The Complete, Budget-Friendly AI Toolkit for Small Businesses – Part 2
Part 2: Supporting Tools, Optional Extras, and Budget Alternatives
This is Part 2 of our three-part guide to building a practical AI toolkit for your small business.
- Part 1: The three core tools that deliver the most immediate value
- Part 2 (this one): Completing your toolkit with supporting tools, optional extras, and budget alternatives
- Part 3: Making it all work, with implementation plans, industry-specific advice, sample prompts, and troubleshooting
In Part 1, we covered the three foundation tools: an AI assistant (ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, or Gemini Advanced), a design studio (Canva Pro), and a customer communication hub (Tidio). Those three cost around $62 per month combined and should be set up first.
This part covers the three supporting tools that round out the foundation, two optional extras for specific needs, and what to do if the full toolkit is outside your budget right now.
Tool 4: Online Scheduling
Eliminate the back-and-forth of booking appointments.
Tool: Setmore or YouCanBookMe
Cost: Free
Setup time: 30 minutes
Why it matters
A scheduling tool lets customers book appointments with you online. You share a link, they pick an available time, and the appointment automatically appears in your calendar. Both Setmore and YouCanBookMe offer free plans that handle this well.
These tools sync with Google Calendar or Outlook, send automatic reminders to reduce no-shows, and let you set your availability so customers only see times that actually work.
For any service business, scheduling is a constant source of friction. Someone wants to book an appointment. You email them some options. They reply days later with different options. Those times no longer work. You go back and forth. Eventually you book something, but the process took a week and five emails.
Online scheduling eliminates this. You send a link. They pick a time. Done.
This matters even more for solo operators or very small teams. Every minute spent on scheduling logistics is a minute not spent on work that actually generates revenue. And the mental overhead of juggling calendars and remembering to follow up adds up.
Practical applications
Client appointments. You are a consultant, accountant, lawyer, or any professional who meets with clients. You put your booking link in your email signature and on your website. When someone wants to meet, they book directly.
Sales calls and demos. A potential customer wants to learn more about your service. Instead of the email dance, you send your booking link. They pick a time for a call.
Service bookings. You run a salon, spa, personal training business, or any service with specific time slots. Customers book online, you see it in your calendar, everyone gets reminders.
Reducing no-shows. Both tools send automatic email and SMS reminders before appointments. This alone significantly reduces the number of people who forget.
Setmore vs YouCanBookMe
Both are solid options with useful free plans.
Setmore’s free plan includes unlimited appointments, calendar sync, and reminders. It can also accept payments through Square or PayPal, which is useful if you take deposits when booking. The interface is straightforward. The main limitation is it only supports one login on free.
YouCanBookMe’s free plan includes one booking page, calendar integration, and basic customisation. It is particularly good if you want to embed the booking widget directly on your website rather than sending people to a separate page.
For most small businesses, either works. If you need to accept payments when booking, Setmore handles that better on the free plan. If you want more control over how the booking interface looks on your site, YouCanBookMe has a slight edge.
Setup steps
- Create an account and connect your calendar (Google, Outlook, or Apple)
- Set your availability: which days and hours you can take bookings, how long slots should be, how much buffer time you need between appointments
- Customise your booking page with your business name, logo, and any relevant information
- Optionally set up different appointment types if you offer multiple services
- Put your booking link on your website, in your email signature, and anywhere else customers might find it
- Test by making a booking yourself
Tool 5: Document Assistant
Ask questions about your own documents in plain language.
Tool: NotebookLM (Google)
Cost: Free
Setup time: 20 minutes
Why it matters
NotebookLM is a free tool from Google that serves as a research and document assistant. You upload files (PDFs, documents, web pages) and then ask questions about them in plain language. It reads and understands your documents and answers based on what it found.
Think of it as having an assistant who has read all your company documentation and can instantly find and explain any part of it.
Every business accumulates documents. Contracts, policies, procedures, manuals, notes, research. Most of it sits in folders somewhere, rarely accessed because finding specific information takes too long. It is faster to just ask a colleague or Google the answer again than to dig through your files.
NotebookLM changes this dynamic. Instead of hunting through a 50-page contract for a specific clause, you upload it and ask “what does this say about termination terms?” Instead of re-reading your employee handbook every time someone asks a question, you upload it and ask “what is our policy on time off?”
This is especially valuable for:
- Owner-operators who cannot delegate research to anyone else
- Businesses with compliance requirements where quick policy reference matters
- Anyone who deals with contracts regularly
- Multi-location businesses where consistent information matters
Practical applications
Understanding contracts. Someone sends you a contract to sign. You upload it and ask for a summary of the key terms, an explanation of the payment conditions, or flags for anything unusual. It gives you plain language explanations.
Creating training materials. You have policies and procedures scattered across various documents. Upload them and use NotebookLM to help create training guides, FAQ documents, or onboarding materials that pull from multiple sources.
Research synthesis. You have collected articles, reports, or documents about a topic. Upload them all and ask questions like “what are the main trends mentioned across these reports?” The AI synthesises information across your sources.
Quick internal lookups. Someone asks about your refund policy, your service terms, or a procedure you documented months ago. Instead of searching through folders, you ask NotebookLM.
Meeting preparation. You have past notes, proposals, and correspondence related to an upcoming meeting. Upload the relevant documents and ask NotebookLM to summarise outstanding issues, key decisions made, or points to address.
Setup steps
- Go to notebooklm.google.com and sign in with a Google account
- Create a new notebook and name it based on the topic or project
- Add sources by uploading documents, pasting text, or adding website URLs
- Start asking questions in the chat interface
Getting more value
Organise by topic. Create separate notebooks for different areas: one for contracts, one for HR, one for a specific client project. This keeps the AI focused on relevant material.
