Best for the job4 picks · updated Oct 29, 2026
Keep four things: one general assistant for every seat (ChatGPT Business at $25 a seat, or Claude Team at the same price), one Otter.ai Pro seat for whoever hosts client calls, one Make account for automations between your apps, and one Canva Pro seat for graphics. Everything else on this page is a tool we priced and cut, with the reason next to it. The monthly total for four people is computed below from the verified plan prices.
Small-business AI roundups usually list twenty tools and never say which ones a real four-person team would pay for twice. This page does the opposite. We started from the tools people name most on Reddit for a small team (chat assistants, notetakers, automation, design, copywriting, voice, video) and kept only what one of four people would use every working day. The rule is price per seat against daily use: a tool everyone opens daily can be paid per seat; a tool one person runs gets one seat; a tool that duplicates another is cut.
Every price here comes from the tool's verified profile with a check date, and the kept stack is priced for four people in the plate below. Cut does not mean bad: it means the job is already covered, the price scales with seats faster than the value, or the vendor publishes no price we could confirm.
| # | Tool | Score | Pick it for | Starting price | Free tier | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  ChatGPTA Business Standard seat is $25 a month ($20 billed annually) with workspace admin, and covers chat, files and image generation for all four people. |
8/10+3 Verified USD price; +2 Lasting free plan; +1 API or integrations documented; +2 Documented limits, setup and FAQ | One assistant for everyone | $20/mo (Plus (consumer)) all plans |
Yes | Minimum 2 seats. Standard seats keep a 5-hour usage window; only the $125 Premium seat removes it. |
| 2 |  Otter.aiPro gives 1,200 recording minutes a month per user and 90-minute meetings; the free Basic plan gives the other three 300 minutes each. |
7/10+3 Verified USD price; +2 Lasting free plan; +2 Documented limits, setup and FAQ | Meeting notes for the person who hosts calls | $16.99 (Pro) all plans |
Yes | Priced per user, so a second Pro seat is another $16.99 ($8.49 billed annually). |
| 3 | Make Core is $9 a month for 10,000 credits on one account, which covers a small team's form-to-CRM and invoice-to-sheet scenarios. |
7/10+3 Verified USD price; +2 Lasting free plan; +2 Documented limits, setup and FAQ | Automation between your apps | $9/mo (Core) all plans |
Yes | Frequent polling burns credits; the Free plan runs only 2 scenarios at 15-minute intervals. |
| 4 |  CanvaPro is $144 a year for one person with premium templates and AI tools; the rest of the team edits on Free. |
7/10+3 Verified USD price; +2 Lasting free plan; +2 Documented limits, setup and FAQ | Design and social graphics | $144/yr (Pro) all plans |
Yes | Priced per person and the AI allowance is capped; Business is $250 a year per person. |
| Tool | Plan | Seats | Per seat, monthly | Per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | Business Standard seat (team) | 4 | $25.00 | $100.00 |
| Otter.ai | Pro | 1 | $16.99 | $16.99 |
| Make | Core | 1 | $9.00 | $9.00 |
| Canva | Pro | 1 | $12.00 billed yearly | $12.00 |
| Total per month, before tax | $137.99 | |||
Monthly billing prices from the verified profiles, checked Oct 1, 2026; yearly plans divided by 12. Annual billing is cheaper on most of these plans, see each pricing page.
