Best AI Assistants for Small Businesses
The five AI assistants a small business actually chooses between, with verified pricing, the bundling that makes them hard to compare, and which one your existing tools decide for you.
Search interest here is wildly lopsided: ChatGPT dominates, Gemini is a clear second, and the rest are a long way behind. That ranking tells you what people try first, not what suits your business.
The more useful sorting is where your work already lives, because three of these five are really arguments about proximity rather than capability.
Start with the free tier of whichever assistant already sits next to your work — Gemini if you are on Google, ChatGPT if you are on neither, Copilot only if you are already paying for Microsoft 365. Add a second tool only when you can name what the first one failed at. Perplexity is the clearest case for a second subscription, because sourced research is a genuinely different job from drafting.
Quick recommendations
ChatGPT
Best all-rounder, and the safe default
The broadest capability in one place — writing, research, images, data — and it makes no assumption about where your files live. The one to pick when you cannot predict what you will need.
EUR 23/mo · Plus · Read review →
Gemini
Best if your work lives in Google
Inside Gmail, Docs and Android, so there is no copying between windows. Cheapest entry price of any assistant here, though the paid tiers are storage plans with assistant limits attached.
EUR 4.99/mo · Google AI Plus · Read review →
Claude
Best for long documents and careful briefs
Holds a long document in view better and tends to stay inside the instructions you gave it. The choice when the work is analysis-heavy rather than varied.
USD 20/mo · Pro · Read review →
Perplexity
Best when you need the sources, not just the answer
Cites what it used, which is the whole point for research you will quote to a client. Narrower than a general assistant, and the public pricing shows no monthly option.
USD 17/mo · Pro · Read review →
Microsoft 365 Copilot
Best if your work lives in Microsoft 365
Sits inside Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams. The only tool here with no free plan, and it is an add-on that assumes you already pay for Microsoft 365.
USD 25.2/mo · Microsoft 365 Copilot Business · Read review →
The prices are not comparable, and that is the trap
ChatGPT Plus and Claude Pro are assistant subscriptions. Gemini's paid tiers are Google One storage plans with higher assistant limits attached. Copilot is an add-on that assumes an existing Microsoft 365 subscription underneath it, and its advertised annual rate is shown struck through from a higher figure, so it is a promotion rather than a baseline. Four different things wearing the same kind of price tag.
Four of the five have a real free tier
ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity all have permanent free plans rather than trials, which makes an honest week-long test cost nothing. Copilot is the exception: there is no free plan, so evaluating it is a paid decision from the first day and its entry price sits on top of a subscription you must already hold.
What none of them fixes
If the slow part of your work is re-reading before you send rather than producing a draft, an assistant is the wrong purchase and a proofreading tool is the right one. And if you need the answer traceable to a source you can show a client, most of these will produce a confident answer without one — that is the specific gap Perplexity exists to fill.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to pay for any of them?
Often not at first. Four of the five have free plans that cover real small-business work. The signal to pay is a limit that stops you finishing something specific — not a plan page implying the free tier is for hobbyists.
Why is Gemini so much cheaper at entry?
Because it is not the same product. The entry tier is a 400 GB Google One storage plan with doubled Gemini limits attached. If you need the storage it is excellent value; if you do not, the headline figure is comparing a bundle against a standalone subscription.
Is it worth running two?
Only when you can name the failure. The most defensible pair is a general assistant for drafting plus Perplexity for research you have to source. Two general assistants is usually paying twice for the same job.
Related reading
ChatGPT vs Gemini
The two most-searched, head to head.
ChatGPT vs Claude
Drafting versus long-form and analysis.
The AI tools with no free plan
Why Copilot is the odd one out here.