# Pick Perplexity or ChatGPT for an SMB in 30 minutes: the £15 decision Source: https://getstartedwithai.net/tutorials/perplexity-vs-chatgpt-smb Site: Get Started With AI Tagline: Build AI automations that actually run your business. Audience: solo professionals, freelancers, consultants and AI implementers in training Contact: hello@getstartedwithai.co.uk This Markdown companion is generated from the prerendered page for AI crawlers. # Pick Perplexity or ChatGPT for an SMB in 30 minutes: the £15 decision Score the same five jobs across both tools and you have the right call for your one-seat SMB by the end of this page. Four use cases decide it: cited research and live web answers go to Perplexity; drafting and document analysis go to ChatGPT. The £16 versus £15 decision lands most UK SMBs on Plus because drafting and document analysis make up roughly 70 percent of typical work; Perplexity earns its seat when cited research clears 25 percent of the week. ## The two tools, in plain terms ChatGPT Plus at about £20 a month is a drafting and reasoning tool with a web browser, a code interpreter and a memory feature. Perplexity Pro at about £16 a month is a research engine that answers questions with cited sources and a model selector that includes GPT-5.5, Claude and Sonar Pro. ChatGPT thinks about what you give it; Perplexity searches and cites. ## The four use cases that decide it - Cited research and fact-finding (Perplexity wins). Anything that needs sources you can show a client or a regulator. Perplexity surfaces the citation as standard; ChatGPT requires you to ask for it and then fact-check the answer anyway. - Drafting and rewriting (ChatGPT wins). Long-form drafts, tone calibration, brand voice work, structured writing against an uploaded template. Perplexity will draft, but the calibration is weaker because the chat memory is shorter. - Document analysis (ChatGPT wins for most SMB cases). Uploading a contract, a board pack, a spreadsheet and asking for analysis. ChatGPT Plus and Business handle PDFs, DOCX and CSV uploads up to 100MB and remember the document across the chat. - Live web answers (Perplexity wins). UK regulator updates, supplier news, current company filings. Perplexity pulls fresh sources; ChatGPT browses but is more selective. ## The £15 a month answer for most UK SMBs For an SMB with one paid AI seat, ChatGPT Plus at £16 wins on weight of use. Drafting and document analysis make up 70 percent of typical SMB work; cited research makes up 20 percent; live web answers make up 10 percent. Plus covers the 70 and the 10 acceptably; Perplexity Pro covers the 20 better than Plus does. ## When the answer is both For an SMB with three or more paid seats and a research-heavy use case (consultancy, professional services, journalism, due diligence), the right answer is both. ChatGPT Business at $25 per user for the drafting and document analysis work; Perplexity Pro at £15 per user added for the two or three people who do the cited research. ## The 30-minute test that picks the winner for your business 1. List the five most common writing or research jobs you do in a week. Be specific. Drafting client proposals, researching a competitor, answering a customer query, summarising a board paper, finding a regulator update. 2. Tag each job as drafting, document analysis, cited research or live web. Most SMBs find the breakdown is roughly 60-20-10-10. 3. Run the same five jobs through both tools side by side. Same input, same prompt, same time budget. Score each on output quality, time taken and citation strength. 4. Add up the scores. The winner takes most SMBs to ChatGPT Plus; the case for Perplexity is strong only where cited research is more than 25 percent of the week. ## The configuration tweak nobody mentions Perplexity Spaces work like ChatGPT Projects. Upload your brand voice notes, your supplier list and your category structure into a Space and the citation engine runs against your context as well as the open web. This closes 60 percent of the drafting gap that pushes most SMBs to ChatGPT in the first place. Spaces are free on Perplexity Pro; turn one on before you decide. ## What you ship A side-by-side scoring sheet, a per-seat recommendation and a 30-day rollout plan. For most UK SMBs that is ChatGPT Plus on the one seat, with Perplexity Pro added per power user when cited research lifts above the 25 percent threshold. ## How to sell this as a paid audit A tools-decision audit prices at £350 to £700 for a UK SMB. The deliverable is the scoring sheet, the recommendation per role, and the rollout plan for the first 30 days. The implementer angle is your own scoring sheet on screen during the demo with the live test running. ## Common mistakes - Picking on price. Both tools are inside £25 a month per seat; the picking criterion is fit, not cost. - Skipping the side-by-side test. Reading reviews loses to running the same five jobs through both tools. - Buying both before testing one. Most SMBs find ChatGPT Plus does 90 percent of what they need once they have actually used it. - Treating Perplexity as a search engine replacement. It is a research tool; the queries that win on Perplexity are different shapes from Google queries. ## What to build next Run the Perplexity research workflow tutorial to wring full value out of a Pro seat, and the ChatGPT Plus setup tutorial to get the drafting calibration right. ## Related builds More tutorials in Tool Comparisons. Each one runs in 60 to 90 minutes and ships a finished asset. ### Ship one working AI system in 30 minutes: the solo professional setup 30 to 60 minutes. Beginner + Solo Pro. [Open tutorial](/tutorials/start-using-ai-this-week-30-min) ### Stop paying for tools you do not use: when an AI upgrade pays back 30 to 60 minutes. Beginner + Solo Pro. [Open tutorial](/tutorials/free-vs-paid-ai-tools-payback) ### Replace 10 hours a week in your first 30 days as a solopreneur 30 to 60 minutes. Solo Pro. [Open tutorial](/tutorials/ai-for-solopreneurs-first-30-days) ### Keep client data out of the wrong place: the AI privacy and security build 60 to 90 minutes. Solo Pro / Implementer. [Open tutorial](/tutorials/ai-privacy-security-solo-pro) ## Questions people ask before they start ### Is Perplexity safe on UK GDPR? Perplexity Pro retains conversation history and uses inputs to improve the service unless you opt out in the privacy settings. The processor terms are documented; for an SMB handling customer personal data, set the opt-out and treat Perplexity as a research tool, not a customer-data processor. ### Does ChatGPT Plus include the model selector? Plus includes GPT-5.5 and the lightweight reasoning models. Perplexity Pro includes GPT-5.5, Claude Sonnet 4.6, Sonar Pro and Gemini 3.1 Pro in a single subscription. For an SMB that wants to compare model outputs without three subscriptions, Perplexity is the cheaper way in. ### What about Claude Pro on top? Claude Pro at £15 is a third option that wins on long-document handling and tone calibration. Most SMBs end up running ChatGPT Plus plus Claude Pro for £30 a month rather than ChatGPT Plus plus Perplexity. The right pair depends on whether you do more cited research or more long-document work. ### How does this fit with the three-way model comparison? That tutorial picks the LLM for drafting work. This tutorial picks whether you need a research engine on top. Most SMBs read the three-way model comparison first to pick the LLM, then read this one to decide on the research seat. ### Will Perplexity replace Google for my business? For research, mostly yes. For navigation (finding a Companies House page, a supplier site, a local map), Google still wins. The right pattern is Perplexity for the research half of the question and Google for the navigation half.