AI tools now sit in almost every part of a business, from the apps you already use to platforms that run whole workflows for you. The hard part is working out which ones are worth paying for.
Disclosure: This article is published by DeskFerry. We include our own product alongside competitors for transparency.
How we compared these tools: this is a comparison, not a lab test. For each tool we read the vendor's official product and pricing pages in September 2026 and noted what it does, who it's for, one real limitation and the current starting price. Prices change often, so each entry links to the official pricing page so you can confirm before you buy.
Changes in this update (September 2026): we removed Tome, which shut down its presentation product in 2025, and Teal, which is a job-search tool rather than a business-growth tool. Make and n8n take their places, and we added Lindy as a bonus pick. Every price below was rechecked.
The 16 best AI tools for business growth
| # | Tool | Best for | Starting price (Sept 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | DeskFerry | No-code AI agents across your apps | $49/mo (7-day free trial) |
| 2 | ChatGPT | General AI assistant | Free; Plus $20/mo |
| 3 | Claude | Writing, analysis, coding | Free; Pro $17/mo billed annually |
| 4 | Perplexity | Cited research | Free; Pro $20/mo |
| 5 | Jasper | Marketing copy | $59/seat/mo billed annually |
| 6 | Runway | AI video | Free credits; Standard $12/mo billed annually |
| 7 | FeedHive | Social media | €15/mo billed yearly |
| 8 | ElevenLabs | Voice and audio | Free; Starter $6/mo |
| 9 | Mem | AI notes | Free; Plus $9/mo |
| 10 | Fireflies | Meeting notes | Free; Pro $10/seat/mo billed annually |
| 11 | Reclaim | Calendar scheduling | Free; Starter from $10/seat/mo |
| 12 | Shortwave | Email (Gmail only) | $30/seat/mo |
| 13 | Zapier | App-to-app automation | Free; Professional $19.99/mo billed annually |
| 14 | Make | Visual automation | Free; paid from $9/mo |
| 15 | n8n | Self-hostable automation | Free self-hosted; Cloud from €20/mo |
| 16 | Notion | Workspace and docs | Free; Plus $10/seat/mo |
We also cover Lindy below as an AI-assistant alternative to DeskFerry.
1. DeskFerry
What it does: DeskFerry lets you put AI to work across your apps without writing code. It comes in two forms. DeskFerry Assist, our personal AI assistant, is a generalist for lots of simple tasks, through chat and scheduled tasks, with Skills and Notes. DeskFerry Agents are specialists, each set up to do one complex job well. Both connect to 1,500+ apps, including Google Sheets, HubSpot, Notion and Slack, and you can add human-approval gates so an agent waits for your sign-off before it acts. With the DeskFerry Slack app, you can connect your agents to a Slack channel and run them from there — @mention an agent in a channel or DM it to kick off a task, and approve its actions without leaving Slack.
Who it's for: founders and small teams who want work like customer support triage, lead qualification, CRM updates and recurring reports handled end to end, rather than just drafted. If you want to build your own, see how to create an AI agent.
Limitation: usage is metered in credits, and how many credits a run uses depends on the agent, so your monthly cost depends on how busy your agents are. Growth is a personal workspace; a shared team workspace starts on Pro.
Pricing (as of September 2026, official pricing):
- Growth: $49/mo, 5,000 credits
- Pro: $99/mo, 12,000 credits, shared team workspace (most picked)
- Scale: $299/mo, 40,000 credits, separate workspaces per team
Every plan includes unlimited agents, and there is a 7-day free trial.
2. ChatGPT
What it does: OpenAI's general-purpose AI assistant for drafting, summarizing, analysis, data work and coding (through Codex). Paid plans get the GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna models.
Who it's for: almost every team as a default AI assistant. The Business plan adds a shared workspace and admin controls for companies. For a head-to-head with Claude and Gemini, see our best AI personal assistants comparison, or ChatGPT alternatives.
Limitation: it's a chat assistant, not an automation layer. It won't watch your CRM or inbox and act on its own unless you build that around it, and you still need to check its answers for accuracy.
Pricing (as of September 2026, official pricing): Free; Go $8/mo; Plus $20/mo; Pro from $100/mo; Business $20/user/mo billed annually ($25 monthly, 2+ users); Enterprise by quote.
3. Claude
What it does: Anthropic's AI assistant for long-form writing, document analysis, research and coding. Current models include Claude Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5 and Haiku 4.5, and paid plans add Claude Code and Projects.
Who it's for: teams that work with long documents, detailed analysis or software, and want careful, well-structured output.
Limitation: every plan has usage limits. Heavy users can hit the Pro limit during long sessions and need Max, which starts at $100/mo.
Pricing (as of September 2026, official pricing): Free; Pro $17/mo billed annually ($20 monthly); Max from $100/mo; Team from $20/seat/mo billed annually ($25 monthly, 2–150 seats); Enterprise is $20/seat/mo billed annually plus usage at API rates.
