There are thousands of AI tools. Most of them are wrappers around the same three models with a prettier interface and a $30/month price tag.
Here are the seven that actually matter for small businesses in 2026 — tools we use, test, and recommend to our students.
1. Claude (Anthropic) — Best All-Around AI Assistant
What it does: Writing, analysis, coding, research, document processing, reasoning Cost: Free tier available, Pro at $20/month Why it wins: Longest context window (200K tokens), best at following complex instructions, most reliable for business writing
Claude is our pick for the primary AI you talk to every day. It handles nuance better than competitors, rarely hallucinates on factual questions, and its writing doesn't sound like a robot wrote it.
Best for: Content creation, email drafting, document analysis, strategic thinking, code generation
Pro tip: Use Claude Projects to give it persistent context about your business. Upload your brand guide, FAQs, and product docs once — it remembers them across conversations.
2. ChatGPT (OpenAI) — Best for Multimodal Tasks
What it does: Text, image generation, image analysis, voice conversations, web browsing Cost: Free tier available, Plus at $20/month Why it wins: DALL-E integration, voice mode, broadest plugin ecosystem
ChatGPT's strength isn't any single capability — it's the breadth. Need to generate a social media image, analyze a competitor's website screenshot, and draft a response email? All in one conversation.
Best for: Image generation, voice-based brainstorming, quick web research, visual analysis
When to use over Claude: When you need image generation or voice interaction. For pure text work, Claude typically produces better results.
3. Supabase — Best Backend for AI-Powered Apps
What it does: Database, authentication, file storage, edge functions, real-time subscriptions Cost: Free tier (generous), Pro at $25/month Why it wins: PostgreSQL with superpowers — vector search (pgvector), real-time, and an instant API
If you're building anything that needs to store data — customer info, AI memories, product catalogs — Supabase replaces three or four tools. It's what powers Like One's persistent brain.
Best for: Storing AI memories, building customer portals, running serverless functions, any app that needs a database
Pro tip: The free tier supports up to 500MB of database storage and 50K monthly active users. Most small businesses won't outgrow it for months.
4. Make.com (formerly Integromat) — Best No-Code Automation
What it does: Connects apps and automates workflows without code Cost: Free tier (1,000 operations/month), paid from $9/month Why it wins: Visual workflow builder, 1,500+ app integrations, reliable execution
Make is how you connect everything. New Stripe payment → send welcome email → add to CRM → notify Slack. New form submission → run through AI → create task → assign to team. All without writing code.
Best for: Email automation, CRM workflows, payment processing chains, social media scheduling, data syncing between tools
When to skip it: If you're comfortable with code, direct API calls or Supabase edge functions are more powerful and cheaper at scale.
5. Vercel — Best for Deploying Websites and Apps
What it does: Hosts websites and web applications with automatic deployments Cost: Free tier (hobby), Pro at $20/month/member Why it wins: Push code to GitHub, site deploys in seconds. Automatic HTTPS, CDN, and preview deployments.
If you're building a website or web app, Vercel eliminates the DevOps headache entirely. Like One's entire website deploys automatically every time we push code.
Best for: Business websites, landing pages, web applications, blogs, e-commerce storefronts
Pro tip: Pair with Next.js (Vercel's framework) for the fastest development experience. Our entire site — academy, blog, forum — runs on Next.js + Vercel.
6. Resend — Best for Transactional Email
What it does: Sends emails via API — welcome emails, receipts, notifications, nurture sequences Cost: Free tier (100 emails/day), paid from $20/month Why it wins: Developer-friendly API, great deliverability, beautiful email templates, React Email support
Forget Mailchimp for transactional email. Resend is built for developers and automations. Send welcome emails on signup, receipt emails on purchase, nurture sequences on schedule — all via simple API calls.
Best for: Welcome emails, purchase receipts, drip campaigns, password resets, notification emails
Pro tip: 100 free emails per day is plenty for most small businesses starting out. That's 3,000/month at zero cost.
7. Stripe — Best for Payments
What it does: Accepts payments, manages subscriptions, handles invoicing Cost: 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction (no monthly fee) Why it wins: The most reliable payment infrastructure in the world, with the best developer experience
Stripe isn't new or surprising, but it's still the best. Payment links let you sell without building a checkout page. Subscriptions handle recurring billing automatically. The dashboard gives you revenue analytics out of the box.
Best for: One-time payments, subscriptions, invoicing, donation collection, marketplace payments
Pro tip: Stripe Payment Links are underrated. Create a product, get a link, share it anywhere. No website needed. We use them for everything from course enrollment to donations.
The Stack That Runs on Under $100/Month
Here's what a full AI-powered small business stack looks like:
| Tool | Tier | Monthly Cost | |------|------|-------------| | Claude Pro | Pro | $20 | | Supabase | Pro | $25 | | Vercel | Hobby | $0 | | Make.com | Core | $9 | | Resend | Free | $0 | | Stripe | Pay-as-you-go | ~$0* | | Domain (Namecheap) | Annual | ~$1 |
Total: ~$55/month (plus Stripe's per-transaction fees)
*Stripe charges per transaction, not monthly. At low volume, this is effectively free.
That's a complete business infrastructure — website, database, payments, email, automation, and AI — for less than most people spend on streaming subscriptions.
What You Don't Need
You don't need Jasper, Copy.ai, or any "AI writing tool." Claude and ChatGPT write better than all of them, and they're general-purpose — not limited to marketing copy.
You don't need Zapier if you have Make. Make does everything Zapier does at a lower price point with a better visual builder.
You don't need a CRM yet. At small scale, a Supabase table with customer info is more flexible and cheaper than Salesforce or HubSpot. Graduate to a CRM when you have a sales team.
You don't need a separate analytics tool. Vercel has built-in analytics. Stripe has revenue dashboards. Supabase has database insights. Combine them and you have more data than most small businesses know what to do with.
Start Building
The tools are ready. The prices are accessible. The only thing missing is you.
Pick one tool from this list you haven't tried. Sign up for the free tier. Build one thing this week.
If you want a guided path from zero to a fully running AI-powered business, start with our free course. We'll show you exactly how these tools fit together.
Nova writes for Like One. She tests every tool she recommends — and only recommends the ones that actually work.