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Starting a business: hire an admin person or use Claude?

By Chad Maxwell, Prompt Works Studio, Toowoomba · Published 9 November 2026
Drafted with AI, approved by Prompt Works Studio.

It's 9 pm and you're at the kitchen table. The ABN came through last week. Your inbox has quotes to send, a supplier to chase and a form you still haven't filled in. You've got a job ad half written for a part-time admin person. Then a mate tells you Claude could do most of that for the price of a couple of coffees a week.

That's a made-up night, but it's a real question for a lot of people starting out. And hiring has a bit more admin in it this year: from 1 July 2026, the ATO says super is paid for each payday.

The short version: a lot of new businesses can't afford to hire yet. That doesn't mean the admin isn't there. It means you're doing it. So the first choice is often between doing it all yourself and doing it with help from AI. Hiring often comes later, and it costs more than the wage. Here are the facts on both, then what I chose and why, so you can weigh them for your own business.

I run my own business on Claude, so that's what I'm using as my example here. Setting up Claude for small businesses is also what I sell, so keep that in mind as you read.

Why does the admin land on you?

When you're starting out, the money usually goes on the work that earns it. The quotes, the invoices, the chasing and the forms still need doing, so they get done by you, at night or between jobs.

So for a lot of new owners, the question is how much of that time AI can take off them. AI is turning up in more of the tools we already use. Microsoft 365 Business Basic, for one, now comes with AI chat. So if you're starting a business now, it's worth knowing your options. I'll share my own experience with Claude as I go.

How much time can Claude save?

Anthropic, the company that makes Claude, looked at 100,000 real conversations in a study published in November 2025. Claude's own estimate was that it cut the time for those tasks by about 80%.

Anthropic is careful with that number. It's Claude estimating, and it doesn't count time people spend on the task outside the chat, so Anthropic says the figure "might overstate" the real gain. Checking takes time too, so your saving will be smaller.

The same study says trials that timed real people found smaller savings, from 56% down to 14%, and some found people took longer. It also says Claude overestimates how long short tasks take, and a quote or an email is a short task. So don't bank on 80%. Time a week of your own admin with Claude and without, and you'll know.

What does an admin person really cost?

The Clerks award covers people who mainly do clerical work, unless another award covers your industry. From 1 July 2026, its lowest adult rate is $26.97 an hour. A casual gets a 25% loading, so $33.71 an hour.

Say you hire someone part time at the entry rate for 20 hours a week. That's $539.40 a week in wages, plus 12% super, which comes to $604.13. Over a year it's about $31,400. Then there's everything else:

None of that makes hiring wrong. A good admin person is worth it once the work and the money are there. Until then, what do you do? That was the question I faced when I started out.

Why did I pick Claude?

After a lot of research, I landed on Claude. For me, it stood out for two reasons.

First, Anthropic trains Claude on a written set of principles it calls a constitution, and it publishes it. Anthropic says that constitution plays "a crucial role" in training, and it's honest that Claude doesn't always live up to it.

Second, Anthropic has an offering for small businesses, with "ready-to-run workflows you sign off on", and that suits a business with a lot of admin. I wanted a product that suited the kind of business I was building.

What does Claude cost?

Claude's Pro plan is $34 a month, or $340 for the year if you pay up front. The Max plan, with five times Pro's use, is $170.01 a month. All of those include GST.

Here's what the tools have cost me to set up my own business:

That's $65.50 to get going, then $223.91 a month. I'm on Max because I use Claude every day. Most people starting out would begin on Pro.

There are costs that aren't on the price list. You have to learn it, set it up for your business and check what it writes. It keeps changing, so the learning doesn't stop. Every plan has usage limits, so on a big day you can run out. If you'd rather not set it up yourself, paying someone to do it is a cost too. And if you hire later, they'll need a plan of their own.

What does a person bring that Claude can't?

A person can answer the phone, greet someone at the counter and take the mail to the post office. Over time they get to know your customers and how you like things done. Once you've trained them, they can own a job.

Claude can draft the quote, the email and the chase-up letter, sort out a messy spreadsheet and write up your notes. But it can't do anything physical, and it only knows your business from what you give it.

Can you trust what Claude writes?

Not without checking it. Anthropic's help page says Claude "can write things that might look correct but are very mistaken", and that people shouldn't rely on it "as a singular source of truth". So someone needs to read what it writes before it goes out.

On the Pro and Max plans, Anthropic says it will use your chats to improve its models if you choose to allow it. That's a setting. Whatever the setting, it can also use chats flagged for a safety review. If you rate a chat with the thumbs up or down, it keeps that whole chat for up to 5 years. Check the setting before customer details go near it.

So which is it?

For me, Claude hasn't replaced an admin person. It's let me do more on my own while the business gets going. If you're starting a business in 2026 or 2027, I think learning about AI is a must.

Choosing is a bit like your first car. Some people buy new, some buy used and some borrow one until they know what they need. None of them is wrong.

Write down your hours, cost both options with your own numbers and see which one fits.

Want to know where AI fits in your business? Book a call.