Claude Skills for Small Business: The Plugin That Hands Claude a Job List
Claude skills for small business are ready-made jobs inside a free plugin for paid Claude plans. Instead of typing the perfect prompt every time, you pick a job — a month of posts, a follow-up email, a restock check — and Claude drafts it for your approval.
Here's the part nobody tells you about working with AI: the blank chat box is the hardest part. You open Claude, you know it could help, and then you sit there wondering what to type. Skills fix that. Somebody already wrote the job description. You just say go.
I'm Christiana — Certified AI Consultant, and the person who will absolutely test a new tool on a real business before I tell you about it. This one is worth your attention, especially heading into the holiday rush.
What Are Claude Skills for Small Business?
Claude skills are pre-built workflows inside the Claude for Small Business plugin, which lives in Cowork in the Claude desktop app. Each skill is a named job Claude already knows how to do — onboarding itself on your business, planning a month of social posts, drafting lead follow-ups, reading your reviews, checking what needs restocking. You run one by typing its slash command or just describing the job in plain English. Every skill drafts and stages the work; nothing sends, posts, or pays until you approve it.
If you have already built your AI Business Brain, you are ahead of the game here. The plugin's setup skill asks the same kinds of questions your Brain already answers.
Do You Need the Small Business Plugin?
Short answer: no. Longer answer: it depends on how you work.
Best for: Claude users on a paid plan (Pro, Max, or Team) who keep re-typing the same kinds of requests — posts, follow-ups, review replies — and want them packaged.
Skip it if: you are on ChatGPT or Gemini (your Brain works the same in a Project or a Gem, and the ChatGPT vs. Claude vs. Perplexity breakdown can help you decide where you belong), or if a blank chat box genuinely doesn't slow you down.
And keep perspective: the plugin is one way to hand Claude repeat work. My 100 tasks your AI assistant can do for your business works with no plugin at all. Skills are a shortcut, not a requirement.
How Do You Install the Small Business Plugin?
Four steps, about ninety seconds:
Open the Claude desktop app, open Cowork, and click Customize in the left sidebar.
Under Plugins, click the + button.
Find Small Business and click Install.
In the chat bar, type
/and pick smb-onboard. It asks about your business and saves that context, so every other skill starts out knowing who you are. Have your finished Business Brain open — it asks the same kinds of questions.
My tip: Menu names change as the app updates, and Claude has been folding Cowork into the main app, so your screen may not match these steps word for word. If yours looks different, search for "Small Business" in the Plugins area. And start with nothing connected — some skills work from files or pasted text, and you can add connectors like Canva, Gmail, or Shopify later, one at a time.
How Do You Run a Skill?
Three ways, none of them code:
Type a slash. In the Cowork chat bar, type / and pick a skill from the list — /smb-onboard, /restock, /marketing-monday.
Describe the job. Say what you want in plain English — "give me a month of posts" — and Claude picks the skill that fits.
Ask what it can do. Type "what can you do" or "help me with my business" and the plugin suggests where to start.
Not every skill has a slash name. If you don't see the one you want in the list, describe the job instead.
Which Claude Skills Should You Try First This Holiday Season?
Start with the ones that match the work already on your plate. These are the holiday-relevant picks, with what each one ne.eds to run:
Holiday job | Skill | Try typing or saying | Needs |
|---|---|---|---|
Teach Claude your business | smb-onboard | /smb-onboard, or "set me up" | Nothing to start |
Set your brand look | brand-style | "update my brand" (paste your site link or describe it) | Nothing to start |
Decide what to promote | content-strategy | "what should I promote this month?" | Sales data from PayPal or QuickBooks |
Plan and write your posts | social-content-engine | "give me a month of posts" | Nothing to start. Canva and Shopify improve it |
Turn a brief into a campaign | canva-creator | "run this brief" | Canva |
Weekly growth check | marketing-monday | /marketing-monday | Whatever you have connected |
Reply to new inquiries fast | speed-to-lead | /speed-to-lead | Works from pasted inquiries |
Follow up with leads | outreach-composer | "draft a follow-up" | Draft-only without an email connector |
Answer customer questions | ticket-deflector | "where's my order" | Forward the email. Order lookups need Shopify or a payments tool |
Read your reviews | review-reputation | "what are people saying about us" | Works from pasted reviews |
Win back past customers | reactivate | "who hasn't ordered in a while" | Customer or order history |
Prep stock for the rush | restock | /restock | Shopify, Square, or a sales CSV |
Get found in search and AI answers | seo-ai-visibility | "how do I show up in ChatGPT" | Any public website |
Automate something you repeat | build-agent | "I do this every week, make it a thing I can ask for" | Nothing to start |
Picture it on a real holiday product: a shop getting a personalized family Christmas ornament ready for the season could run content-strategy to decide the push, social-content-engine to draft the posts, and restock to keep an eye on supplies — three jobs that usually eat a whole afternoon, drafted before lunch.
