Before you pay for another AI app

The pitch: a slick demo, a small monthly fee, and a job it promises to take off your hands, like writing your quotes, scheduling your social posts or copying jobs from one system into another. Before you sign, make it pass one test. Can the AI assistant you might already pay for do that job?

I’m not against apps. I’m against paying twice for the same job.

What kinds of AI app are we talking about?

The ones that do one job you could describe in a sentence. Three kinds, for example:

• Integration tools. Apps that copy information from one app into another, so nobody types it twice.
• Quoting tools. Apps that turn your notes or a job description into a written quote.
• Social media managers. Apps that write your posts and schedule them to go out.

And others like them. Google’s head of startups has said apps that are a thin layer over the big AI models have their “check engine light” on, the dashboard warning that something is wrong.1 He was talking about a kind of app, not any one product, and so am I.

How do I check an AI app before I buy it?

Run these six steps, in order. You can do the first three this afternoon. They’re my method, not a study.

Step one: write down the one job

Write the job you want the app for in one sentence. “Turn my site visit notes into a quote the customer can read” is a job. “Save time on admin” isn’t, because you can’t test it.

Step two: list what you already pay for

Open last month’s bank and card statements and list every subscription, what it costs and what it’s for. Tick anything you used last week. Then look for two things: an AI assistant you already pay for, and anything on the list that already claims to do the job from step one.

If your email and documents come through a Microsoft or Google plan, check that plan’s page for an AI assistant. It’s worth knowing before you buy another one.

Step three: try the job in the AI assistant you have

Open ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or Gemini, whichever you’ve got. Take one real example of the job and change every name, phone number, address and email first; “Customer A” is fine. Then ask for exactly what the app promised.

For a quote, something like this:

I run a plumbing business in Western Sydney. Below are my notes from a site visit and my price list.

Write a quote the customer can read: a two-line summary of the job, the items and prices in a table, what’s not included, and how long the price holds. Plain English, Australian spelling.

Read what comes back as your customer would. Tell it what’s wrong and ask again. If after a few goes you still can’t use it, the app has earned a proper look.

Step four: read what the seller does with what you type

The Australian Signals Directorate, the government’s cyber security agency, tells small businesses to read an AI vendor’s settings, terms and privacy policy, because some platforms use what’s entered to train their models.2 So find four answers before you sign: does it learn from what I type, can I turn that off, who can read it, and where is it kept? If the app can’t tell you, that is an answer.

Ask one more: do my words get passed on to another AI company? If they do, there are two sets of terms to read, not one.

Step five: find out how you leave before you join

Find the cancel button before you sign, and check whether you’re locking in for a year. A new law, the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Unfair Trading Practices) Act 2026, signed into law on 6 July 2026, says that from 1 July 2027 a subscription contract needs a way out that is “easy to find” and “straightforward”, and online if you signed up online.3 It isn’t in force yet and this isn’t legal advice on your contract; until then, the seller’s own terms decide.

Step six: decide

You have three choices: buy it, use the AI assistant instead, or buy nothing yet. Buy it if it did the job and the AI assistant couldn’t, and you’re happy with the answers from steps four and five. Use the AI assistant if it did the job well enough for your customers.

If neither did the job well, buy nothing yet. The problem may be the job, not the tool.

Why step five matters: a big vendor in court

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), the national consumer watchdog, took Microsoft to court on 27 October 2025.4 It alleges Microsoft hid a cheaper Microsoft 365 plan without its Copilot AI from subscribers until they began to cancel. That’s an allegation, not a finding, and I found no outcome as at 26 September 2026.

If a cheaper plan only shows up when you head for the exit, the exit is worth finding first.

A made-up example: the quoting app

This one is made up, to show the steps working. A plumbing business with four staff is offered an AI quoting app: snap the job, get a quote.

• Step one. The job: turn the plumber’s site notes into a quote the customer can read and accept.
• Step two. The owner already pays for job management software, an accounting app and an email plan with an AI assistant in it. The job software already sends quotes customers can accept on their phone.
• Step three. The owner pastes yesterday’s notes, names taken out, and the price list into the AI assistant. Its second go is usable.
• Step four. The quoting app’s privacy page doesn’t say whether it learns from what’s typed.
• Step five. It’s a yearly contract, cancelled by email 30 days before renewal.
• Step six. Don’t buy. The AI assistant writes the wording, and the job software sends the quote.

Change one answer and the call changes. If its attempts had been unusable after three goes, the app would have earned a trial.

What stays, whatever the AI can do

Payroll stays. Employers report each pay to the ATO, the tax office, through Single Touch Payroll, which sends your payroll details to the ATO each time you pay staff. The ATO says that needs software built for it.5

Your accounts, your till and your booking system stay too. They hold your business’s records, and a general AI assistant doesn’t replace them. That’s my advice, not a rule.

Fewer apps, and the right ones. Not none.

What never goes into a public AI tool

Customer details. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), the privacy regulator, recommends that “organisations do not enter personal information, and particularly sensitive information, into publicly available generative AI tools”.6 That means AI tools anyone can sign up to online, and I’d treat an app’s free trial the same way.

Why there’s no saving figure in this post

The ACCC says a claim about a future saving needs “reasonable grounds” when it’s made, and the business making it has to prove them.7 I don’t have before-and-after numbers from clients yet, so I’m not going to make one up. Be wary of anyone who quotes you a saving before they’ve seen your bills, me included.

Where we come in

“Fewer apps, not more. We keep the ones worth paying for, and get ChatGPT or Claude doing the rest.”

That line names two, and the same goes for Copilot and Gemini if that’s what you already use. “The rest” is something we prove on your jobs, one at a time, not something I can promise from here.

On our menu it’s the card called Stop paying for what you do not use: every subscription counted against use, then put to work or cancelled. It sits in our lowest price band, one dollar sign. You don’t pay us forever.

Before you pay for another AI app, book a free hour. We’ll tell you straight if you need it.