AI Agents for Small Business
AI Agents for Small Business, Running Today — No Developer Needed
Paste your website. You get a free audit of where your business is losing leads and time, plus a set of agents built around your own content. Switch on the ones worth running. The first one takes about two minutes.
Free plan, no credit card. Paid plans start at $19/mo.
Most AI Tools Are Built for Companies With an IT Department.
You don't have one. You have a business to run. Everything below is built around four constraints.
- 01
No developer.
Anything requiring an API key and a weekend is not a real option.
- 02
No budget for another seat-based subscription.
Especially one priced per user when there are three of you.
- 03
No time to configure.
If it isn't working within an afternoon, it never will be.
- 04
No spare person to babysit it.
It has to do the job, not create a new job.
Eight Agents Worth Running First.
Each is a working template. Point it at your accounts, edit the instructions in plain English, run it. Setup times are measured from the tested workflow.
| Agent | What it does for you | Setup |
|---|---|---|
| Website Lead Capture | Answers visitor questions from your own site, then asks for contact details once someone shows real buying interest. Stops after-hours visitors leaving silently. | 2 min |
| AI Receptionist | Answers common questions and books appointments straight into Google Calendar at the time requested. | 5–10 min |
| AI Email Manager | Sorts your inbox by urgency, drafts the replies worth writing, and pings Slack when something can't wait. | 10 min |
| WhatsApp AI Agent | Handles customer questions on the channel your customers actually use. | ~20 min |
| Data Analysis & Visualization | Upload a sales or campaign export, ask questions in plain English, get charts and a written read. No spreadsheet formulas. | Under 5 min |
| Web Lead Extractor | Describe your ideal customer in plain English, get back a deduplicated, scored list of matching businesses. | 10 min |
| LinkedIn Post Generator | Turns one idea into finished copy plus an image card. Three approval checkpoints before anything posts. | 15–20 min |
| Instagram DM Automation | Replies to DMs and story mentions from your brand knowledge. Hands to a human when it can't verify an answer. | 10 min |
Pick the one job you most resent doing. Start there.
What This Costs Against the Alternatives.
The honest comparison for a small business isn't against enterprise software. It's against hiring someone or doing nothing.
| Part-time hire | Agency retainer | Freelancer per task | SketricGen | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | Salary + payroll | Typically four figures | Per project | $0–$99 |
| Available | Their hours | Business hours | When free | Continuously |
| Ramp-up | Weeks | Weeks | Per brief | Minutes |
| Handles after-hours enquiries | No | No | No | Yes |
| Scales to more work | Hire again | Higher retainer | More briefs | More credits |
| Needs managing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Review checkpoints only |
$0 to Start, Credits Instead of Seats.
Agents don't replace people who do judgement work. They replace the hours those people lose to repetitive work.
Free plan at $0 with 2,000 credits. Explorer $19/mo. Builder $99/mo. Pricing is credit-based rather than per seat, so adding a team member costs nothing.
How to Choose an AI Agent Platform When You're Small.
Written to be useful even if you don't pick us. These are the questions that separate tools that survive contact with a real small business from tools that don't.
- 01
Step 1
How long until it does something useful?
If the answer involves a sales call or a developer, it's not built for you. Look for a free tier you can test on real work today.
- 02
Step 2
Is pricing per seat or per usage?
Per-seat pricing punishes you for adding your own team. Usage-based pricing means a three-person business pays for three people's worth of work, not three licences.
- 03
Step 3
Does it know anything about your business?
An agent with no knowledge base writes generic copy and gives visitors wrong answers. Ask where its knowledge comes from and how you update it.
- 04
Step 4
Can you read and edit what it does?
If the logic is hidden, you can't fix it when it goes wrong — and you'll be back to doing the task yourself.
- 05
Step 5
Does it connect to the tools you already pay for?
Gmail, Calendar, Sheets, WhatsApp, Shopify, your CRM. An agent that can't reach your stack just creates copy-paste work.
- 06
Step 6
What happens when it doesn't know the answer?
The right behaviour is to say so and hand to a human. The wrong behaviour is a confident invention about your pricing or your returns policy, sent to a customer.
Built on the Tools You Already Use.
No new systems to adopt. Agents work inside what you're already paying for.
Connect natively
- Gmail
- Google Calendar
- Google Sheets
- Google Drive
- Slack
- Notion
Also in the connector library
- Shopify
- HubSpot
- Pipedrive
- Airtable
- Stripe
- Calendly
- Mailchimp
- QuickBooks
The library covers 2,000+ apps, and any agent can call a REST API directly if yours isn't listed.
Three Ways Small Businesses Start.
The solo founder
You're the sales team, the support team, and the marketing team. Start with Website Lead Capture — two minutes, only needs your URL — so enquiries stop dying overnight. Add the AI Email Manager next to get your mornings back.
The three-to-ten person team
More channels than people. Put the receptionist on bookings and the email manager on triage, then hand the reporting to the data agent. Credit-based pricing means everyone can use them without buying seats.
The local service business
Most enquiries come by phone, WhatsApp, or Instagram DM, and arrive outside working hours. Run the WhatsApp agent and Instagram DM agent against your own service list and pricing, with a handoff rule to a human for anything they can't verify.
What Setup Actually Involves.
- 01
Step 1
Paste your URL
SketricGen reads your public site and builds a knowledge base from it — what you sell, who you serve, how you describe it. This is what stops agents sounding generic.
- 02
Step 2
Review the audit
You get a read on where you're losing leads and time across SEO, content, outreach, lead capture, social, and conversion. Free, no card.
- 03
Step 3
Switch on one agent
Pick from the suggested team. Connect the accounts it needs. Edit the instructions if you want to change tone or rules.
- 04
Step 4
Test it before customers see it
Run it against real inputs in the playground. The trace shows exactly what it did and what it cost. Fix anything odd, then deploy it to your site, your inbox, or a schedule.
What These Agents Won't Do.
- 01
They won't run your business.
They handle repeatable work with a clear output. Decisions stay yours.
- 02
They won't fix a thin website.
The audit and the knowledge base are built from your public site. Little content means shallow answers.
- 03
They won't make outbound phone calls.
Text-based channels only — site chat, email, WhatsApp, Instagram, Slack.
- 04
They won't publish without approval unless you tell them to.
Content templates ship with review checkpoints on by default.
- 05
They'll admit ignorance.
Customer-facing agents state that something couldn't be reliably verified rather than guessing at your pricing or policy. Occasionally a customer gets a non-answer instead of a wrong one.
- 06
They don't set themselves up beyond the initial audit.
Adding new agents or new tool connections later is a manual step.