How much does AI cost a small trade business, against what it replaces?

AI for a small trade business costs anything from nothing to about £800 a month. A general chat tool like ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro is about 20 US dollars a month per person; Microsoft 365 with Copilot starts at £18.10 a user; a trade-specific AI back office is £799. Against a 25-hour-a-week administrator costing over £18,000 a year, even the top end is cheaper. Against your own evenings, it depends on your hours.

What do the main AI tools cost?

Prices below are from each maker's own pricing page as of October 2026. OpenAI and Anthropic list prices in US dollars; your card is charged in local currency and VAT may be added, so check the upgrade screen for the exact pound figure.

Microsoft lists a promotional yearly price of £13.80 for the Copilot Business add-on for existing customers between 1 July and 31 December 2026, for the first year only.

These tools do different jobs. A chat tool answers questions and drafts text you copy and paste. Copilot works inside Word, Excel and Outlook. A back office like Nexley sends, posts and chases for you, with your approval. Comparing price alone is like comparing a drill with a labourer. For which chat tool to choose, see Claude vs ChatGPT vs Copilot.

What does a part-time administrator cost?

More than the wage. You also pay employer National Insurance above £5,000 a year, a pension contribution, and the time it takes to train and manage them.

Worked example

A 25-hour-a-week administrator at the April 2026 minimum wage

Minimum wage for 21 and over from April 2026: £12.71 an hour.

Wages25 hours × £12.71 × 52 weeks	£16,523
Employer National Insurance15% × (£16,523 − £5,000)	£1,728
Cost before pension and Employment Allowance	£18,251
Nexley for comparison£799 × 12	£9,588
ChatGPT Plus for comparison20 US dollars × 12	240 US dollars

A person does things AI can't: answer the phone in a human voice, chase a merchant in person, notice something's off. AI doesn't go on holiday or leave. Many firms end up with both, with the AI taking the typing so the administrator handles people.

What do trade firms already pay for admin help?

These are figures owners told us on calls with 28 firms between July and October 2026. Each is one firm's figure, not an average.

The East Anglia electrician dropped his £75-a-month bookkeeper once supplier invoices went into Xero automatically with price-rise checks. That doesn't mean AI replaces every bookkeeper: year-end, VAT returns and advice still need a person. See office admin, bookkeeper or AI for that split.

What is your own admin time costing?

For most owners of firms with one to ten people, the admin is done by them, in the evening. That time has a cost even if no money changes hands: it's quotes not sent, jobs not priced properly, and nights not at home.

Calculator: What admin costs you

Admin hours a weekEvenings and weekends counthrs

Weeks a year

What your hour is worthYour charge-out rate£

A year–

Your numbers, not a promise. Change any figure to match your firm.

At 10 hours a week, 48 weeks and £45 an hour, your admin is worth £21,600 a year. If AI took four of those hours, that's £8,640 a year of your time: many times a 20 US dollars chat plan, but short of a year of Nexley at £9,588, which needs about 4.4 hours a week to pay back.

I've got 22 aircon quotes to do this weekend... I'll be here all weekend.

His air con quotes went from 4 to 5 hours each to about 20 to 25 minutes. Time saved on one task like that pays for most tools.

Which level of AI is right for your firm?

Match the spend to how much admin there is and who does it.

What are the hidden costs?

The subscription is rarely the whole cost. Allow for setup time (a week or two of teaching the tool your rates and rules), your time checking its drafts, and the cost of a mistake that gets through. If you're tied into a 12-month contract you stop using, the unused months count too: see questions to ask before buying AI software.

There's also the cost of the copying-and-pasting gap. A chat tool that drafts a quote still needs you to put it in your template, add the customer, send it and file it. If you use ChatGPT by copying and pasting, it helps, but the admin still sits with you.

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Where Nexley fits

Nexley is the AI back office for UK trade firms: five AI assistants run your tenders, quotes, buying, scheduling and invoicing. It connects to the tools you already work in, you run it all from WhatsApp, and you approve everything. £799 a month.

Nexley costs £799 a month, month to month, with a 7-day free trial. For that it drafts quotes from voice notes using your prices, files supplier bills against the right job, chases quotes and invoices, and handles scheduling and tenders over WhatsApp. You approve anything that goes to a customer or supplier.

Start 7 days freeNexley vs generic AI

Common questions

Sources

1. OpenAI: ChatGPT Business pricing
2. OpenAI Help: What is ChatGPT Plus?
3. Claude: Plans and pricing
4. Microsoft: Copilot plans and pricing for business (UK)
5. GOV.UK: National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates
6. GOV.UK: Rates and thresholds for employers 2026 to 2027
7. HMRC National Insurance Manual NIM06545: Employment Allowance and single director companies

Every rule, rate and date above was checked against these sources on the date shown at the top.