The SMB Breakdown

Claude for Small Business: the full breakdown

By Dan Donovan, @askdandonovan

Anthropic just dropped Claude inside the tools you already pay for: QuickBooks, PayPal, HubSpot, Canva, DocuSign, Google Workspace and Microsoft 365. Here's exactly what launched, what it actually does, and how to switch it on today.

15 Workflows
7+ Integrations
1 Toggle to install
$0 Extra cost
What it is

Claude for Small Business is a package of connectors and ready-to-run workflows that put Claude inside the tools small businesses depend on (finance, ops, sales, marketing, HR and customer service), all from one place.

It runs inside Claude Cowork (the desktop app). One toggle installs everything. No IT, no integration project, no consultant. You ask Claude to do a job, it pulls data from the connected apps, and you approve before anything sends, posts or pays.

What's in this breakdown
The 7 connectors
Every tool Claude now plugs into directly
The 15 workflows
Pre-built jobs by category: finance, ops, sales, marketing
Turn it on in 5 minutes
The exact steps from desktop install to first workflow
4 prompts to try first
Copy-paste jobs that pay back the setup time immediately
Before you start: You need a paid Claude plan: Pro ($20/mo), Max ($100 or $200/mo) or Team ($25 to $30/seat). The Small Business package itself is free; it's a toggle, not a separate plan. If you're not on a paid plan, sign up at claude.com first.

Turn it on

Five minutes, four steps. You'll be running a real workflow on real data by the end.

1

Open the Claude desktop app

Claude for Small Business only runs in the desktop app, not the browser. If you've been using claude.com in Chrome, you'll need to install the app.

Download the desktop app for Mac or Windows here:

Download 
https://claude.com/download

Sign in with the same account as your paid plan.

2

Switch to Cowork mode

Cowork is the new mode inside the desktop app where Claude can read from and act inside your tools. Think of it as Claude with hands instead of Claude just answering questions.

Open the mode switcher in the top-left of the desktop app and pick Cowork. The sidebar changes. You'll see a plugins panel appear.

3

Toggle on the Small Business plugin

Open the plugin panel and find Claude for Small Business. Flip it on. That single toggle installs all 15 workflows and exposes every connector below.

The 7 confirmed connectors:

Intuit QuickBooks
PayPal
HubSpot
Canva
DocuSign
Google Workspace
Microsoft 365

Click each connector you use and run through the OAuth login. This is the same "sign in with Google" flow you've done a hundred times. Claude doesn't store your passwords.

On data security: Anthropic doesn't train on your data by default on Team and Enterprise plans. Existing permissions hold: if an employee can't see something in QuickBooks today, they can't see it through Claude either.
4

Run your first workflow

Easiest way to test it: ask for a morning brief. Claude will pull your cash position from QuickBooks, your PayPal settlements, pipeline movement from HubSpot, and your calendar, then surface the three things that matter today.

Paste into Claude (Cowork mode) 
Give me a morning brief. Pull my cash position from QuickBooks, settled payments from PayPal in the last 7 days, deal movement in my HubSpot pipeline this week, and anything on my Google Calendar today. Then tell me the three things I should focus on and why.

Claude will show you the plan before it runs. Approve it. Watch it work.

The 15 workflows

Anthropic shipped 15 pre-built jobs across six categories. These are the ones they've named publicly. Every one is a Cowork plugin you can run by name.

Finance
  • Invoice chaser: Ranks overdue invoices and drafts reminder emails for approval
  • Month-end prepper: Reconciles QuickBooks against PayPal, flags mismatches, writes the P&L narrative
  • Margin analyzer: Pulls revenue and cost data, surfaces where margin is leaking
  • Tax-season organizer: Sorts transactions, prepares packets ready for your accountant
Operations
  • Planning payroll: Pulls cash position, projects payroll runway, flags risk
  • Closing the month: End-to-end month-end close across your finance stack
  • Getting a pulse on your business: Morning brief across cash, settlements, pipeline, calendar
Sales
  • Lead triager: Scores and segments new HubSpot leads, recommends next action
  • Contract reviewer: Reads DocuSign contracts, surfaces risk clauses, drafts redlines
Marketing
  • Running your next campaign: Analyses revenue trends, plans the promo, generates Canva assets, segments HubSpot lists
  • Content strategist: Plans content from your brand voice and recent performance data
HR & Customer Service
  • Workflows for onboarding, employee comms, support triage and ticket drafting are also included in the package. Anthropic hasn't named all 15 individually yet. The categories above account for the workflows confirmed in the launch announcement.
Important: Every workflow above is a plan Claude shows you first. Nothing sends, posts or pays until you approve it.

4 prompts to try first

Don't faff around. These are the four jobs that pay back the setup time on day one: copy, paste, approve.

1. Chase every overdue invoice in one go

Cowork prompt 
Pull every overdue invoice from QuickBooks. Sort by age and dollar amount. For each one, draft a friendly chase email from me — match the tone of the last email I sent that customer. Show me the full list for approval before sending anything.

2. Run a full month-end close in 20 minutes

Cowork prompt 
Run my month-end close for last month. Reconcile every QuickBooks transaction against my PayPal settlements. Flag anything that doesn't match. Pull my P&L and write a one-page narrative explaining the month — what drove revenue, what drove costs, what's different from last month, and what I should watch heading into next month.

3. Plan and build next month's promotion

Cowork prompt 
Look at my last 90 days of revenue in QuickBooks and identify my best-performing product or service. Design a one-week promotional campaign around it — landing page copy, three email variants, and matching social tiles in Canva. Build the HubSpot segment of customers most likely to buy. Show me everything before anything goes out.

4. Get a contract reviewed before you sign

Cowork prompt 
Pull the latest contract sitting in my DocuSign inbox. Read it end to end. Tell me: (1) the three clauses that would worry a lawyer, (2) the deal terms in plain English, (3) what I should push back on before signing, and (4) any auto-renewal or termination language I need to know about.
Free training: Anthropic also dropped a free AI Fluency for Small Business course, on-demand, no sign-up gate. If you want the deeper "how to talk to Claude" foundations: anthropic.skilljar.com

The honest take

I've spent the last decade watching small business owners drown in the same five tasks: chasing invoices, closing the month, planning payroll, triaging leads, and writing the campaign. This is the first time those five jobs live in one place with one operator.

It won't replace your bookkeeper. It won't run the business while you sleep. But if you genuinely run the apps in the connector list, this is the cleanest "save 5 hours a week" lever Anthropic has shipped, and it's free if you already pay for Claude.

The leverage isn't in the workflows themselves. It's in everything you stop doing manually after 6pm.