About Drift Studio
Drift Studio is a one-person automation studio working with businesses across South Africa. We build the marketing, lead generation, websites and internal systems that most agencies only talk about, then automate them so they keep running without anyone babysitting them.
Who you are actually dealing with
Drift Studio is run by Ahmed Vally, a solo operator building AI and automation systems for South African businesses. There is no account-manager layer and no junior team — the person who scopes your work is the person who builds it and the person you talk to.
We work online with clients across South Africa — no offices, no retainer theatre, just marketing, lead generation, websites and operations built and automated for you.
That shape is a deliberate trade-off, not a stage we are trying to grow out of. One operator has a hard ceiling on how many clients can be served properly at once, so work gets scoped tightly, quoted in Rands up front, and turned down when it will not fit — rather than padded out to fill a retainer.
What we build
Four things, and on most projects they end up connected to each other:
- Automation packs — Lead follow-up, invoicing, client onboarding, reporting and content, bundled as packs from R1,750/month and run for you. see what is inside each pack →
- Custom AI apps — Internal tools built around one business’s actual workflow rather than bent to fit off-the-shelf software. From R4,500/month, billed monthly with a six-month minimum. custom app pricing →
- Websites and web apps — Built to load fast and to be found — server-rendered content, real structured data, and the technical work that makes a site legible to search engines and AI assistants. how the builds work →
- Marketing and lead generation — SEO, paid media and social, delivered as the Ignite, Momentum and Apex retainers. Priced in Rands, with the scope written down. compare the retainers →
What that looks like on a real job
For FreshStop at Astron Energy Booysens, a multi-store franchise, the problem was that several locations were firing orders from separate point-of-sale systems with no unified routing, no way to trust that an incoming webhook was genuine, and ordering sitting in a different system from payment. We built:
- A multi-tenant webhook router that identifies each store and routes its events independently.
- Full Take.app integration, so ordering and payment run as one flow instead of two disconnected systems.
- HMAC signature verification on every inbound webhook — no spoofed or replayed payload gets through.
- Per-tenant isolation, so one store’s configuration can never affect another.
“Drift Studio built our FreshStop ordering webhook end-to-end and integrated it fully with Take.app. Ordering and payment now run as one seamless process — no manual reconciliation, and it just works across the store.”
New store locations now onboard onto the same routing layer in minutes. The full breakdown, with the problem and the outcome in detail, is on our work and process page.
How to reach us
Messages go to Ahmed directly — there is no inbox triage layer in between. WhatsApp is usually fastest.
WhatsApp or call +27 77 391 7511, or email ahmed@driftstudio.co.za.
If you would rather see numbers before speaking to anyone, every package and build price is published on the pricing page.