Can I use ChatGPT for quotes, invoices and customer emails as a tradesperson? What four AI tools cost and what they do with your data

Yes. A general AI chatbot will draft a quote from your site notes or a chasing message, and the plan a one-person firm would buy costs about £20 a month. Two things decide whether it is safe for customer paperwork: what the plan does with what you type, and who checks the draft before it leaves the firm.

This is a desk comparison of published prices and data terms, read on 1 October 2026. We did not test which tool writes the better quote. Check each page before you buy.

What each one costs and what it does with your data

How we read each one:

• ChatGPT. The pricing page left its price boxes empty when we loaded it, so the pound figures are from the UK price data that page loads. Its plan table lists training with an opt-out on every individual plan. OpenAI's help page says you opt out under Settings, then Data controls, and that a thumbs up or down can still send that whole conversation for training.
• Claude. Claude's page first loads with US dollar prices and swaps to its UK version once it finishes loading. The UK version showed Team at £18 a seat a month billed annually or £22.50 billed monthly, and Pro at £18 a month or £180 for a year paid up front, all including 20% VAT. Anthropic's privacy pages say chats on its individual plans are used to improve its models if you choose to allow it, or if a chat is flagged for a safety review. Team content is not used by default.
• Copilot. This is an add-on, so you also need a Microsoft 365 business plan. Microsoft shows an offer price of £13.80 until 31 December 2026, for the first year only. Microsoft's privacy page says prompts and responses are not used to train the underlying models.
• Gemini. Google lists Gemini in Gmail and chat in the Gemini app on Business Starter, with 30% off the first three months for new customers. Its privacy page says your content is not used for model training outside your domain without permission.

What a year costs

• One person on ChatGPT Plus: 12 × £20 = £240, VAT included.
• Two people on ChatGPT Business, paid monthly: 2 × £18 × 12 = £432 before VAT. On annual billing: 2 × £15 × 12 = £360.
• One person on Google Workspace Business Starter: 12 × £5.90 = £70.80 before tax.
• The Copilot add-on for one user, paid yearly: 12 × £16.10 = £193.20 before VAT, plus the Microsoft 365 plan.

Three prompts that work for trade paperwork

1. A quote from site notes. "Turn these site notes into an itemised quote. Put labour and materials on separate lines, state what is excluded, and add my payment terms: [your terms]. Do not invent prices. Where I have not given a price, write PRICE NEEDED. Notes: [paste notes]."
2. A chasing message. "Write a short, polite message to a customer whose invoice was due 7 days ago. Give the invoice number, amount and due date. Ask when I can expect payment and whether anything is wrong with the work. Do not mention interest, charges or court."
3. A reply to an enquiry. "A customer has asked about [job]. Write a reply that thanks them and asks what I need to price it: what the job is, where, when they want it done, photos, and their budget. Offer a survey visit on [two dates]. Do not give a price."

Each prompt tells the tool what to leave out, because it knows nothing about your customer that you have not typed. Statutory interest applies to business customers only, and a chatbot asked for a "firm" letter cannot tell a householder from a company. Our three chasing letters show the wording for each kind of customer. A quote agreed in the customer's home needs cancellation information, and the tool has no way of knowing where the job was agreed; see how to write a quote.

Leave the customer's surname and address out of the prompt. Add them when you paste the draft into your quote or email. The ICO's Guidance on AI and data protection has a chapter on security and data minimisation. It was last updated on 15 March 2023 and carries a notice that it is under review. We did not find an ICO page written for a small firm using a chatbot.

The one job not to hand over

Certificates. An Electrical Installation Certificate or an EICR records what a qualified person inspected and tested, and that person signs it. A chatbot has not been to site. It cannot know a test result, and any figure it supplies to fill a gap in a schedule is made up. Our guide to electrical certificates sets out who signs what.

Check any VAT or CIS figure in a draft invoice against the CIS deduction calculator before it goes out.

How many firms use it

In a March 2026 survey of 167 UK small business owners, 75% had tried an AI tool in the past 12 months and 16% said the output was too generic for their business. Only 13% of them ran trades firms, about 22 people, and the survey was run by HeyBRB, which sells AI automation. Treat it as a rough guide.

The usual answer to generic output is to give the tool more of your own material: your terms, your price list, an old quote you were happy with.

Where Overlyft fits

Overlyft is an AI agency for small firms. It can set up an AI Quote Writer that turns site notes into a quote from the firm's own price list, and the owner checks it before a customer sees it. It is not in the table above.

This is general information, not legal advice.