By Jordi Daniëls, founder of AI Board · ·
AI costs a small business money at three levels. Business AI subscriptions cost €15.60 to €26 per employee per month, billed annually. A consultant or agency charges €120 to €128 an hour on average; an ilionx strategy phase costs €9,500.
The third level: installing AI on your company data. AI Board does that in one day; your own Claude subscription costs from €15 a month. What that looks like for your company is something we discuss in a call.
This piece is part of the guide how to implement AI in your business. Below, every amount carries its source and the check date of 25 September 2026, unless stated otherwise, so you can verify it yourself.
AI Board sells one of the three routes itself, the setup day. That is exactly why every other price links to the vendor's own page.
What does an AI subscription cost per employee?
The big business plans sit close together. The difference is in what comes with them, and in what you already pay for. All prices are per user per month, checked on 25 September 2026.
| Plan | Billed annually | Billed monthly | Terms | Source (checked 2026-09-25) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT Business, standard seat | €21 | €26 | 2 to 200 users; VAT not stated; euro price as shown in the Netherlands | chatgpt.com/pricing |
| Claude Team, standard seat | €18 or $20 | €21.04 or $25 | 2 to 150 users; excludes tax | claude.com/pricing |
| Claude Enterprise | $20 plus usage at API rates | none | annual billing only; excludes tax | claude.com/pricing |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot Business (add-on) | promo €15.60 or $18; regular €18.20 or $21 | €21.84 or $25.20 | promo 1 July to 31 December 2026, first year only; separate Microsoft 365 licence required; Dutch prices exclude VAT | microsoft.com, NL prices and US prices |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot (add-on, enterprise) | €26.00 or $30.00 | not listed | separate Microsoft 365 licence required | microsoft.com, NL and US |
| Google Workspace Business Standard, Gemini included | 16% off with a one-year contract | €13.60 | the whole Workspace suite, not just AI; excludes tax; euro price as shown in the Netherlands | workspace.google.com |
What a Claude Team seat includes, and what 2, 5 or 10 seats cost, is in our guide to the Claude Team plan.
Three things stand out. Heavier seats cost a multiple: a premium seat is €105 a month on ChatGPT Business and €90 on Claude Team, both billed annually.
Copilot is an add-on. You pay for it on top of a Microsoft 365 licence, and the Copilot Business promo price only applies in the first year.
Google does not charge for Gemini separately. The €13.60 is the price of your whole office suite with mail, documents and Meet, not of AI alone.
ChatGPT Enterprise has no public price; OpenAI refers you to sales. Which plan fits depends mostly on where your work lives today. The trade-off is in ChatGPT, Claude or local: what fits your business.
What does AI on your own company data cost? (installing)
A subscription gives everyone a smart assistant. Whether it knows your business depends on what is connected to it: documents, figures, mail and calendar. Setting that up is work, and that work is not in the subscription price.
We do it on site in one setup day. At the end, an AI assistant runs on your laptop, grounded in your company data. What that looks like for your company is something we discuss in a call.
| Item | Amount | Source (checked 2026-09-25) |
|---|---|---|
| Setup day, one day on site | fixed price, one day on site | AI Board setup day page |
| Claude Pro, paid by you to Anthropic | €15 or $17 a month billed annually; €18 or $20 billed monthly | claude.com/pricing |
| Claude Max, for heavy use | from €90 or $100 a month | claude.com/pricing |
| Updates and support after the day | €59 per manager per month, optional | AI Board setup day page |
The Claude subscription is in your name and you pay Anthropic directly. Which plan fits depends on how heavily you use it. If you stop the updates, the installation keeps working.
The setup day is not a rollout for fifteen people; it is for the person who makes the decisions. How that works out for a business owner running three companies is in the customer story of Teus Louwerens.
What does an AI agency or consultant cost?
Agencies do not publish price lists, but there are a few published benchmarks. Read them as a guide, not a quote. All sources were checked on 25 September 2026, the Simplicate report on 26 October 2026.
| What | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Freelance AI consultant in the Netherlands, average hourly rate 2026 | €120 an hour, excluding VAT | Knab Zzp Uurtarievenboekje 2026, over 20,000 freelancers |
| All Dutch freelancers, for comparison | €83 an hour | same source |
| Consultancies of 5 to 120 FTE, average hourly rate in the quarter to June 2026 | €128 an hour | Simplicate Consultancy Benchmark Report Q3 2026, almost 250 firms, checked 26 October 2026 |
| ilionx Expeditie AI, steps 1 and 2 | €9,500, VAT not stated | ilionx.com, Expeditie AI |
For that €9,500, ilionx says you get an AI strategy, a roadmap of use cases and an assessment per use case, in about three weeks.
