Anthropic says Claude for Small Business now has 43 workflows. Nobody has time to read 43 of anything, so we ranked the ten we think matter most, from most useful to least, using only what Anthropic itself has said about them. This is our ranking, based on what a typical small firm loses sleep over: missed enquiries, late payments and the end-of-month scramble. We have not used the product ourselves, and there is no UK date or UK pricing on any of Anthropic's pages, so treat this as a map, not a promise of what you can switch on in Britain today.
What it is, in two minutes
Claude for Small Business is a plugin that runs inside Claude Cowork, Anthropic's desktop app. According to Anthropic's September update, it is available on every paid Claude plan. Its small business page describes Pro for one person and Team for a business with more than one, both month to month, but lists no prices.
The rule that matters most is approval. Workflows start in approval mode, so Claude drafts and prepares and you decide. Payroll is staged for you to submit, bills wait for your approval before payment, and nothing sends without your say-so by default.
The ranking, most useful first
Our test was simple: how much does this job cost a small business when it goes wrong, and how much of it can Claude safely prepare for you?
1. Speed to lead
It answers new enquiries on nights and weekends with real meeting times and logs them in your CRM, and nothing sends until you approve. It is first because the customer who messages at 9pm usually goes to whoever replies first.
2. Chase invoices
Anthropic names an invoice chaser in the May launch, and its payroll workflow also chases overdue invoices before it readies the run. Money owed is money you cannot spend, so this is the quickest route from admin to cash.
3. Close the month
It reconciles your books against payment processors, flags what does not match and writes a plain-English profit and loss and a close packet for your accountant. It works best with a connected accounting tool, so check yours is on the list below.
4. Monday brief
Cash, sales, pipeline, your calendar and your top priority on one page. Anthropic's example posts it to Slack at 6:30am. It will not make you money by itself, but it saves the Monday morning hunt for numbers.
5. Proposal builder
It turns a voice memo and site photos into a proposal in your format, priced from your last three deals. Check the price before it goes anywhere, because a proposal that is wrong costs more than one that is slow.
6. Plan payroll
It checks you will have the cash, chases overdue invoices and readies the payroll run for you to submit. It sits mid-table only because it overlaps with the invoice and month-end jobs above. Anthropic describes payroll as staged for you, so you press the button.
7. Check margins
The margin analyser is named in the May launch, with little detail published. It matters because many small firms do not know which lines earn the least. You can try a rough version in a normal chat today, and we give a prompt below.
8. Social content engine
It plans next week's content, for example a two-week posting calendar with captions for your approval. Useful, but a draft calendar is easier to replace than a late invoice, so it ranks lower.
9. Grow pipeline
It finds prospects who resemble your best customers and writes outreach in your voice. Read every message before it goes out, because outreach in your name is your reputation.
10. Build agent
It turns a recurring manual task into a workflow you can run by name or on a schedule. It is last because you need to know which task to automate first, and the nine above are a good way to find out.
The rest of the list
Anthropic's pages also name Pay the bills, Call list, Restock, Marketing Monday, Win back lapsed customers, Lead triager, Contract reviewer, Month-end prepper, Tax-season organiser, Onboarding and Build connector. Tax prep covers quarterly taxes and 1099s, which are US terms, so check what applies to a UK firm before relying on it. Anthropic names no separate HR or customer service workflows, and says there are 43 in total but names only some publicly.
The 37 tools it connects to
Anthropic's September update lists these: Airwallex, Apollo, Atlassian, Canva, Clay, Docusign, Emergent, Expensify, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Gusto, HubSpot, Intuit Mailchimp, Intuit QuickBooks, Microsoft 365, monday.com, MYOB, NetSuite, Notion, PayPal, Ramp, RingCentral, Salesforce, Shopify, Slack, Square, Stripe, TikTok Ads, Trello, Wix, Xero, Zapier, Zoho Books, Zoho CRM, Zoho Desk and Zoom. Several are common in the UK, such as Xero, QuickBooks, Shopify, Stripe and Google Workspace. Others are US-centred, so check each one against how you actually work.
Three jobs to try today in a normal chat
You can do a rough version of the top jobs in a normal Claude chat with a few pasted lines. These prompts are our adaptations of the job names, not Anthropic's wording, and you read every draft before anything goes out.
Chase invoices. Paste a list of overdue invoices and ask: "Put these in order of who to chase first. For each, draft a short, polite reminder in a friendly British tone, firmer for anything over 30 days late. Do not send anything."
Check margins. Paste what you sold, what each item cost and what you charged: "Work out the profit margin on each line as a percentage. Show me the three lowest and suggest one change for each, and tell me what you are assuming." Check the sums yourself before you act on them.
Speed to lead. Paste your last ten enquiries: "Sort these into hot, warm and cold with one line on why. For the hot ones, draft a reply offering two times for a call this week."
What it could be worth
Here is arithmetic on our assumptions, not Anthropic's. Say the money admin in your week (chasing payments, checking margins, sorting enquiries) takes three hours. If a workflow trims a third of that, you get an hour back a week. Over 48 working weeks that is about 48 hours, or six working days. At £30 an hour that is roughly £1,440 a year of time. Your numbers will differ, so time your own week first. It is an illustration, the plans cost money, and the saving only exists if you use the drafts.
Where to start
Do not switch on forty workflows. Pick the top job that fits your week, try the copy-paste version for a fortnight, and compare it with doing it by hand. If it earns its place, connect your accounting or CRM tool so Claude can read the real figures. Anthropic also offers a free AI Fluency course with PayPal, and we run a free 30 minute AI audit if you would like help choosing.
Which of these ten would you hand over first?
