How I'd set up Claude for a small business

Short answer Start on the free plan and set up one Project with your business details, tone and prices. Use it for a few real jobs like quotes, replies and follow-ups. Once it's saving you time most days, think about Pro (US$20 a month as of 23 October 2026, plus GST for most NZ buyers), connect the tools you already use, and hand repeat admin to Cowork. Claude Code comes last, for building small tools of your own.

Before you start: free or paid

Start free. As of 23 October 2026, Claude's free plan gives you chat, up to five Projects, connectors, memory and skills. That's plenty to find out if it suits the way you work.

Pro is US$20 a month billed monthly, or US$17 a month if you pay a year up front (US$200). It adds Claude Code and Cowork and lifts the limits. Max starts from US$100 a month and is for people using it all day. For a team, a Standard seat is US$25 a month billed monthly or US$20 billed yearly. These are Anthropic's prices in US dollars. What you actually pay in NZ depends on the exchange rate and GST, so work it through with what AI tools cost in NZ, with GST.

My rule: pay once you're using it most days and keep hitting the free limits. Not before.

Step 1: change two settings first

Before you paste anything about your business in, have a look at the privacy settings in Claude (Settings, then Privacy). On personal plans there's a setting about whether your chats can be used to improve Claude's models. Pick what you're comfortable with. Team and Enterprise plans sit under Anthropic's commercial terms instead.

Then decide what never goes in. Customer and staff personal details, IRD numbers, bank details and passwords stay out, whatever plan you're on. The NZ Privacy Act 2020 still applies to you. If you've got staff, write it down once with the AI use policy use case.

Step 2: tell it about your business once

This is the step most people skip, and it's the one that makes the biggest difference. A Claude Project is a workspace with its own instructions and files. You write down what you do, where you are, your prices, your terms and how you like to sound, and every chat in that Project starts already knowing it.

The Claude Project that knows your business use case walks you through it, with a template to fill in. Ten minutes, and you'll stop re-explaining yourself every time.

I'd keep it to one Project to start. Split it later (quotes, marketing, admin) if it gets crowded.

Step 3: get three real jobs working

Pick jobs you do every week and don't enjoy. Do them in your Project, read every word before it goes anywhere, and fix what it gets wrong. Good first ones:

• Turn rough job notes into a clear quote email
• Reply to Google and TripAdvisor reviews
• Turn notes and voice memos into a to-do list
• Write a client meeting follow-up email
• Reply calmly to a customer complaint

Give it a couple of weeks. If it's saving you an hour or two a week, you've got your answer on whether to pay.

Step 4: connect the tools you already use

Connectors let Claude read from other tools, so you're not copying and pasting. As of 23 October 2026 Claude's pricing page lists connectors on every plan, including Free.

Start with read-only and drafts-only. The Xero connector is a good example: it can look at your P&L, invoices and bank transactions and answer questions in plain English, but it can't change anything. Connect Claude to Xero shows how. For email and calendar, I'd let it draft and suggest, and keep sending to you.

Only connect what you need for the job in front of you. Every connection is more of your data in one more place.

Step 5: hand off a repeat job to Cowork

Cowork is where Claude stops being a chat and starts doing a job for you. You give it a folder and the tools you choose, describe the task, and it works through it and leaves the result for you to check. Anthropic's page says it can show its plan and wait for your approval before anything significant, and it asks before deleting files. It's on Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise.

Good first jobs are boring ones: a Monday summary of last week, tidying a folder of invoices, drafting replies to the week's enquiries. The hand off a weekly admin job to Cowork use case has the setup.

Give it its own folder with copies of files, not your whole computer.

Step 6: build something small

Once the basics are working, Claude can build simple things with you. None of these need code from you:

• Turn a spreadsheet into a simple dashboard
• Build a simple one-page website
• Build your first AI agent, no coding: one that checks new enquiries and drafts replies for you to approve

Keep a human approval step in anything that talks to customers. An agent that drafts is useful. One that sends things you haven't read is a risk.

Step 7: Claude Code, when you're ready

Claude Code is Anthropic's tool for building software. It can create and edit files and run commands on your computer, so it can build you a quoting calculator, a tool that tidies a pile of exports, or a small website. It's on Pro and above.

It's powerful and it needs more care than chat. I've written a separate guide on what a business owner can realistically do with it, and how to stay safe: Claude Code for non-coders.

What it still gets wrong

• It sounds sure of itself when it's wrong. Check numbers, dates, prices and anything legal.
• It drifts to Australian or US spelling, law and prices. Say you're in New Zealand, in your Project instructions.
• It fills gaps with made-up details. Tell it to ask you instead of guessing, and read every line before it goes to a customer.
• Features and prices change most months. If something here doesn't match what you see, trust Anthropic's current page.

What I'd do this week

1. Sign up for the free plan and check the privacy setting.
2. Set up one Project with your business details.
3. Do one real job in it every day for a week.
4. At the end of the week, decide: keep going free, go Pro, or leave it. All three are fine answers.

Questions people ask

Where these facts come from

Facts about Claude's plans and features were checked on 23 October 2026 against Anthropic's own pages. They change often, so check the current page before you buy or set anything up.

• Claude plans and pricing (Anthropic, checked 23 October 2026)
• What are Projects? (Anthropic Help Centre)
• Claude Cowork (Anthropic)
• Xero connector (Claude connector directory)
• Claude Code overview (Anthropic docs)
• Claude privacy settings (sign-in needed)