AI COSTS · SME BUDGET · PRICING
AI pricing pages answer the wrong question. They tell you what a licence costs, not what getting value costs. Here are honest numbers for a company of twenty, from the entry ticket to a first real project.
A 20-person company can start for a few hundred dollars a month: twenty mainstream AI assistant seats cost roughly $400 to $650 a month at current published list prices, which vary by country and currency. A first real project - connecting AI to your own documents and processes - costs extra, mostly in setup and training time.
The entry ticket: licences
List prices are public. A standard ChatGPT Business seat runs $20 to $25 per user per month depending on billing; Microsoft 365 Business Premium with Copilot lists at $32. For twenty people, that is roughly $400 to $650 a month at current published list prices, which vary by country and currency - treat them as anchors, not a quote.
What small companies actually spend
Reality is more modest than the hype. In a June 2025 U.S. Bank survey of 1,000 small businesses, 68% of the owners already using generative AI said they spend less than $50 a month on it. That survey suggests entry-level spending was common among its US respondents - and for many tasks, that is fine.
The part pricing pages leave out
Licences are not the project. The moment AI should work with your own documents, inboxes and processes, someone has to integrate it, prepare the data, train the team and keep it running. One UK consultancy that publishes its cost analysis estimates that for SMEs, licences make up only 30 to 50% of total implementation cost - the rest is integration, data preparation, training and ongoing operations. Treat that as one practitioner's estimate, not a market rate.
The honest consequence for any quote you receive: ask what the number includes. Licences only, or also setup, data preparation, training and the first year of running it?
What this means for your budget
Start with the visible number - the seats - and treat it as the floor, not the budget. Add one focused first project instead of a big programme. And ask every quote the same question: what does this cost in year two?
The takeaway: the licence price is the floor, not the budget. Whatever the true multiplier turns out to be, ask what a quote includes - and what year two costs.
Sources
U.S. Bank small business survey, via Axios (20 June 2025)
OpenAI - ChatGPT Business pricing (October 2026)
Microsoft - Microsoft 365 Business Premium with Copilot pricing (October 2026)
gigCMO - The Real Cost of AI Implementation for SMEs (11 September 2025)
Last updated: 24 October 2026.
TL;DR: Twenty AI assistant seats cost roughly $400 to $650 a month at current list prices; in a June 2025 US survey, 68% of small businesses already using generative AI said they spend under $50 a month on it. Licences are not the whole project - integration, data preparation and training cost extra - so ask what any quote includes, and what year two costs.
Reading time: ~3 min
Want an honest number for your company, not a pricing page? We scope first projects for small businesses and quote the full cost, licences and setup together. Discuss a project: eli5a.com/contact
