11 High-impact AI tools for small businesses on a budget

By now, you’re probably more than a little fed up hearing things like, “if you’re not learning AI, you’re falling behind.”

I get it, but at the same time, I know first-hand just how far a little AI-powered help can go in a small business. Working at an AI company that empowers small businesses like yours, I see it all the time. (Like at Camino Financial, where the team cut their resolution time from 48 hours to just 6—one of my favorite Dialpad Ai success stories.)

As a small business leader, you’re almost always short on bandwidth and juggling one or ten too many things. You simply can’t be everywhere, doing everything. And neither can your team. They’re also stretched thin and trying their best to compete with the bigger players in your industry. Luckily, things are changing fast and the playing field is leveling out.

Enter: AI tools for small business.

Once the domain of major corporations, AI tools are now more accessible (and affordable) than ever. And with the right combination of easy-to-use AI tools for small businesses, you and your team can finally—actually—do more with less. (You might even be able to stop skipping lunch!)

I’ve rounded up ten must-have AI tools for small businesses in this post. Enjoy!

10 Best AI tools for small business, by use case

AI-powered customer intelligence and communication platform

1. Dialpad Ai: Best AI tool for business communications and overall productivity

Dialpad is an AI-powered customer intelligence platform that offers calling, messaging, video meetings, and a contact center all in one easy-to-use workspace. And it’s all housed in the cloud, meaning lower IT costs associated with hardware and maintenance of traditional on-premises business communication and contact center software.

For most small businesses that used to get by with separate phone system software, video conferencing apps, and messaging apps, Dialpad lets you consolidate all of those communication channels into one handy app.

Not only that, Dialpad Ai also provides real-time transcription that eliminates the need to take notes during calls, so you can focus on the conversation itself:

If you have a customer support or sales team, Dialpad has contact center AI features that give agents helpful tips during customer calls, like letting them know they’re saying “umm” a lot and telling them to slow down if they’re speaking too fast:

The full searchable will be made immediately after each call. But while it’s nice to know the transcript is available, usually just a summary is fine if you just want to know what the follow-up tasks are. Dialpad’s Ai Recap feature has you covered:

Dialpad Ai also offers Ai Agent Assist, which provides answers to tricky customer questions by automatically popping up for agents in real time. This means agents can stay focused on the conversation, be active listeners, and deliver the right answer at the right time—every time:

Ideally, your AI tools will work seamlessly with one another. That’s why Dialpad integrates with Salesforce, saving your team from the headache of switching between multiple platforms:

And the Google Calendar integration lets you schedule follow-ups, manage meeting invites, and start or join a video call in just a few clicks:

Pricing: Dialpad plans start at just $15 per month, and give you real-time AI transcription and call summaries!

AI-based marketing & content creation tools

2. Jasper: Best AI tool for content writing

Jasper is an AI-powered writing assistant that uses OpenAI’s ChatGPT-3 and ChatGPT-4 technology to generate high-quality content for specific formats and by following specific parameters. It’s perfect for bloggers, content marketers, and teams that need a little extra content writing or copywriting help.

One of Jasper’s top features is its ability to learn your brand’s unique voice in a matter of moments. It can study your style guide, company website, and any other collateral your team has, then write or rewrite new content so that everything your team produces stays consistently on brand.

Pricing: Starts at $39/month for a single seat or $99/month for three seats.

3. Seventh Sense: Best AI tool for email marketing campaign management

Seventh Sense is an artificial intelligence system designed to help businesses optimize their email marketing campaigns. It’s specifically designed to be used in conjunction with Marketo and HubSpot, so if your team is already using either of those platforms, this might be a great tool to try.

All of Seventh Sense’s features aim to improve the effectiveness of email marketing campaigns for each specific recipient. It does this by tailoring delivery times—at scale—to each recipient’s optimal engagement time, including their preferred frequency.

Pricing: HubSpot integration starts at $64/month for 5,000 marketing contacts. Marketo integration starts at $360/month for 50,000 marketing contacts.

4. Flick: Best AI tool for social media content creation

Flick is an all-in-one scheduling, hashtag, and analytics tool for Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok. Its goal is to simplify the process of managing and growing accounts, making it ideal for small business owners and small marketing teams.

In addition to its core features as a social media management platform, Flick also has a built-in AI marketing assistant that makes it easier to brainstorm new content ideas, write new social media posts, and repurpose existing long-form content into bite-sized social media captions.

Pricing: Starts at £11/month for one user, which converts to about $14 USD. There’s also a Pro plan (about $30 USD/month for two users) and an Agency plan (about $68 USD/month for five users).