4. Perplexity
What it does: an AI answer engine that searches the web and cites its sources inline, so you can check where each claim came from.
Who it's for: anyone doing market research, competitor checks or fact-finding who needs sources, not just an answer.
Limitation: answers are only as good as the pages it finds. It's a research tool, not a place to run workflows or store company knowledge.
Pricing (as of September 2026, official pricing): Free; Pro $20/mo ($200/year); Max $200/mo.
5. Jasper
What it does: an AI content platform for marketing teams, built around brand voice, campaign copy and reusable content workflows.
Who it's for: marketing teams producing a lot of on-brand copy across channels. See also AI agents for marketing.
Limitation: it's priced per seat, so it gets expensive for large teams, and much of what it writes can also be drafted in a general assistant like ChatGPT or Claude.
Pricing (as of September 2026, official pricing): Pro $59/seat/mo billed annually ($69 monthly), with a 7-day free trial; Business by quote.
6. Runway
What it does: AI video generation and editing. You can create clips from text or images, and edit existing footage with models such as Gen-4.5 and Aleph 2.0.
Who it's for: marketing and creative teams making short-form video, ads and social content without a full production crew.
Limitation: generation runs on monthly credits, and video uses them quickly. The free plan is a one-time allowance of 125 credits.
Pricing (as of September 2026, official pricing): Free (125 one-time credits); Standard $12/mo billed annually ($15 monthly, 625 credits/mo); Pro $28/mo billed annually; Max $76/mo billed annually.
7. FeedHive
What it does: social media scheduling with AI writing, AI credits and automation runs, across multiple accounts and workspaces.
Who it's for: creators, startups and agencies that publish across several social channels.
Limitation: plan limits cap social accounts, scheduled posts and how far ahead you can schedule. The entry Creator plan allows 4 accounts and a 14-day scheduling window. Pricing is listed in euros.
Pricing (as of September 2026, official pricing): Creator €15/mo (€180/year); Brand €22/mo; Business €69/mo; Agency €239/mo; 7-day free trial.
8. ElevenLabs
What it does: AI text-to-speech, voice cloning, dubbing and speech-to-text, available in an app and through an API.
Who it's for: teams making voiceovers, podcasts, training content, localized video or voice agents.
Limitation: the free plan doesn't include a commercial license, and high-volume or high-quality audio pushes you into the $99+/mo tiers.
Pricing (as of September 2026, official pricing): Free (10k credits/mo); Starter $6/mo (30k credits, commercial license); Creator $22/mo ($11 for the first month); Pro $99/mo; Scale and Business tiers above that; Enterprise by quote.
9. Mem
What it does: an AI notes workspace that keeps notes, meetings and ideas connected, with an agent that learns what matters from what you save and checks in when something needs your attention.
Who it's for: founders and knowledge workers who capture a lot of notes and want them resurfaced at the right time.
Limitation: the free plan is tight (25 new notes and 25 messages to Mem per month), and it's a personal knowledge tool rather than a team wiki.
Pricing (as of September 2026, official pricing): Free; Plus $9/mo; Pro from $29/mo, with higher-usage Pro tiers up to $199/mo.
10. Fireflies
What it does: an AI notetaker that joins your meetings to record, transcribe and summarize them, then makes the conversations searchable.
Who it's for: sales, customer success and any team that runs a lot of calls. For prep before meetings, see our AI meeting prep guide.
Limitation: a bot joining calls isn't welcome in every meeting, and the more advanced features sit on the paid tiers.
Pricing (as of September 2026, official pricing): Free; Pro $10/seat/mo billed annually ($18 monthly); Business $19/seat/mo billed annually ($29 monthly); Enterprise $39/seat/mo billed annually.
11. Reclaim
What it does: AI scheduling that automatically fits focus time, habits, tasks and meetings around your calendar and rearranges them when plans change.
Who it's for: busy individuals and teams who lose deep-work time to meetings. See also best time-blocking apps.
Limitation: the free Lite plan only schedules one week ahead and syncs a single calendar.
Pricing (as of September 2026, official pricing): Lite is free; Starter is $10–12/seat/mo and Business is $15–18/seat/mo, depending on annual or monthly billing; Enterprise by quote.
12. Shortwave
What it does: an AI email client that summarizes threads, drafts replies, searches your inbox in plain language and bundles related mail.
Who it's for: teams that run on Gmail or Google Workspace and spend hours a day in email. See our best AI email assistants for more options.
Limitation: it only works with Gmail and Google Workspace. Microsoft 365 and Exchange aren't supported, so it's not an option for Outlook-based teams (source).
Pricing (as of September 2026, official pricing): Business $30/seat/mo; Premier $45/seat/mo; Max $120/seat/mo; 14-day free trial.
