Claude for Small Business: what it connects to and what it does

What Claude for Small Business is

Claude for Small Business is a set of connectors, skills and ready-made workflows that Anthropic announced on May 13, 2026. It puts Claude, Anthropic's AI assistant, inside the business tools an owner already uses. Claude reads the books, drafts the invoice reminder or builds the campaign where the data lives, and you review the result before it goes anywhere.

It runs inside Claude Cowork. In Cowork, Claude can take on complex, multi-step tasks and execute them on your behalf. You connect your accounts, describe a job in plain words, and Claude works through it. Anthropic's rule for the package is that you approve before anything sends, posts, or pays.

At launch it connected to Intuit QuickBooks, PayPal, HubSpot, Canva, Docusign, Google Workspace and Microsoft 365. The table lists what Anthropic said each of the main connectors handles. Anthropic's small business page now lists Intuit QuickBooks, HubSpot, Shopify, Stripe, Gusto, Canva and 25 more, so a seller can also connect a store or a payment processor.

Which small business jobs Claude covers

At launch Anthropic said the package shipped with 15 ready-to-run agentic workflows and 15 skills, across finance, operations, sales, marketing, HR, and customer service. Each skill is a set of instructions for a specific task. You describe the job in plain words and Claude picks the skill that fits.

The table picks out the skills that match the work of someone who sells products, with Anthropic's own description of each one.

The inventory planner, for example, reads from Google Calendar, Intuit QuickBooks, NetSuite, Shopify, Square by default. If your tool is not on the list, Anthropic says workflows also run from a spreadsheet or forwarded email, and a build-connector skill connects Claude to a tool that does not have an official connector yet.

The announcement also named an invoice chaser, margin analyzer, month-end prepper, tax-season organizer, contract reviewer, lead triager, content strategist, and more. Outside selling, a hiring-screener skill ranks your applicants against the job's requirements, drafts replies, and schedules interviews, and a proposal-builder skill turns your notes, photos, or an RFP into a priced proposal and sends it for signature once you approve.

The four workflows Anthropic showed at launch

Anthropic's announcement walked through four longer workflows. Each one pulls data from two or more connected tools and ends with something for you to review.

• Payroll planning. Claude compares your QuickBooks cash position with incoming PayPal settlements, builds a 30-day forecast, ranks what is overdue and queues reminders for you to approve and send.
• Closing the month. Claude reconciles the books against settlements, flags what does not match, writes a plain-English profit and loss summary and exports a close packet you can forward straight to your accountant.
• A business pulse. On a schedule, Claude puts your cash position, sales trend, pipeline and the week's commitments on one page.
• A marketing campaign. Claude finds the slow stretch in your revenue, reads your HubSpot campaign results, drafts a promotion plan and generates the assets in Canva.

How to set up Claude Cowork for a small business

These are the steps in Anthropic's own tutorial for the plugin. One change to know first: Claude Cowork is now just Claude, rolling out to Pro and Max, with more plans to follow. Once your account has the new layout, there is no Cowork option to select; you describe the task in any conversation, so some menus may look different from the steps below.

1. Get a plan that includes Cowork

   The plugin needs the Claude desktop app on a Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise plan. The free plan does not include Cowork, which is available on paid plans (Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise).

2. Install the Small Business plugin

   To install it, open Cowork, click Customize in the left sidebar, click + under Plugins, then find Small Business and click Install.

3. Tell Claude about your business

   Ask Claude to customize the plugin. Anthropic says Claude asks about your business and rewrites the plugin defaults to match, so later answers fit your business.

4. Connect the tools you use

   Sign in to each tool you want Claude to read, for example QuickBooks for the books, Shopify or Square for orders, and Canva for designs. Anthropic's advice is to start with one and add the rest when you're ready.

5. Describe a job in plain words

   Ask for something you already know the answer to, such as which invoices are overdue. Check one line against your own records before you trust the rest.

6. Approve what goes out

   By default, Claude asks before it takes actions, and you choose whether to allow each one. Anthropic's small business page says nothing sends or pays without your OK.

What Claude for Small Business costs

The plugin has no separate price on Anthropic's pages. What you pay for is the Claude plan it runs on, and the plugin needs the Claude desktop app on a Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise plan. Anthropic's advice for a small business is Pro for one person, Team for a business with more than one; both are month to month.

Anthropic notes that prices shown don’t include applicable tax.

The connected tools are billed by their own companies. The plugin uses your existing QuickBooks, PayPal, HubSpot, Canva, Shopify or Docusign account, and Anthropic notes that generating designs or staging sends may need a higher tier in that tool.

Example: a shop run by an owner and one part-time helper would need two seats on Team, at $20 per seat a month billed annually, or $25 billed monthly each, because Pro covers one person.

Approvals, permissions and your data

Anthropic lists several safeguards for the package. Anthropic says every task and workflow you run within Claude is initiated by you, and you approve before anything sends, posts, or pays. Its small business page adds that payroll is set up for you to submit, bills wait for your approval before they are paid, and Claude does not file anything for you. On scheduled workflows, Anthropic says once you set it up, it runs on the schedule you choose; anything that sends or pays still waits for your approval.

The permissions in your tools carry over: if an employee can't see something in QuickBooks or Drive today, they can't see it through Claude. If a part-time helper has limited access in QuickBooks, Claude gives them the same limited access.

On training, Anthropic does not train on your data by default on its Team and Enterprise plans, and the small business page says Anthropic does not train its models on your business data. On the Free, Pro and Max plans, you choose to allow your chats to be used to improve Claude, so check the privacy settings in your Claude account before you connect business data.

What to check before you rely on it

Claude's output is a draft until you approve it. The plugin reads your data and prepares the work, but Anthropic says the calls about what to charge, what to sign, what to send your accountant stay with you and your professionals. Read reconciliations and profit and loss summaries before they leave the business, and check every customer reply before it sends.

• Start with repeat work that has clear inputs: overdue invoices, a weekly sales summary, review replies or a restock list.
• Check the first results against numbers you already know, such as last month's sales or a customer you know has paid.
• Keep decisions about prices, refunds and disputes with a person, even when Claude prepares them.
• For training, Anthropic offers AI Fluency for Small Business, a free online course on using AI to run a small business, and has run a free, half-day live AI fluency training and hands-on workshop for 100 local small business leaders per stop.

Where Nation fits

Questions about Claude for Small Business