In the beginning, artificial intelligence may have been reserved for Fortune 500-size budgets, but that’s no longer the case. With many platforms now sporting free plans or prices that rival a streaming subscription, they’re much more accessible to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
That affordability shift matters because small businesses have smaller budgets, and AI efficiency gains can unlock a whole lot for those teams. Whether juggling social posts between client calls or drafting email campaigns after hours, AI can quietly handle the repetitive work, freeing small business owners to focus on strategy and building core relationships.
If you’re not yet part of the more than half (58%) of small businesses that have begun tapping into AI, here’s some advice — and affordable tool suggestions — to get started.
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Accessible AI Options for Every Small Business
Many AI vendors now offer more accessible tools purpose-built for small businesses — whether that’s with no-code dashboards, drag-and-drop editors, guided workflows or AI features designed to deliver value quickly.
But before you buy into a brand-new platform, chances are you’re already paying for software that has quietly added AI features. Before the AI boom, it wasn’t unusual for enterprise AI suites to cost $15,000+ annually. Some certainly still do, but you no longer need pockets that deep to leverage automation.
Choosing the Right Tools: Affordable AI Platforms and SMB Use Cases
Picking the perfect starter stack means weighing cost, ease of use and quick impact. The five options below tick all three boxes and can stand alone or work well alongside other tools, depending on your needs.
Canva’s Magic Studio
Canva lets non-designers spin up polished social images, ads and even short videos in minutes,
enabling busy small business owners to dream up their own concepts and designs, even if you’re not a trained designer. The built-in Brand Kit also keeps your brand identity intact and easily applicable across multiple projects.
AI features: Canva’s AI design tools can handle image background removal, template recommendations and rapid resizing so one graphic seamlessly becomes dozens of channel-ready assets.
Pricing: Magic Studio ranges from US$0 to just US$10/month for the business tier if you can get the intro price, meaning you don’t currently hold a Canva subscription.
Zapier
Zapier translates plain-language prompts into automated “Zaps,” and its AI-powered workflow automation eliminates copy-and-paste chores and ensures customer information stays consistent across every platform you already use.
AI features: Zapier’s AI features watch for trigger events — such as a new lead in HubSpot or a form fill on your site — and automatically push data where it needs to go.
Pricing: There’s a “free forever” tier on offer here, with sliding scale pricing tied to the number of tasks you need to complete per month. For the professional tier, pricing starts at US$19.99 per month for 750 tasks.
ChatGPT
ChatGPT has been a go-to for research, content ideation and quick copy tweaks for many since it first came on the scene in 2022. Marketers rely on the tool to draft blog outlines, refine ad copy or simulate Q&A sessions, while a built-in browser mode hunts for fresh data to keep outputs relevant. Upgrading to GPT-5.1 often replaces multiple niche writing apps with a single, chat-based workspace.
AI features: Beyond its standard generative chat interface, ChatGPT offers advanced reasoning features (GPT-5 Thinking), Deep Research and image generation.
Pricing: After its free tier, ChatGPT Plus costs just US$20 per month and unlocks GPT-4, custom GPT creation and image generation. If you need a “secure, collaborative space” for your small business, the business tier starts at US$25/month per user, billed annually.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign enables you to become an “autonomous marketer” on email or WhatsApp with tons of predictive functionality.
AI features: Predictive send-time, behavior-based segmentation and AI-driven lead scoring combine to lift email open rates without hours of manual list slicing. A local fitness studio, for example, could automatically promote yoga classes to members who clicked wellness articles, with AI-powered email personalization taking over the heavy lifting.
Pricing: ActiveCampaign’s pricing starts at US$15/month for their Starter plan, which includes 1,000 email contacts. Price increases alongside contact list size.
SurferSEO
Surfer SEO analyzes the top-ranking pages for any keyword and grades your drafts in real time. Writers can see exactly which headings, terms and content lengths search engines favor, turning guesswork into a score you can optimize toward.
AI features: Surfer SEO enables users to generate “ready-to-rank” articles in minutes, on top of being a “unified SEO and AI platform” that offers a focused workflow for users.
Pricing: SurferSEO leans a little on the expensive side for SMBs, with its Essential plan starting at $79/month.
Pro tip: Before signing up for new subscriptions, audit the software you already pay for. There could be hidden and highly capable “smart” features that simply need toggling on to start delivering value.
Integrated vs. Multi-Tool AI Stacks: What’s Best for Your Business?
It’s easy to see how a traditional SMB AI marketing stack could quickly balloon in cost. Separate services for content, social management, email, SEO, and design — plus the time spent hopping between dashboards and wrangling integrations — can rack up.
On the other hand, an integrated workspace that bundles strategy, content creation and distribution into a single interface might save time between tool-hopping, but often costs more per month.
If you don’t know which approach is right for you, try starting with one or a few of the best-of-breed tools that have specialized use cases most relevant to where you need assistance. As you grow, you might notice that the complexity of multiple apps begins to eclipse cost. That’s a good time to think about migrating to a more full-service platform. By then, you’ll likely be able to utilize more of the features available in all-in-one platforms without feeling like you’re wasting spend by ignoring them early, when you might not necessarily require them.
Getting Started: A Step-by-Step Approach to AI Marketing Success
Start small and build momentum. Identify a single, repetitive job — like scheduling social posts — and hand it over to automation first so you can gauge impact without risking core workflows. Following that low-risk approach helps teams learn, refine and gain confidence before rolling AI out more broadly.
Here’s a simple four-week roadmap you can tailor to your schedule:
- Assess and plan: List time-draining tasks, set a modest budget and define clear success metrics such as hours saved or leads gained.
- Test and select: Trial one or two tools on real marketing work, then choose the option that proves easiest to onboard and integrates cleanly with existing platforms.
- Implement: Connect data sources, create reusable templates and document new workflows so anyone on the team can jump in.
- Optimize and scale: review early results, fine-tune settings, then decide which adjacent tasks — such as email personalization or lead scoring — should be automated next.
AI for SMB Success
Before you jump in, run through this quick checklist to set yourself up for success:
- Confirm the marketing tasks most in need of automation.
- Compare tool pricing to the value of time saved each week.
- Check for no-code set-up, template libraries and strong customer support.
- Map out who owns the tool internally and how you’ll measure success.
- Create brand-voice guidelines, so AI outputs stay consistent.
- Schedule regular reviews to refine prompts, templates and workflows.
Pick one affordable tool, let it tackle a single task for a week or two and compare the before-and-after results. The data will speak for itself, and you’ll be on your way to a smarter, leaner marketing engine.
This article was created with help from contentmarketing.ai, and edited and proofread by Chad Hetherington and other members of the Brafton team.
