Which AI Should We Pay For? · Lesson 1 of 4
Start with what you already pay for
10 minutes. Before you buy any AI, find out how much you already own.
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Most owners start this decision on the wrong page. They open a "best AI tools" article, compare four logos, and pick one. Then they find out half their team already had a decent AI assistant inside Outlook or Gmail, paid for months ago.
So this lesson starts with a bill, not a vendor. The AI you already pay for sets your starting line. Everything you buy later is measured against it.
Throughout this course I'll use one made-up business. Northgate Electric is a fictional 20-person electrical contractor. Pat owns it. Lee runs the office. There are two estimators, a project manager, a bookkeeper, and fourteen electricians who are on job sites most of the day.
Northgate pays for Microsoft 365. Lee is fairly sure it's "the Standard one." That's where most owners start: fairly sure.
Swap in your own business as you go.
Your office plan is the subscription that gives your team company email. For almost every small business, that's Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace.
Find the exact plan name. Not "Microsoft" or "Google." The plan.
- Microsoft 365: sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center, then open Billing, then Your products. You'll see something like "Microsoft 365 Business Standard" and a number of licenses.
- Google Workspace: sign in to the Google Admin console, then open Billing, then Subscriptions. You'll see something like "Business Starter" and a number of users.
- Not sure who the admin is? Look at last month's credit card statement or ask whoever set up your email. If an IT company manages it for you, ask them for the plan name and license count. It's a one-line email.
Write down three things: the plan name, how many users you pay for, and what you pay per user per month.
Lee found it in four minutes: Microsoft 365 Business Standard, 20 licenses.
Here is what each common plan includes, as of October 10, 2026. Prices change, so treat these as a starting point and check the current price on the vendor's page.
If you're on Microsoft 365
| Plan | Price per user per month (paid yearly) | AI already included | |---|---|---| | Business Basic | $7.00 | Copilot Chat | | Business Standard | $14.00 | Copilot Chat | | Business Premium | $22.00 | Copilot Chat | | Business Standard with Copilot | $23.50 | Copilot Chat plus full Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams | | Business Premium with Copilot | $32.00 | Copilot Chat plus full Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams |
What Copilot Chat does, at no extra cost: a secure AI chat for work, signed in with your work account. It can research the web, write and rewrite, read files you upload, and create images. In Outlook it can also answer questions about your own email, calendar and meetings. Microsoft says prompts and responses aren't used to train its foundation models.
What it doesn't do: without a paid Copilot license, it doesn't reason across all your company's files, chats and meetings, and it gets "standard" access rather than priority access when the service is busy.
Microsoft is also renaming things. Its help pages now call the product "Microsoft Copilot" and "Microsoft Copilot Chat," while the pricing page still says "Microsoft 365 Copilot Business." Same products. Don't let the names slow you down.
If you're on Google Workspace
| Plan | Price per user per month (1-year commitment) | Price per user per month (flexible, no commitment) | AI already included | |---|---|---|---| | Business Starter | $7 | $8.40 | Gemini in Gmail, plus the Gemini app with basic access | | Business Standard | $14 | $16.80 | Gemini in Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, Meet and Chat, plus the Gemini app with expanded access | | Business Plus | $22 | $26.40 | Same Gemini features as Business Standard |
Google often runs an introductory discount for new customers for the first few months. Use the regular price for planning.
Google says Workspace doesn't use your data to train its models without your permission.
The big difference: on Google, the AI is built into the plan. There's no separate Gemini seat to buy for Workspace. The question becomes "is our plan high enough?" not "which add-on do we buy?"
If you're on something else
If your email is from your web host or internet provider, you have no included business AI. That's fine. You'll compare Claude, ChatGPT and the others in Lesson 2 from a clean start.
The fast way
The [Already-Paid-For Finder](/tools/ai-finder) on this site does this step for you. Pick your office plan (and your accounting, scheduling and other software) and it lists the AI you already have, with a dated source for each item.
Now the uncomfortable one. Ask your team, kindly, one question: "Are you using any AI tool for work right now, on any account?"
You're not looking to blame anyone. You're looking for:
- Personal paid accounts someone expenses, or pays for themselves (ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, and so on).
- Free personal accounts used with company information.
- Tools nobody mentioned because they came with something else.
This matters for two reasons. First, cost: if three people expense $20 a month each, you're already spending $60 a month on AI, just without any company control. Second, data: on personal plans, the default can be that chats help train the vendor's models. OpenAI says data sharing for training is on by default for ChatGPT Free, Plus and Pro personal accounts, and you have to turn it off. Claude's personal plans have a "Help improve" setting you'd need to check. Business plans from all four vendors don't train on your data by default.
Lee asked around. Two people use ChatGPT on personal free accounts. One estimator pays for ChatGPT Plus himself. Nobody had opened Copilot Chat, even though all 20 licenses included it.
Open the Seat-Count Calculator template for this course. Fill in Part 1:
- Your office plan name, user count and price per user
- The AI already included in that plan
- Every personal AI account in use for work, and what it costs
Check it worked
- You know your exact plan name and license count, from the admin center or the bill, not from memory.
- You've written down what AI that plan already includes.
- You've asked the team about personal AI accounts, and listed them.
- At least one person has opened the included AI (Copilot Chat or Gemini) and tried it on a real task.
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Next: now that you know your starting line, compare what each paid business plan adds on top.
→ Lesson 2: Compare the four business plans