And if content is your bottleneck, skills pair well with a good prompt set — my Claude video editor starter prompts turn those drafted posts into video plans.
The Full List: Every Skill in the Plugin
Want the whole menu? Here's every skill in the plugin right now, grouped the way Claude groups them.
Money and finance
Skill | Run it | What it does | Needs |
|---|---|---|---|
plan-payroll | /plan-payroll | Builds a 30-day cash forecast, ranks overdue invoices, and drafts reminders | QuickBooks, PayPal |
month-heads-up | /month-heads-up | Finds your tightest week in the next 30 days and flags what to watch before month-end | QuickBooks |
close-month | /close-month | Reconciles your books against your payment processor and writes a close packet for your accountant | QuickBooks, PayPal |
price-check | /price-check | Builds a margin-by-product table and pricing scenarios with break-even math | QuickBooks |
tax-prep | /tax-prep | Calculates quarterly estimated taxes or builds a year-end 1099 list | QuickBooks |
cash-flow-snapshot | Describe the job | Builds a 30/60/90-day cash forecast and flags tight weeks | QuickBooks, PayPal |
invoice-chase | Describe the job | Ranks overdue invoices and drafts a reminder for each, based on how that customer has paid before | QuickBooks, PayPal |
margin-analyzer | Describe the job | Builds margin by product and pricing scenarios. You decide the prices | QuickBooks, PayPal |
month-end-prep | Describe the job | Reconciles books with your processor, flags discrepancies, and writes the close packet | QuickBooks, PayPal |
tax-season-organizer | Describe the job | Handles quarterly estimated taxes or a year-end 1099 list for your accountant | QuickBooks, PayPal |
Sales and marketing
Skill | Run it | What it does | Needs |
|---|---|---|---|
call-list | /call-list | Scores leads and writes call cards for the top ones | HubSpot |
sales-brief | /sales-brief | Ranks top and bottom sellers and drafts a content plan built around the winners | QuickBooks or PayPal |
run-campaign | /run-campaign | Reviews sales history, drafts an offer, builds assets, and stages the send | HubSpot, Canva |
lead-triage | Describe the job | Scores leads and writes call cards with talking points | HubSpot |
content-strategy | Describe the job | Finds what is selling and drafts a content plan around it | QuickBooks or PayPal |
canva-creator | Describe the job | Builds a campaign from a brief: posting calendar, designs, captions, and a staged email | Canva, HubSpot |
Customers and operations
Skill | Run it | What it does | Needs |
|---|---|---|---|
handle-complaint, ticket-deflector | /handle-complaint, or describe the job | Reads a customer email, checks their order and history, and drafts a reply | |
customer-pulse-check | /customer-pulse-check | Groups disputes, tickets, emails, and reviews into themes, each with a draft response | |
customer-pulse | Describe the job | Groups customer feedback into themes, most fixable problems first | |
crm-cleanup, crm-maintenance | /crm-cleanup, or describe the job | Finds stale deals, duplicate contacts, and missing fields, and shows findings before changing anything | |
review-contract, contract-review | /review-contract, or describe the job | Summarizes a contract in plain English, lists red flags, and produces a marked-up redline |
Business intelligence
Skill | Run it | What it does | Needs |
|---|---|---|---|
monday-brief | /monday-brief | A one-page start-of-week view of cash, sales, pipeline, calendar, and priorities | Whatever is connected |
friday-brief | /friday-brief | Compares revenue to last week and lists wins and watch items | PayPal or HubSpot |
quarterly-review | /quarterly-review | Writes a narrative on revenue and margin trends, customer health, opportunities, and risks | QuickBooks |
business-pulse | Describe the job | A one-page summary of cash, sales trend, pipeline, calendar, and items needing attention | Whatever is connected |
Hiring and setup
Skill | Run it | What it does | Needs |
|---|---|---|---|
job-post-builder | Describe the job | Writes a job post, an interview guide with a scoring rubric, and an offer letter template | Nothing |
smb-onboard | /smb-onboard | The setup skill. Asks about your business, helps connect tools, and saves your context for the other skills | Nothing |
Also in the current plugin
Skill | Run it | What it does | Needs |
|---|---|---|---|
marketing-monday | /marketing-monday | A weekly growth briefing: is marketing working, what customers are saying, and three actions for the week | Whatever is connected |
speed-to-lead | /speed-to-lead | Watches for new inquiries and drafts replies for your approval. Never sends on its own | Works from pasted inquiries |
