You'll find almost every list of AI tools for small business will have an endless list of "must haves". That should be the red flag. Nobody needs a scatter gun approach to the software tools required as it will lead to overwhelm and confusion.

In February 2026 I started my one-person business. I'm certainly not technical, I don't have a system that made me rich, and I won't tell you which tools will transform your business, because I don't know what your business is.

What I will tell you is exactly what I pay for, what each one is actually good at, and what it costs. It's a shorter list but a more effective one.

What "small business" means here

You find a lot of tools roundups are written for a business with a team of people. Which means they have someone to set everything up, someone to run it, and a budget that will absorb any bad decision.

That isn't the situation I'm in and I suspect it's not yours either. A one-person business uses one person's time, and every tool has to earn your time back before it earns anything else. To be blunt, a tool that saves you just two hours a month but costs you three hours to learn is a loss, whatever it does.

So the question you have to ask yourself is not what that tool can do but will you use it enough to make it effective for your business.

The jobs I actually use AI for

Four, and they are all unglamorous.

**Checking.** When I write something that's too long, I then hand it over and ask the AI to review, check punctuation and spelling without adding its own stance. I find that it's good at this, as well as finding the repetition that I may have missed.

**Arguing against me.** One particular AI when you ask it to check your work, always agrees with you, because it is built to be agreeable. This is worthless and you should always ignore that response. Instead I ask it to make the strongest case against what I have written. If you do that you will find it becomes useful straight away. It's the same tool, but now giving you an opposite view, and the only thing that changed is that I stopped asking and hoping for approval.

**Explaining, not recommending.** Don't ask which tool you should use as it will name whatever was written about most in its training data, which will be the one that had the biggest marketing budget two years ago. Instead ask what a specific tool actually does, what solution it can provide, it then becomes far more useful. You then can make a more informed decision.

**The boring stuff.** Turning your disorganised notes into a clear structure. Being a fresh set of eyes on something and advising what's missing. Reading a long document or article and giving me a detailed summary. This is where AI really comes into its own.

What I don't use it for

Writing. Partly because of principle, but mainly because what comes back tends to be bland and doesn't really say anything. Every sentence could have been written about anybody, on any subject, which is exactly the problem. It gives you the average version, which means the average version of anything personal will be nobody in particular.

Everything on this site is written by me. On a subject where most of what you read about AI was itself written by AI, that seemed worth saying.

The tools

Four to five. That is the whole stack.

Claude

Claude is by far the one I use most, and it's the closest thing I have to a second brain. It's an AI assistant built by Anthropic, and I use it for all my thinking work rather than any writing. I also use it for structuring an idea, cutting a draft down, arguing the opposite case, and letting me know what I have missed.

There is a free version and it is genuinely usable, though you need to be aware you will hit the limits once you start working on longer sessions.

Pro plan is $20 a month, or $17 a month if you pay annually, which is $200 up front. That annual rate saves you roughly 15%, though I would never recommend committing to a year until you have used the tool for at least three months of real use. Above that there are two Max plans at $100 and $200 a month, and neither of those can be billed annually.

I find Pro is perfect for me. Max is for people working in it all day and that is not me, at least not yet.

The feature I use most is Projects, which are excellent. It's where you keep all your chats and any docs you've uploaded in one place. It keeps everything together and will save you a lot of time explaining every new chat to Claude rather than starting cold every time.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT is what I use for images. I don't use it much for writing if at all, mostly because I already have Claude for that, and running two subscriptions for the same job is paying twice for one thing. I also find it agrees with everything I say or suggest and every idea I have is a "great" one. But for images and thumbnails (if you use YouTube or TikTok) it's very good.

Plus plan is $20 a month. There is no annual option on any individual plan, so there is no discount for committing, which subtly makes it more expensive over a year than Claude Pro at the same monthly amount. There is a cheaper Go plan at $8 a month, launched globally in January 2026, but it still shows ads and does not include the full feature set.

On images, Plus plan gives you roughly 50 image prompts per three-hour window, which works out at around 200 a day if you time it well. Worth knowing that each image prompt counts against your message limit, so the real number is lower once you have been having conversations as well.

For what I need, which is a header image for a post, Plus is more than enough.

I plan to launch a YouTube channel later this year and will use ChatGPT to generate my thumbnails.

Descript

Talking of YouTube, Descript is a video and audio editor, and the thing that makes it different is that you edit by editing the transcript. I find this brilliant. It means I am able to delete a word from the text and that part of the video disappears. You can remove ums and ahhs, which I personally can be guilty of. You're able to move a sentence and the video will move with it.

This all matters if you're not an editor and do not want or have the time to become one. Traditional editing means learning a timeline. With Descript it means reading a document and deleting the bits you don't want, which of course is a skill you already have.

