How much does an AI assistant for business cost? A UK guide

The three ways AI assistants are priced

Most AI assistants for business are sold in one of three ways, and they are not really comparable until you know which one you are looking at.

• Per seat: a fixed monthly fee for each person who uses it. Simple to budget, but the bill grows with headcount whether or not each person gets value from it.
• By usage: you pay for what the AI processes, often per message, per document or per task. Cheap to start, harder to predict once it is busy.
• Per business or per job: a monthly price for a system that is set up for your business and takes over specific jobs, such as invoicing, chasing or the monthly numbers.

The first two usually give you a tool your team has to learn and drive. The third is closer to taking on help: the work is meant to leave your desk, not just get faster at it.

What you are actually paying for

The AI model itself is rarely the expensive part any more. What you are paying for is everything around it:

• Connection to the systems you already use, so the assistant can see your customers, invoices and calendar rather than working from what you paste in.
• Your data staying where it should, with clear answers on where it is held and who can see it.
• Setup, so it follows the way your business works rather than a generic template.
• Someone to call when it gets something wrong.
• Keeping it up to date as the AI tools underneath it change, which they do every few months.

A cheap tool that does none of this can end up costing more, because the setup and the upkeep land on you.

The hidden costs to count

Before you compare prices, put a number on the costs that do not appear on the pricing page:

• The time it takes you and your team to set it up and learn it.
• The hours spent copying information between the assistant and your other systems.
• Mistakes that need checking, especially anything that goes to a customer or touches the books.
• The contract: a 12-month term on something that does not fit is the most expensive way to find out.

A fair test is simple. Take one job you do every week, estimate the hours it takes, and ask each supplier how many of those hours their assistant will take away and by when.

Contracts and how to leave

Ask every supplier the same three questions: what is the minimum term, what is the most it can cost me to find out it is wrong, and how do I leave with my data. A supplier who is confident you will stay has no reason to lock you in.

As one example, Fox Office has no 12-month contracts: a three-month minimum, then a rolling month.

An example price for a done-for-you system

To give a concrete reference point for the third kind of pricing, Fox Office is one system for the apps a business runs on, with an AI assistant (a fox) for each job, built for UK small and medium businesses. Essentials is £450 a month and Growth is £980 a month.

That is not the cheapest way to try AI, and it is not meant to be. It is priced against the work it takes off the week, not against a chat tool. If all you need is help drafting emails, a per-seat tool is likely to be the better buy.

How to decide in an afternoon

Write down the three jobs that cost you most each week and the hours each one takes. For each option you are considering, note which of those jobs it would actually take over, what it costs a month, the minimum term, and who does the setup.

Divide the monthly price by the hours it saves and you have a number you can compare with what that time costs you now. The best choice is usually obvious once it is written down, and it is often not the cheapest one on the list.

Frequently asked questions