ data scientists and engineers, with offices in the UK, Poland and Berlin
Watch-outs
- The blue-chip logo wall is not connected to the case studies—ask which names map to which engagements
- No published rates or founding year
Sputnik Digital
Strengths
- Two separate named-client AI builds, in different techniques—generative video and image recognition
- Model-agnostic integration is a stated design choice, not an afterthought
- Full product capability around the AI work: discovery, UX, engineering and optimization in one team
Watch-outs
- No outcome figures on either AI case—ask what accuracy or adoption looked like after launch
- No published founding year, headcount or rates
Service coverage
Both agencies cover the same services — on this axis there is nothing to separate them, so decide on the evidence behind the work rather than its labels.
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 (~480hours) costs at each agency’s published rate. An arithmetic projection, not a quote — real scopes move with seniority mix and team shape.
Digica
Rate: €45-85/hr
€21,600–€40,800
Sputnik Digital
Rate: €85-130/hr
€40,800–€62,400
At this scope the published midpoints are about €20,400 apart, with Digica lower. Sputnik Digital publishes FinTech work that Digica 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, Digica or Sputnik Digital?
- Digica is cheaper by roughly 40% — €65/hr median vs €108/hr at Sputnik Digital. 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 scores higher overall, Digica or Sputnik Digital?
- Digica scores 60/100, 9 points higher than Sputnik Digital at 51/100. Both portfolio quality and business credibility feed into the score — see our methodology for the full breakdown.
- Which is faster to engage, Digica or Sputnik Digital?
- Neither publishes lead times, so this is a read on team size rather than a measured answer. Sputnik Digital runs the smaller team, which usually means fewer procurement gates and a shorter path to kickoff. Digica 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 Digica and Sputnik Digital?
- Consider running parallel discovery briefs with Digica and Sputnik Digital 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.