restock | /restock | Turns what is selling into a reorder decision and drafts the purchase order and vendor email | Shopify, Square, or a sales CSV |
grow-pipeline | /grow-pipeline | Builds a ranked prospect list and writes outreach in your voice, with your approval at each step | Web research to start. A CRM |
pay-the-bills | /pay-the-bills | Reads and codes bills from your inbox, checks cash, and stages a payment run for approval | A ledger and Gmail or M365 |
social-content-engine | Describe the job | Keeps a rolling posting calendar, writes captions in your voice, and makes on-brand graphics, staged for approval | Nothing to start. Canva and Shopify improve it |
reactivate | Describe the job | Finds customers who stopped buying and drafts a win-back message for each | Customer or order history |
review-reputation | Describe the job | Pulls reviews into themes and drafts replies in your voice | Pasted reviews, or review sites |
seo-ai-visibility | Describe the job | Audits how you show up in search and AI answers, and cleans up product titles and descriptions for online stores | Any public website |
brand-style | Describe the job | Saves your brand look from a website link or a plain description | Nothing |
outreach-composer | Describe the job | Writes prospect outreach and follow-up sequences in your voice and queues each send for approval | Draft-only without an email connector |
build-agent | Describe the job | Turns a task you do by hand into a named skill you can run or schedule | Nothing |
build-connector | Describe the job | Connects a tool that has no official connector | Zapier |
What Should You Know Before You Connect Your Tools?
Skills draft and stage work. Nothing sends, posts, or pays until you approve it. Read drafts like you'd read anything going out under your name.
A skill can only see what your account can see. It reads data in tools you've connected, with the access your login already has — nothing beyond it. Skills with no connector listed work from what you paste or upload.
The list is a moving target. The plugin launched in May 2026 with 15 skills and counted 43 workflows by the fall (checked October 30, 2026). Your list may not match this table exactly, and that's fine — start with two or three, not all of them.
Speed matters more than volume. The reply-fast skills (speed-to-lead, ticket-deflector) are the holiday money skills. If phone inquiries are more your world, the same principle is behind AI voice assistants for small business — the first business to answer usually gets the sale.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Claude for Small Business plugin free?
The plugin itself is free, but it lives on paid Claude plans — Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise — inside the Claude desktop app's Cowork area. If you're already paying for Claude, installing it costs nothing extra.
Do Claude skills send or post things without asking me?
No. Skills draft, propose, and stage work in approval mode. Nothing sends, posts, or charges anything until you look at it and say yes.
Can I use these skills with ChatGPT or Gemini instead?
No — skills are a Claude plugin feature. But the underlying habit travels: a saved Business Brain in a ChatGPT Project or a Gemini Gem gives those tools the same kind of standing context, and you can run the same jobs with plain prompts.
My Claude app doesn't show a Cowork tab. What now?
Claude has been merging Chat and Cowork into one app (rolling out to Pro and Max first, as of fall 2026), so some accounts no longer see separate tabs. Look under Customize → Plugins and search "Small Business" — if your account has plugins, it will be there.
Do I have to connect my tools before the skills work?
No. Several skills — smb-onboard, brand-style, social-content-engine, build-agent — run from what you type, paste, or upload. Connect tools like Shopify, Canva, or Gmail later, one at a time, when a skill you love asks for data you are tired of pasting.
Your Move
Pick one job that eats your time every week. Install the plugin, run smb-onboard with your Business Brain open, then run the one skill that matches that job. Approve what it drafts like the boss you are. That's the whole experiment — twenty minutes, and you'll know if skills earn a place in your holiday season.
And if you want first dibs on plain-English breakdowns like this one, join Between Us & the Bots — AI news, workflows that actually work, and a little tech tea, every week. Ready to go further with a real person? Book a discovery call and we'll map where AI fits in your business.
Practical AI for the real world. — Christiana