| Tool | Starting price | Why we cut it |
|---|---|---|
 Claude | $20/mo (Pro) | Team Standard seats cost the same $25 as ChatGPT Business; paying both doubles the bill for one job. Swap it in if your team writes or codes more than it makes images. |
 Google Gemini | $4.99/mo (Google AI Plus) | Google AI Pro is a $19.99 consumer plan per person with no team admin; the team version, Gemini Enterprise Business, starts at $21 a seat. Cut unless you already run on Google Workspace. |
 Fireflies.ai | $18/mo (Pro) | Pro is $18 a seat ($10 billed annually) for the same job as Otter, and the free plan caps AI summaries. |
| Zapier | $19.99/mo (Professional) | Professional starts at $19.99 for 750 tasks and Team is $69; Make Core gives 10,000 credits for $9. |
 Notion AI | $12/mo (Plus) | AI features need the Business plan at $24 a member plus a $10 per 1,000 credits add-on for premium models; Plus only includes a trial. |
 Jasper | $59 (Pro) | Pro is $69 a seat with one seat per subscription; the general assistant already drafts copy. |
 Copy.ai | $29/mo (Chat) | Chat is $29 for 5 seats, but the workflow plans start at $12,000 a year (Growth). |
 Perplexity | $10/mo (Education Pro (consumer, verified students/faculty)) | The Pro price is not published on a page we could read; Enterprise Pro is $40 a seat. Search inside the general assistant covers most research. |
| Microsoft Copilot | $9.99/mo (Microsoft 365 Personal) | Our profile covers the consumer plans only (Microsoft 365 Premium at $19.99 per person); business Copilot is sold through Microsoft 365 licences we have not priced. |
 Midjourney | $10/mo (Basic) | Basic is $10 for 200 Fast GPU minutes; the general assistant already generates images. Add it back if images are your product. |
 ElevenLabs | $6/mo (Starter (Creative)) | Starter is $6 for about 30 minutes of speech a month; add it only when you publish audio. |
 Descript | $16/mo (Hobbyist) | Hobbyist is $16 a month billed annually ($24 monthly); worth it only with a podcast or video output. |
 Synthesia | $29 (Starter) | Starter is $29 for 10 minutes of video a month; a niche need for a four-person team. |
OpenAI's general-purpose AI assistant for writing, research, analysis, image generation and coding help.
Free stops at: Unlimited everyday text chats subject to abuse-prevention safeguards, Separate usage limits for file uploads,…
Free · paid from $20/mo US · checked Sep 30
AI meeting assistant that records, transcribes and summarizes Zoom, Teams and Google Meet calls with AI chat across meetings.
Free stops at: 300 monthly transcription minutes per user, 3 lifetime audio/video file imports
Free · paid from $16.99/mo US · checked Sep 29
Visual no-code platform for building automated workflows and AI agents that connect thousands of apps.
Free stops at: 1,000 credits/month, 2 active scenarios
Free · paid from $9/mo US · checked Sep 29
Online design platform with templates and AI tools for graphics, presentations, social posts and video.
Free stops at: 1.6M+ templates
Free · paid from $144/yr US · checked Sep 29
Our own captures of each vendor's public pages. Click a frame for the full-size image.
One general assistant for everyone, one meeting notetaker seat, one automation account and one design seat cover most four-person teams. Our kept stack is ChatGPT Business, Otter.ai Pro, Make Core and Canva Pro, priced from their verified plan pages.
The kept stack on this page is priced for four people in the plate above, from the verified plan prices: four assistant seats at $25 each plus one seat each of Otter.ai Pro ($16.99), Make Core ($9) and Canva Pro ($144 a year). Annual billing lowers the assistant seats to $20.
They cost the same, $25 a seat monthly or $20 annually, with a 2-seat minimum on both. We kept one and cut the other because running both duplicates the job. Teams that mostly write or code can swap in Claude Team at the same price.
On price, Make Core gives 10,000 credits for $9 a month while Zapier Professional starts at $19.99 for 750 tasks. Both have free plans with tight limits. Our Make vs Zapier comparison covers the feature differences.
Thirteen tools, each with the reason in the Cut table: duplicates of a kept tool (Claude Team, Fireflies, Zapier), prices that scale per seat for a job one person does (Jasper, Notion AI), unpublished prices (Perplexity Pro), and niche jobs (ElevenLabs, Descript, Synthesia, Midjourney).
How we pick: tools that do this job, ranked by verified pricing, documentation depth and fit. No paid placements. How we review.
Each pick is scored 0–10 from facts in its verified profile, not from popularity or payment. The score is shown in the table; hover it for the breakdown.
We have not benchmarked output quality; this ranks what each vendor publishes and how well we could verify it. No paid placements. How we review.
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