Add related documents together. NotebookLM becomes more useful when it can draw connections across sources. For a given topic, upload everything related.
Be specific in questions. Instead of “tell me about this document,” ask specific questions: “what are the payment terms?” or “what happens if we want to terminate early?”
Use it to draft. Ask NotebookLM to create summaries, FAQs, or explanations based on your documents. Then edit the output.
Tool 6: Email Assistant
AI-powered email management.
Tool: Shortwave
Cost: $7/month
Setup time: 15 minutes
Why it matters
Shortwave is an email client that replaces Gmail’s standard interface with one built for productivity. It uses AI to summarise emails, group related conversations, surface what needs attention, and help you write responses faster.
At $7 per month, it is the smallest expense in the toolkit but potentially offers some of the highest return in time saved.
Email consumes an alarming amount of time for most business owners. You intend to spend thirty minutes on it and suddenly two hours have passed. You have hundreds of unread messages, half of which are unimportant, but you cannot tell which half without opening them. You spend time crafting responses that could be faster. You lose track of emails that need follow-up.
Shortwave addresses these problems directly. It summarises long email threads so you do not have to read every message. It highlights what is urgent. It helps you write routine responses quickly. And it keeps you organised without requiring complex folder systems.
Practical applications
Daily inbox triage. You open Shortwave and immediately see what arrived since you last checked, summarised so you can quickly identify what needs action, what can wait, and what is noise.
Summarising long threads. Someone forwards you an email chain with dozens of messages. Instead of scrolling through everything, you ask Shortwave to summarise the conversation. It tells you the key points and what action is needed.
Faster replies. You need to respond to an email but are struggling to start. You tell Shortwave the gist of what you want to say. It drafts a response. You review, adjust, send.
Finding past emails. You know you discussed something with someone but cannot find the email. Shortwave’s search actually works, and you can describe what you are looking for in natural language.
Automatic organisation. Shortwave bundles related emails and newsletters together. You see conversations grouped logically rather than a chronological list of individual messages.
Setup steps
- Sign up at shortwave.com and connect your Gmail or Google Workspace account
- Grant the permissions for Shortwave to access your email
- Let it sync your existing email (this can take time depending on volume)
- Start using it as your email client
The AI features work automatically. Summaries appear, prioritisation happens, writing help is available when you want it.
Note: Shortwave requires Gmail. If you use Outlook, you would either skip this tool or use Outlook’s built-in AI features instead.
Optional Extras
These two tools are worth adding based on your specific needs. They are not part of the core toolkit, but they fit the same criteria: beginner-friendly, affordable, and immediately useful.
OpusClip ($15/month) for video repurposing
If you create video content, OpusClip automatically turns long videos into short clips for social media.
Creating short-form content from longer videos is labour-intensive. Taking a thirty-minute recording and finding the best moments for Instagram Reels or TikToks takes hours of editing. OpusClip automates this: upload a long video, and AI identifies engaging moments, adds captions, and exports multiple short clips.
Add this tool if: You already have long-form video you are not repurposing, you record meetings or presentations that could become content, or you want to increase your social media presence without spending hours editing.
Skip it if: You do not create video content and have no plans to.
DeepL Pro ($9/month) for translation
If you communicate in multiple languages, DeepL provides translations that are generally more accurate and natural-sounding than free alternatives, especially for European languages.
Add this tool if: You regularly correspond in languages other than English, you serve customers in multiple countries, or you need to translate marketing materials and documentation to a professional standard.
Skip it if: You work in only one language.
Adding both optional tools brings the total to around $94 per month, still under $100 and still representing strong value for what you get.
Budget Alternatives
If the full toolkit at around $70 per month is too much right now, here are the trade-offs to consider.
What you can cut
Skip Shortwave (save $7). If your email volume is manageable and you do not feel overwhelmed by your inbox, standard Gmail works fine. You lose the AI summaries but can use your AI assistant to help draft emails.
Use ChatGPT free (save up to $20). The free version is still useful but has limits: slower responses, usage caps, fewer features. For light use it works. Once you are using it regularly, the upgrade is worthwhile.
Use Tidio free (save $29). The free plan includes basic chat but lacks AI automation and has conversation limits. For very low-traffic sites or as a trial, it can work. The automation features are a major part of the value, though.
Use Canva free (save $13). The free tier is capable. The main frustrations are limited templates and “Pro” watermarks on many assets you want to use.
Budget options at a glance
| Instead of… | Use… | You save | You lose |
| Shortwave | Regular Gmail | $7 | AI summaries, smart triage |
| Canva Pro | Canva Free | $13 | Full templates, AI features, stock photos |
| Tidio Starter | Tidio Free | $29 | AI automation, higher conversation limits |
| ChatGPT Plus | ChatGPT Free | $20 | Speed, reliability, file uploads |
The $0 option
The absolute minimum cost toolkit would use free tiers for everything: ChatGPT free, Canva free, Tidio free, free scheduling, free NotebookLM, standard Gmail. Total cost: $0.
This is technically viable but you will have a worse experience, hit limits at inconvenient times, and spend effort working around restrictions. For any business that values its time, this is a false economy.
The $20 minimum
A more realistic lean approach: keep ChatGPT Plus at $20, use free tiers for everything else. This preserves the most valuable tool (the AI brain) while minimising other costs. Total: $20 per month.
What’s next
In Part 3, we walk through how to actually implement everything: a phased approach so you are not trying to set up six tools in one sitting, industry-specific recommendations for where to focus, sample prompts you can copy and use immediately, troubleshooting tips for common problems, and answers to frequently asked questions.
This guide is published by AgentAya, where we review and compare AI tools for SMEs.