01
Monday Brief
Cash, sales, pipeline and overdue invoices on one page before your first coffee, pulled from your accounting and CRM rather than retyped.
Claude setup consultant · Atlantic Canada · Fixed priceWe set up Claude for your team, teach them to run it, and leave.
Anthropic's Claude Team plan, tuned to how your business actually works, with your staff trained in one session and a one-page runbook left behind. For organizations of 2 to 25 people, nonprofits and associations included, across Atlantic Canada. From $3,500. In much of Atlantic Canada a CBDC's advisory program may reimburse 75% of the fee to $5,000, which would leave the owner paying under $1,000. Each office decides whether a setup like this qualifies and approves it before we start, so that is the first call. In Nova Scotia, Halifax included, the province's Small Business Development Program is the other one to ask about.
What the tool already does
Five things Claude can do for a small business this month.
Anthropic ships a free Small Business plugin for Claude with dozens of ready-made workflows that connect to the tools a small business already runs on. These five are the ones we set up first. They are Anthropic's; our job is to tune them to your business.
02
Speed to Lead
After-hours inquiries get qualified, answered and logged, so the Saturday-night quote request is not still sitting there on Monday.
03
Proposal Builder
A voice memo from the truck becomes a priced, branded proposal you check before it goes out.
04
Close the Month
Reconciled accounts and a close packet ready for your accountant, with the odd transactions flagged for a person to look at.
05
Marketing Monday
Next week's posts and your review replies, drafted and waiting for an OK.
Every one of these runs in approval mode. Claude drafts and stages; a person approves before anything sends, posts or pays.
Try it with your own numbers
What would it do to your week?
Pick the activities that eat your time, put in your hours and what an hour is worth, and see where the setup pays for itself. No form to see it, and nothing leaves your browser unless you ask for the result by email.
What you need
Five things, and none of them is a developer.
You buy the plan from Anthropic on your own card. We never hold your billing or your data.
A Claude Team plan, bought from Anthropic on your own card.
Standard seats are USD 20 a month per person on an annual plan (25 month to month). Premium seats, for whoever runs the heavy finance work, are USD 100 (125 monthly). Two-seat minimum. The Claude desktop app, where the workflows run, is included. Registered Canadian charities can get Claude for Nonprofits seats from USD 8 a month; a nonprofit or association that is not a registered charity pays the standard rate.
The Claude desktop app on each person's computer.
Mac or Windows. If an IT provider manages your machines, they need to allow it.
The tools you already use.
Claude connects to 37 of them, including QuickBooks, Xero, HubSpot, Shopify, Square, Stripe, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Slack and Zoho. If your tool is not on the list, a spreadsheet upload works with no connector at all.
A temporary Owner seat for us.
You add Aurenia as an Owner on your plan for the setup window and remove it at hand-off. The runbook has that step in it so it does not get forgotten.
No tokens. No API keys.
Nothing on the Team plan is billed by usage beyond the seats. If someone told you AI means a metered bill you cannot predict, that is a different product.
How it runs
The Setup tier, step by step.
Scoping call
A 30-minute call. We pick the seat mix, list the tools, and you buy the plan. You name who will be the Owner.
We build your plugin
Before setup, we write a small private plugin for your business: your business on one page (what you sell, who approves what, the numbers Claude must never guess), three workflows tuned to your tools, and your runbook. It is reviewed before it goes near your team.
Setup
Seats invited, the desktop app installed, the Small Business plugin set to install by default for everyone, your private plugin pushed to your org, and two connectors wired and tested on your real data.
Staff session
Ninety minutes with your staff, on their own accounts, running the Monday Brief on your real numbers.
Hand-off
One-page runbook with the off switch. Our Owner seat is removed. You are on your own plan with nothing of ours in the way.
What it costs
Three tiers. Pick the one that matches your headcount.
Setup
2 to 10 seats, owner-led
$3,500
one-time
- Team plan provisioned and seats invited
- Small Business plugin plus a private Aurenia plugin for your business, pushed org-wide
- Three workflows tuned to your tools
- Two connectors live
- One-page runbook with the off switch
- 90-minute staff session
Setup + Workflows
5 to 25 seats, with a bookkeeper or ops lead
$6,500
one-time
- Everything in Setup
- Up to six tuned workflows across finance, sales and marketing
- A connector map for your whole stack
- A cheat sheet per role
- A 30-day check-in
Care
Ongoing Claude support, any tier, after hand-off
$10/ seat / month
optional
- Quarterly plugin refresh when Anthropic updates it
- Email help within one business day, including small fixes to your workflows
- An adoption check each month: did the Monday Brief run?
$60 a month minimum. Registered charities on Claude for Nonprofits: $49 a month. A call is $75 per half hour, and a new workflow is quoted.
Seats are billed by Anthropic, in USD, on top of these fees. All prices CAD. What the seats cost in Canadian dollars, worked out for 5, 10 and 25 people.
Funding it
Most of the fee may be covered.
Both tiers sit under the fee where the CBDC advisory program stops paying its full 75%, on purpose. Whether a Claude setup qualifies is your local CBDC's call, and they approve it before the work starts, so that is the first call to make. If you are already planning a bigger technology push, ACOA REGI is worth a look too.