13. Zapier
What it does: connects thousands of apps with trigger-and-action "Zaps". Tables, Forms, Canvas and basic Agents are included on every plan. See our Zapier alternatives and best Zapier alternatives.
Who it's for: non-technical teams that want reliable, rule-based automation between popular SaaS apps.
Limitation: pricing scales with task volume. Zapier Agents is billed separately in "activities": 400 per month are free, and beyond that you need the Agents Pro add-on (about $33.33/mo billed annually).
Pricing (as of September 2026, official pricing): Free (100 tasks/mo); Professional from $19.99/mo billed annually ($29.99 monthly); Team from $69/mo billed annually; Enterprise by quote.
14. Make
What it does: a visual automation builder with a drag-and-drop canvas for multi-step scenarios across 3,000+ apps. AI Agents are available on paid plans in beta.
Who it's for: operations teams that want more branching and data handling than simple Zaps, without writing code. Compare it with Zapier in Make vs Zapier.
Limitation: usage is billed in credits (each module action uses one), so complex, high-frequency scenarios burn through credits quickly, and the canvas takes some learning.
Pricing (as of September 2026, official pricing): Free (up to 1,000 credits/mo); paid plans from $9/mo (5,000 credits/mo), about 15% less with annual billing; Enterprise by quote.
15. n8n
What it does: workflow automation you can self-host or run in n8n's cloud, with code steps and AI nodes when you need them. Every plan includes unlimited workflows and users.
Who it's for: technical teams that want control over hosting and data, or high-volume workflows priced per run instead of per step. See n8n pricing explained.
Limitation: it's the most technical tool on this list. Self-hosting means you run upgrades and uptime yourself, and the Business plan is self-hosted only.
Pricing (as of September 2026, official pricing): Community Edition free to self-host; Starter (Cloud) €20/mo for 2,500 executions; Pro (Cloud) €50/mo for 10,000 executions; Business (self-hosted) €667/mo; Enterprise by quote.
16. Notion
What it does: an all-in-one workspace for docs, wikis, projects and databases, with Notion AI and Notion Agent for writing, search and autofill.
Who it's for: teams that want one shared home for documentation and lightweight project tracking.
Limitation: on the Free, Plus and Business plans, Notion Agent is a limited trial. Custom Agents are free to try, then cost $10 per 1,000 Notion credits per month.
Pricing (as of September 2026, official pricing): Free; Plus $10/seat/mo; Business $20/seat/mo; Enterprise by quote. Annual billing saves up to 20%.
Also worth a look: Lindy
What it does: Lindy lets you build AI assistants and agents for everyday business work, priced per user and metered in credits.
Who it's for: individuals and teams that want an AI assistant they can set up without code. See our DeskFerry vs Lindy comparison.
Limitation: it's priced per user, and there's no free plan (only a limited trial).
Pricing (as of September 2026, official pricing): Plus $29.99/user/mo (3,000 credits); Pro $99.99/user/mo; Max $199.99/user/mo; Enterprise by quote.
How to Choose the Right AI Tools
Assessment Framework
- Identify Your Needs: Map specific business challenges and processes that could benefit from AI
- Evaluate Integration: Ensure tools work with your existing tech stack (for example, Shortwave only works with Gmail)
- Consider Team Skills: Choose tools matching your team's technical expertise; n8n suits engineers, while DeskFerry, Zapier and Make are built for no-code users
- Budget Planning: Factor in per-seat pricing and usage-based credits or tasks, not just the headline price
- Start Small: Use free plans and trials to pilot tools with limited scope before full deployment
Key Selection Criteria
- Ease of Use: How quickly can your team become productive?
- Scalability: How does the price change as your usage or headcount grows?
- Support: What level of customer support and documentation is available?
- Security: Does the tool meet your data protection requirements?
- Measurable Value: Can you track time saved or revenue gained from the tool?
Conclusion
In 2026, AI tools for business growth fall into two groups. Assistants like ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity help people work faster. Automation and agent platforms like DeskFerry, Zapier, Make and n8n do the work in the background. Specialist tools cover single jobs such as video, voice, meetings and scheduling.
To get value from them:
- Start with the one bottleneck that costs you the most time
- Choose tools that match your team's capabilities and your existing apps
- Pilot on a free plan or trial and measure the results
- Expand to more of the business only once a tool has proven its worth
Whether you want to automate customer service, speed up content creation or simplify operations, the 16 AI tools compared here are a practical shortlist for 2026.
Ready to get started? Begin with a tool that addresses your most pressing business challenge, and gradually expand your AI toolkit as you see results and build confidence with the technology.
Related: Best AI agents for business 2026 · Best AI automation tools · Best Zapier alternatives 2026 · No-code automation tools 2026 · ChatGPT alternatives