The free plan will give you 60 media minutes a month, but be aware the exports carry a watermark, so it's okay on a trial rather than a working plan.

The paid tiers are Hobbyist at $16 a month billed annually or $24 monthly, Creator at $24 annually or $35 monthly, and Business at $50 annually or $65 monthly. The annual saving is generous, around 35%, which is a bigger gap than most tools.

The thing to watch is not the actual price. Each plan is capped by media hours per month rather than by anything else, and that cap is usually what pushes people up a tier rather than any missing feature.

As I mentioned I am planning a YouTube channel launch later this year and I plan to do the $35 monthly plan. If all goes well with the channel and the software I will then switch to annual to get the discount.

Gamma

This is my occasional fifth tool. I don't use it every month, which is why I said earlier that my stack is four to five.

Gamma is a presentation, document and webpage builder powered by AI. In just under a minute it can generate slides using text prompts, and in a really short time Gamma has become very popular as one of the fastest AI presentation tools currently available.

It does have a free version but I found that a bit limiting, and I do not like that it includes Gamma branding. To remove that you need a paid plan.

The paid plans are very reasonable at $10, $20 and $100. These are monthly plans and you can cancel any time. They also offer discounts for an annual plan.

I dip in and out of Gamma depending how often I need it, so I will have a monthly plan and find $10 is fine for my needs. It is rare that I need the $20 plan.

It generates a full deck within minutes, so it is perfect for a quick brainstorm session. Once you have picked a theme, Gamma applies it across all slides using different layout types, and it gives comparison cards for options.

You can share Gamma presentations via a link, download as a PDF or PowerPoint, or convert to a website.

GoHighLevel and AI Studio

GoHighLevel (GHL) is the platform this site runs on. It's my nerve centre and I love it. It is a CRM, email system, funnel builder, calendar, social media scheduler and website builder in one, aimed mainly at agencies. Don't be put off by this as I'm a solo operator and it works perfectly for me.

AI Studio is the part I'm currently using the most. It builds and edits my website from written instructions. I describe the change I want and it makes it, which is the only reason a non-technical person can run a site like this at all. It is mind-blowing.

The plans are Starter at $97 a month, Unlimited at $297, and Agency Pro at $497. Annual billing takes roughly 20% off. Usage fees for email, SMS and some AI features are billed separately on top, so the number on the pricing page is not the number on the bill.

Worth being clear that GoHighLevel's AI Employee add-on, at $97 a month per sub-account, is a different thing entirely. That is the conversational bot that answers messages. It is not AI Studio and I do not use it.

This is the most expensive thing in my stack but it's worth it. Apart from AI Studio for my website it also manages my email list and any broadcasts. In addition I have a product launching soon and I will build a sales funnel within GHL to promote it, along with the social media scheduler. To use all of that with individual tools would comfortably exceed the $97 I pay per month. There are cheaper platforms that can do most, but not all, of what I use it for, and after using others such as Systeme.io and Stan Store they are in my opinion not as good. So research a bit before deciding what's best for you. If you want to try GHL, here's a link to a free trial.

Disclaimer: if you do sign up for GoHighLevel with my link I may earn a commission at no cost to you.

What I cut back on

Gamma. As mentioned, I use Gamma only when I actually need it, so I dip in and out and don't have the recurring cost every month.

ChatGPT. I reduced this from the $20 plan to $8 a month. I use it for images only and that plan is perfect.

Stan Store. Great for in-bio links, but I found it very expensive at $99 per month for their Pro plan, which is dearer than GHL for far less. Not good value in my opinion.

Systeme.io. A good budget option with most, but not all, of the features you get with GoHighLevel. I found it limiting in comparison, but if you are on a tight budget it's a good place to start. Click here for the free plan.

Disclaimer: if you do sign up for Systeme.io with my link I may earn a commission at no cost to you.

How to decide whether a tool is worth it

Three questions, in this order.

How often do you do the thing? Not how useful the tool is. How often the task comes up. A brilliant tool for something you do twice a year is an expensive novelty.

What does the free version fail at? Most tools have one. If you cannot name the specific thing the free version will not do, you do not need the paid one yet.

What happens if you cancel in three months? Some tools hold your work. Some let you export it. Some leave you rebuilding from nothing. Know which before you commit, not after.

My honest summary

There is no stack that runs a one-person business for you. The tools do the boring and sometimes difficult parts faster. They do not decide what to build, who it is for, or whether anyone wants it. Those parts are what you decide with assistance from the stack. But it is you who makes the decisions on everything, not AI, and that is exactly how it should be.

Frequently asked questions

If this was useful, there's more where it came from.

The online world, minus the noise. I'm building an online business with AI.