CBDC Consultant Advisory Services
ACOA-funded, through your local Community Business Development Corporation. As reported, up to 75% of consulting fees to $5,000, for businesses and nonprofits inside a CBDC service area, which covers most of the four Atlantic provinces outside the largest city cores (there is none in the Halifax core). Each office decides what qualifies: the program is written around diagnostics, management practices and business planning, so ask whether a Claude setup with staff training counts before we start. If it does, the Setup tier leaves the owner paying under $1,000.
Program detailsACOA Regional Economic Growth through Innovation (REGI)
Federal, interest-free financing, not a grant, repaid over time, for AI adoption and technology work. Up to 75% of eligible costs with no fixed maximum. For-profit businesses only, and a better fit folded into a larger technology project than applied for on this setup alone. Confirm eligibility with ACOA before you count on it.
Program detailsNova Scotia Small Business Development Program
Typically 50% of one-time consulting fees to $15,000 for Nova Scotia businesses, Halifax included, where there is no CBDC. On the Setup tier that would leave $1,750. Confirm the program is open before you count on it.
New Brunswick Digital Boost 3.0
New Brunswick's approved-provider model for digital adoption. Confirm the current provider listing before you plan around it.
None of these is a promise. Programs pause, caps move, intake windows close, and each office decides what qualifies. When we write "may", we mean it.
See all funding programsWho is flying this
You are. AI is the autopilot, and the runbook says how to take the controls.
Every workflow we set up runs in approval mode: Claude drafts and stages, a person approves before anything sends, posts or pays. The one-page runbook says how to pause a workflow, revoke a connector, remove a seat, and export your data, in that order, in plain language. If Aurenia vanished the day after hand-off, your team could still run it, and still switch it off.
Common questions
The fine print, in plain English.
Can't we just ask Claude to set it up ourselves?
Yes, and if you are the technical one in the shop, do. Anthropic's onboarding is good, the Small Business plugin is free and installs itself, and our guide to it is on the blog. What we see when people go it alone is that they get a working chat window and stop there: the connectors never get wired, no workflow ever runs on real invoices, and six months later Claude is a better search box. What you are paying for is the part that gets skipped: connectors wired and tested, three to six workflows running on your real data with a person approving before anything sends, your staff trained in one room, a runbook with the off switch, and someone on the phone at day 30. Run the hours calculator first. If the payback on the fee is longer than a quarter, do not hire us.
Do you take a commission from Anthropic?
No. There is no referral or affiliate program to take one from, and we would not take it if there were. You buy the seats from Anthropic directly. Our revenue is the fee on this page and nothing else, which is the same rule we apply to every vendor we recommend.
Why Claude, and not a survey of the AI tools out there?
Three reasons, and they are about running a small business rather than about which model is cleverest this month. The Team plan gives an owner real governance: one place to add and remove people, and to decide which tools Claude can reach. It does not train on your business data by default. And the plugin model lets us leave something behind, a small private plugin in your own account, rather than a folder of prompts on one laptop. When we help you pick your core systems, that is a different engagement and we survey the field properly. This one is about a team assistant.
Do we need API keys or tokens?
No. The Team plan is billed per seat by Anthropic. Nothing is metered by usage on top of that, and no API key is involved. If a project ever needs custom automation against an API, that is a separate scope and we say so before it starts.
What does the Team plan cost us on top of your fee?
Standard seats are USD 20 a month per person on an annual plan, or 25 month to month. Premium seats, for the one or two people running heavy finance workflows, are USD 100 annual or 125 monthly. Two-seat minimum, billed by Anthropic in US dollars. A five-person shop in Moncton with one premium seat and four standard ones is about USD 180 a month on the annual plan. Registered Canadian charities can get Claude for Nonprofits seats from USD 8 a month; a nonprofit or association that is not a registered charity pays the standard rate.
What happens to our data?
It stays in your Claude Team account, which you own. Anthropic does not train on Team plan business data by default. We work inside your account on a temporary Owner seat and remove it at hand-off; we keep no copy of your data and hold no login after we leave. You can revoke any connector at any time, and the runbook shows where.
Is this on site or remote?
Either. Halifax and anywhere within a couple of hours of it, we do in person. Further out, the setup work happens on screen anyway; the training session is the one part that benefits from a room, and we will drive to Moncton or Charlottetown for it.
What if it does not stick?
The 30-day check-in on Setup + Workflows exists for exactly this. If the Monday Brief has not run three weeks in a row, something is in the way and we find it. Care is the ongoing version: a refresh each quarter when Anthropic updates the plugin, a monthly check on whether the Monday Brief ran, and email help when something looks off. Neither is required. The runbook and the plugin are yours either way.
Is there an ongoing Claude support plan?
Yes, optionally. Care is $10 CAD a seat a month, with a $60 monthly minimum (registered charities on Claude for Nonprofits pay $49 a month), available at any tier after hand-off. It covers a quarterly refresh when Anthropic updates the plugin, email help within one business day (small fixes to your workflows included), and a quick monthly check on whether the Monday Brief ran. A call is $75 per half hour, and a new workflow is quoted. Nothing about the setup depends on you taking it, and you can start or stop it any time.
Are you an Anthropic partner?
We have no partner status or certification to point to, and we will not imply one. Aurenia is an independent consultancy in Halifax. Anthropic makes the software, you buy it from them, and we do the setup.
Start with a 30-minute call.
Tell us what you sell, how many people you have, and which tools you run on. We will tell you which tier fits, what the seats will cost, and whether the CBDC route is realistic for you. No pitch.