Delivery after that is offered separately. For a working solution in production, ilionx mentions two to four months. No amount for that is on the page.
For comparison: at the average consultancy rate of €128, €9,500 buys about 74 hours of work. Firms above 120 FTE were not in that survey.
The hourly rate tells you less than the number of hours. So ask for a defined scope and for what is fixed.
Whether to build, buy or install is a decision per workflow, not for the whole company. The framework is in build vs buy AI.
The hidden costs
The vendor's invoice is rarely the whole amount. Five items are not in the headline price.
The decision-maker's time. Every route costs hours of the person who decides. On our setup day you spend about two hours hands-on, spread over the day. With an agency, the coordination costs you time.
Data clean-up. AI is only as good as the files it can find. If your documents are scattered across mailboxes and loose folders, sorting them takes time first. Gauge how much work that is with AI data readiness for executives.
Licences you already have. Check what you already pay for. Microsoft includes Copilot Chat at no extra cost with eligible Microsoft 365 plans. Google puts Gemini in Workspace Business Standard.
Duplicate tools. If staff already pay for ChatGPT Plus at €23 a month, a business plan on top means paying twice. Why that often happens out of sight of management is in the shadow AI economy.
The price after the promo. Copilot Business costs €18.20 or $21 after the promo year. Google gives new customers a discount for their first three months (workspace.google.com). On a paid Claude plan, you can work past your limit with extra usage at API rates (claude.com/pricing).
Worked example: a small business with 15 employees
Take a company with fifteen employees. Below are three routes side by side, using only the amounts from the tables above, checked on 25 September 2026.
| A. A subscription for everyone | B. Setup day for the director | C. Agency, strategy phase | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you buy | 15 seats of Claude Team or ChatGPT Business, billed annually | One installation on your own company data, plus Claude Pro or Max | AI strategy and roadmap (ilionx, steps 1 and 2) |
| One-off | €0 | fixed price, one day on site | €9,500 |
| Per month | €270 to €315 | €15 to €90 | delivery separate, amount not published |
| First year | €3,240 to €3,780 | €180 to €1,080 for Claude, plus the setup day at a fixed price | from €9,500, excluding delivery and licences |
| Who works with AI | all fifteen | one person, on company data | nobody yet; you have a plan |
| Hidden costs | setting up, duplicate tools | about two hours of the director | your time, then delivery |
If you already run Microsoft 365, Copilot Business for fifteen people costs €234 a month at the promo price. After the first year that becomes €273 a month.
A and B are not mutually exclusive. You can give the team a subscription and the director an installation on company data. C delivers a plan, not a working assistant; delivery comes on top.
When is AI worth the money?
An AI business case without an invented return is simple. One task, two weeks, measure.
- Pick one task that comes back every week, such as a quote, a monthly report or preparing a meeting.
- Write down how long that task takes today. That is your baseline.
- Do the task with AI for two weeks. Note the time and how often you had to correct the result.
- Work it back: hours saved times your own hourly cost, against the price of the subscription or the installation.
A €21 seat pays for itself once it saves more than €21 of hourly cost a month. That bar is low. The measurement shows whether you clear it.
If the result is positive, extend to a second task. If it is negative, pick another task or stop. A vendor's return percentage does not replace this measurement, ours included.
Frequently asked questions
What does AI cost per month?
A business AI seat costs €15.60 to €26 per employee per month, billed annually. Paying monthly costs more: €21.04 on Claude Team, €21.84 on Copilot Business and €26 on ChatGPT Business. Prices checked on 25 September 2026.
A paid personal plan costs €8 (ChatGPT Go) to €23 (ChatGPT Plus) a month. Claude Pro costs €15 or $17 billed annually. The sources are in the first table and on chatgpt.com/pricing.
Is free AI enough?
To try things out, yes. ChatGPT and Claude have a free version, and Copilot Chat comes at no extra cost with eligible Microsoft 365 plans.
For company data, control counts. OpenAI and Anthropic state on their pricing pages that business plans do not train on your business data by default. That commitment, central admin and single sign-on are what a business plan buys you.
Are there subsidies for implementing AI?
That depends on your company and plan, and schemes change. In the Netherlands, the subsidy and funding guide of RVO shows which schemes are open to you. We name no amounts here, because conditions differ per scheme and per year.
What does it cost to stop?
Monthly plans stop per month. Annual contracts run their year, and Microsoft renews Copilot automatically, according to its pricing page. So put a date in your calendar before the year is up.
After our setup day the installation stays yours, even if you take no updates. With an agency it is in the contract. Ask up front what keeps working if you stop tomorrow.