We talk to small business owners every week. The most common thing we hear about AI tools: "I signed up, played with it for a week, and then stopped using it." The problem isn't the technology — it's that most AI tools are solutions looking for a problem. They're impressive demos that don't slot into a real workflow.
The tools that stick are the ones that remove a specific friction point from something you already do every day. With that in mind, here's what we're actually recommending to clients right now, broken down by use case.
Our rating system: Yes = recommend for most small businesses in this category. Maybe = depends on your specific situation. Skip = not worth it for most small business owners right now.
Automation & Workflow
The most flexible automation platform we use. Connects to almost everything — Shopify, Gmail, WhatsApp, Airtable, Notion, Stripe — and lets you build multi-step workflows without code. The visual builder is genuinely intuitive once you've spent a few hours with it.
The free tier handles light use. The $9/month plan covers most small businesses. The main learning curve is understanding triggers and filters — once you've built 5–6 scenarios, it clicks.
More powerful than Make and free if you self-host. Better for complex automations, especially anything involving custom logic or less common integrations. The trade-off: you need some technical comfort or someone to help with setup.
We use n8n for client builds that need custom code nodes or where the Make cost would be significant. If you're not technical, stick with Make. If you are, n8n gives you more control.
The original, and still widely used. Easiest to get started with — simpler than Make for basic two-app connections. The problem is pricing: it gets expensive fast once you're running more than a handful of automations, and the free tier is very limited.
If you just need one or two simple automations and don't want any learning curve, Zapier works. If you're building something more substantial, Make is better value.
Customer Communication & Support
The best entry-level AI chat tool for small business websites. Combines a live chat widget with an AI chatbot that can handle common questions — opening hours, pricing, product FAQs — without human intervention. When it can't answer, it escalates to you.
Setup takes 30–60 minutes. The AI gets better as you feed it your FAQ content. The free plan is genuinely usable. The $19/month Communicator plan adds more AI responses and integrations.
Excellent product, genuinely powerful AI features — and priced for companies with real support teams and budgets. Starts at $74/month and gets expensive quickly. If you're a small business handling support yourself or with one part-time person, it's overkill.
Worth revisiting if you grow to the point where customer support is a dedicated function. Right now: skip it.
Content & Writing
Our preferred AI writing tool for anything that requires nuance — drafting emails, writing proposals, summarising long documents, producing first-draft content from detailed briefs. Handles longer context better than most alternatives and produces less generic output when given specific instructions.
The $20/month Pro plan gives you access to the most capable models. For content work specifically, the quality difference from the free tier is noticeable.
Built for content marketing at scale, priced to match ($49/month+). For a small business that needs occasional writing help, you're paying a lot for a wrapper around the same underlying AI models you can access directly at lower cost. The templates are useful but not worth the premium for light users.
Admin & Operations
If you already use Notion for notes, projects, or documentation, the AI add-on ($10/month) is worth it. Summarises long pages, drafts content from brief notes, helps structure meeting notes, and answers questions about your stored documents. Genuinely useful if it's where your information lives.
If you don't use Notion yet and are starting fresh, the combination of Notion + AI is a solid choice for a business knowledge base and operations hub.
Records and transcribes meetings, then generates AI summaries with action items. If you take client calls, discovery sessions, or team meetings, this eliminates manual note-taking. The free plan covers 300 minutes/month — enough for most small business use. The $17/month Pro plan removes limits.
Works with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. The accuracy is high enough that you stop taking notes within a week of starting to use it.
What We're Watching
A few categories where the tools aren't quite there yet for small business owners, but are improving quickly:
- AI bookkeeping: Several tools are attempting to automate expense categorisation and reconciliation. Results are inconsistent. Worth revisiting in 6 months.
- AI social media scheduling: Tools that write, schedule, and publish social content automatically. The writing quality has improved but still needs significant editing for anything brand-specific.
- Voice AI for phone calls: Handling inbound enquiries via AI voice. Early days for small business, but moving fast — watch this space.
Not Sure Which Tools Are Right for Your Business?
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