What AI actually costs a small business in the Philippines

When an owner asks what AI costs, they are usually asking something more specific: will this turn out to be one of those things that keeps billing me?

Fair question. So here is the whole picture, in layers, with the parts that are genuinely free marked as free and the parts that are genuinely uncertain marked as uncertain rather than dressed up with a number.

Layer 1: the AI itself

This is the layer people expect to be expensive, and it is the cheapest one.

• Free plan: ₱0. Claude and ChatGPT both have real free tiers. Not trials, not fourteen days. Free, with a cap on how much you can use in a stretch.
• Paid plan: about ₱1,140 a month ($20). That is the standard consumer tier for both.

For a lot of small businesses the free plan genuinely covers the work. If you are writing a week of captions on Monday and answering messages through the day, you may bump the cap occasionally and simply wait. That is inconvenient, not a blocker. We go into where the free plan actually breaks in is Claude free, and what can you really do with the free plan.

Layer 2: the small things around it

These are the costs nobody mentions and they are all small.

• A domain name: about ₱522 a year for a .com bought at cost. Avoid .ph unless you specifically need it, since it runs several times higher.
• Hosting a simple site: ₱0. For a normal business site with a few pages, the free tiers are not crippled versions, they are the real thing.
• SMS reminders: pay per message. Cheap individually, but it scales with your customer count, so it is the one line here that grows.

Add it up and the ongoing tooling for a small operation is often somewhere between ₱0 and about ₱1,700 a month. That is the honest answer to "what does AI cost", and it is also not the number that matters.

Layer 3: the build, which is the real cost

Here is the part that decides everything, and where we are going to refuse to give you a made-up figure.

A system that answers your messages, books people in, and chases the ones who do not show up is not a subscription. It is a build. Somebody has to sit down with how your business actually works, write it down, connect the pieces, and test it against real customers rather than a demo.

That cost varies enormously, because the work varies enormously. Answering ten repeat questions on one Facebook page is a small job. Something that touches your bookings, your stock and your receipts is not. Anyone who quotes you a firm price before understanding which one you are is guessing, and you will pay for the guess later either in money or in a system that does not fit.

The cost nobody counts until month two

Maintenance.

Systems drift. Facebook changes something. Your prices go up. You add a service. A staff member starts doing a step differently. None of that is dramatic, and all of it quietly degrades a system that nobody is watching.

This is where most cheap automation dies. It works beautifully for six weeks, then it is subtly wrong, and because nobody owns it, it gets abandoned and everyone goes back to typing. When you compare options, the question is not only "what does it cost to build" but "who notices when it stops being right".

The comparison that actually decides it

Stop comparing AI cost against zero. Compare it against what the problem costs you now. Two numbers, both of which you can estimate this afternoon:

1. Hours. How many hours a week do you or your staff spend typing the same answers, writing captions, and adding up sales? Multiply by what an hour of that person's time costs you.
2. Missed business. Roughly how many enquiries a month go unanswered long enough that the person buys elsewhere? Multiply by your average sale.

Most owners doing this honestly for the first time find the second number is far bigger than the first, and both are bigger than the tooling. If your two numbers come out small, that is a real and useful answer: your business does not need this yet, and you should not spend on it. We would rather tell you that on the call than build you something you do not need.

The short version

• The AI is ₱0 to about ₱1,140 a month
• The bits around it are small, roughly ₱522 a year for a domain and free hosting, plus SMS if you use it
• The build is the real cost and depends entirely on your business, which is why it should be quoted after an audit and not before
• Maintenance is a real line item, and pretending otherwise is how systems get abandoned
• None of it means anything until you compare it against your own hours and your own missed enquiries

Also worth reading: what the research actually says about AI and small business in Mindanao.