# How to choose AI tools for a small business | Bamboo Digital > The vendor evaluation method from a real 35-platform bake-off: score capability, lock-in, and cost at scale, test on your real data, and keep your knowledge portable. Canonical: https://bamboodigital.io/guides/playbooks/choosing-ai-tools-for-a-small-business --- [Guides](https://bamboodigital.io/guides) / Playbooks Guide # Choosing AI tools for a small business: the boring checklist that works The best predictor of AI tool regret is not picking a bad tool; it is picking any tool before your knowledge is portable. Evaluate on three axes (capability on your real work, lock-in risk, cost at the scale you will actually hit) and test with your own data before you pay. ## The three axes. - **Capability on your real work.** Not the demo, your actual hardest case. A voice agent vendor demo handles "what are your hours"; the test is "does the MX wheelset fit a 2023 Sting" with a compliant answer. - **Lock-in risk.** What leaves with you if you cancel? If the answer is "nothing," the price is not the price. Your knowledge base, workflows, and history should live in files you own. - **Cost at your real scale.** Price the tier you will hit in month 6, not the teaser. In a real evaluation for a lending client (~35 vendors profiled, finalists scored on a weighted matrix), the flat-cheap option won the price criterion and still lost 4.10 to 3.35, on workflow fit, compliance, and lock-in. ## The order of operations. 1. **Knowledge base first, tools second.** A written brain makes every tool better and makes switching tools cheap. Tools first is how you end up rebuilding everything per platform. 2. **One general assistant before point tools.** A $20-100/mo assistant wired to your files and email replaces several $300-400/mo single-purpose subscriptions for drafting, readouts, and research. Add point tools only for jobs it measurably cannot do. 3. **Test on your data, on a deadline.** One week, your real messages and numbers, a pass/fail list written before the trial starts. If a vendor resists a real trial, that is the result. ## Red flags that end the conversation. - **Export costs extra** or export does not exist. - **"Trust the AI" instead of citations.** No sources means you are the QA department, forever. - **Per-seat pricing for a team of one.** Owner-operator tools should price by usage, not headcount. - **The demo cannot use your data.** If it only shines on their sample data, it only works on their sample data. Questions ## Asked before reading this far. What AI tools does a small business actually need? Most owner-operators need less than they think: one capable general assistant (Claude or similar, $20-100 a month) wired to their email, files, and store data, on top of a written knowledge base. Point tools earn their subscription only when they do a job the general assistant measurably cannot. How do I compare AI vendors? Score every candidate on a weighted matrix across capability on your real work, lock-in risk, and cost at your true scale, then trial the finalists on your own data against a pass/fail list written in advance. This is the same method used in a real ~35-vendor evaluation for a lending client, where the finalists were scored on a weighted matrix. How do I avoid AI tool lock-in? Keep the knowledge outside the tools: your knowledge base, SOPs, and templates as plain files you own. Then any tool is replaceable, trials are cheap, and a vendor price hike is an inconvenience instead of a hostage negotiation. Related ### Related reading. [Book a discovery call Read it](https://bamboodigital.io/start) Or skip the homework ## This is what month one builds, done with you. The knowledge base, the workflows, the tools wired, in month one, yours to keep. [Priced by fit](https://bamboodigital.io/start) · [Book a discovery call](https://bamboodigital.io/start) · [See what changes in 30 seconds](https://bamboodigital.io/start#quiz) --- Site overview for agents: https://bamboodigital.io/llms.txt Every article, full text: https://bamboodigital.io/llms-full.txt All URLs: https://bamboodigital.io/sitemap.xml