5. DALL-E 2: Best AI tool for generating original images

DALL-E 2 is an AI-powered image creation tool developed by OpenAI, the same company that created ChatGPT. DALL-E 2 can create original images and artwork from simple text prompts. You can combine different concepts, attributes, and styles to generate images that range from realistic to abstract.

Some of the top features of DALL-E 2 include its ability to expand an image beyond what’s in the original frame, create variations of an existing image, and make realistic edits to an image—all from a user providing simple text instructions.

Pricing: Pricing for DALL-E 2 is per use. You have to buy tokens which you can use to generate images. The minimum amount of tokens you buy is $15. For reference, a 1024x1024 image will cost around $0.02.

AI-based revenue/forecasting tools

6. 6sense: Best AI tool for automating lead capture

6sense is an AI-powered lead capture platform that helps businesses find leads who are researching online in “stealth mode.” It aims to grow sales pipelines by finding potential buyers early in the buying journey when they’re less likely to be captured by traditional lead-capture systems.

6sense offers a wide array of AI-powered features that can support both marketing and sales teams. These include demand generation tools, AI email assistants, pipeline intelligence, and RevOps management.

Pricing: There’s a free plan available for individuals and limited use but for larger teams, custom plans are available.

7. Clari: Best AI tool for sales forecasting

Clari is a robust platform dedicated to improving revenue predictability. It’s specifically designed for sales teams and sales reps, with a heavy focus on using AI-powered functions to capture revenue signals, eliminate revenue leaks, and improve data quality.

Its top features include auto-capture, which automatically identifies and records key moments and signals in conversations with customers, and Inspect, which identifies new opportunities and potential risks in existing accounts.

Pricing: Plans are customized based on your team’s size and needs.

AI-based productivity tools

8. Grammarly: Best AI tool for spelling and grammar-checking

Grammarly is an AI-powered writing assistant that can help you produce clear and mistake-free writing. It checks for mistakes, offers real-time feedback on your work, provides suggestions on how to make the writing follow specific tones, and highlights ways to improve the content for clarity.

It also includes a generative AI Chrome extension called GrammarlyGO, which can write and rewrite content for you anywhere you’re writing on the web—from Gmail to LinkedIn to Twitter.

Pricing: There’s a free plan available for basic Grammarly features. Premium pricing starts at $12/month for individuals, while Business plans start at $15/month per user.

9. Speechify: Best AI tool for turning text into audio

Speechify is an AI-powered text-to-speech reacher. It turns any piece of text and it's particularly useful for individuals who are incredibly busy and want to multitask, or for those who have difficulties with reading, such as those with dyslexia, ADHD, or low vision.

Speechify’s top core feature is that it lets you listen to any written text anywhere—from docs and PDFs to emails, social media posts, and news articles. You can even take a photo of a page from a book and have Speechify read it to you.

Pricing: The base plan for Speechify is free, but for more advanced features pricing starts at $139/year. There’s also a plan for $199/year that includes thousands of free audiobooks and 12 credits per year to buy other audiobooks.

10. ChatGPT: Best AI tool for business ideation and general knowledge sourcing

ChatGPT is likely one of the more well-known tools on this list, as it’s recently taken the world by storm. At its core, ChatGPT is a large language model that you can interact with through a chat-based interface. You can ask it questions, give it some context and tell it to brainstorm ideas, and have write or rewrite content for you.

While it doesn’t have as many features as other tools on this list, it is extremely versatile. It remembers instructions and context it received earlier in each chat thread and uses that information to shape its answers going forward. The latest version, ChatGPT-4, is compatible with a range of plug-ins and can also browse the live web to gather information for you. For a more optimal use of ChatGPT, combine it with other generative AI tools to create podcasts, audiobooks, and more.

Pricing: Older versions like ChatGPT-3 and 3.5 are free to use, while ChatGPT-4 costs $20/month per user.

11. Reply.io — Best AI tool for sales engagement automation

Reply.io streamlines your SDR team's daily workflows using AI. It helps you discover potential prospects, engage them through various channels, and create new opportunities at scale.

It relies on AI to handle the most tedious and time-consuming tasks, from generating email templates or even tailored outreach sequences for any scenario to managing incoming emails on your behalf. The latter includes categorizing messages by intent to identify and prioritize the hottest leads as well as automatically replying to them to book calls and address objections.

Pricing: There’s a free plan available with limited functionality. Paid plans start at $60 per user per month with a number of extra add-ons, such as email verification and email warm-up service.

Implementing AI doesn’t have to be expensive

Gone are the days when AI tools like the ones on this list would cost your small business an entire month’s revenue. Many AI-powered platforms available today have either free options or plans that start as low as the price of a Netflix subscription, making it easier than ever to get started with AI.