Experts Comment: Is The Digital Economy Becoming Too Expensive For Small Businesses To Compete In?

Starting an online business has become pretty straightforward. A website, a payment system and a few digital tools can get a small shop up and running without the costs of opening a physical store. But getting online is only the beginning as businesses also have to pay to attract customers, manage orders, process payments and keep everything running.

For smaller businesses, those costs can quickly add up. They’re competing for customers against companies with bigger advertising budgets, more resources and greater buying power. AI is changing the picture as well, giving some businesses a way to replace expensive software and services while adding another expense for others. So, has the digital economy made it harder for small businesses to compete, even if it’s easier than ever to get started?
 

The Monthly Bills That Arrive Before The Customers Do

 

Running a business online often means paying for several different tools, each handling a separate task. When Wiktoria Korbecka left a Fortune 500 field sales job in August 2026 to build Women Lead AI, she assumed running a business online would mean stacking up software, which turned out to be accurate: “Small businesses get sold a new subscription for every task, and those monthly fees add up fast, while big companies negotiate discounts.” Buying power is one of the few things a small business can’t pick up on a free trial.

Christina Lindley, Founder and CEO of VPRG Consulting, treats every renewal like a job interview: “Every tool needs a job that justifies its cost. A subscription should have to earn its renewal.” The invoice isn’t the whole bill either, as Mercedes Mollett, a Chartered Marketer and Marketing Director at after.marketing, points out: “Digital competition has a cost of entry and a cost of learning. Smaller businesses can often afford the first but struggle with the second.” Somebody has to learn the new tool, connect it to the seven others and work out why they all stopped talking to each other on Tuesday, so her instruction for the budget is quite direct: “Include staff time and integration alongside licence fees.”

 

The Price Of Getting Found

 

Aidan Cramer, Founder and CEO of AiApply, thinks the product has become the cheap part: “The biggest cost for small businesses now isn’t building a product, it’s getting found.” Search and social media advertising are often bought through auctions, meaning businesses compete against one another for visibility. Ben Metcalfe, Founder at BlackFire Marketing, knows who tends to have the advantage: “Small brands bid against companies with way bigger budgets and more data, so they often pay more to acquire the same customer.”

Then there’s the platform itself, which can rewrite the rules without calling a meeting. Cramer describes the lopsided fallout: “Platform rules change overnight too: one algorithm update can wipe out a small company’s traffic while a big brand barely notices.” A big brand takes an algorithm update the way a cruise ship takes a wave, whereas a small business is the pedalo alongside it. Lindley explains why that gap hurts: “The uneven playing field is room for error. Bigger companies can absorb experiments that a small business cannot.”

Ed Smith, Founder and CEO of Fractional Sales Experts, thinks the damage can start before the first ad goes live: “Smaller companies often stack up ad spend, software subscriptions and AI tools before they’ve defined who their best customer is and how that customer actually buys.” His verdict fits in one line: “The digital economy hasn’t made competing more expensive so much as it has made waste more expensive.”

 

 

AI Is Cancelling Subscriptions As Well As Selling Them

 

AI complicates the cost equation because the same technology adding to the monthly bill is also helping some businesses cut it. Korbecka has already run the experiment: “We used to spend thousands on software subscriptions, and we’ve now cancelled 80% of them because Claude does those jobs.” The list gets more specific from there: “AI also edits my podcast, which replaced the editor I was paying, and handles my short-form and long-form video production.”

Cramer sees the same pattern across a whole team’s worth of jobs: “Work that used to need a team (copy, support, coding, analytics) now costs a subscription, so a small company can move at the speed of a much bigger one.” AI could therefore give smaller businesses access to capabilities that previously required more staff or external services, although the savings still depend on how effectively those tools are used.

A cheaper pile of subscriptions still has to be pointed at something sensible, which is where Mollett adds a warning: “Cheap technology can still create an expensive operating model.” Korbecka’s answer is to stay in charge of the creative direction: “The uneven playing field is real, but small businesses can close a lot of it by fitting AI into the workflow they already have and keeping their own design taste, so the output still looks like them and not generic.”

 

Fewer Tools, Fewer Channels, One Problem At A Time

 

For small businesses trying to control these costs, the advice centres on being more selective about where the money goes. Smith describes what the winners do: “The ones winning right now start with a clear ideal customer profile, pick the two or three channels where those buyers already are, and measure every tool against revenue, not activity.” Metcalfe wants the clear-out on a timer: “My advice is to audit your software stack every quarter, cut tools that you barely use and can build yourself, and put the savings into content that earns attention organically, like SEO and creator-led social.”

Lindley also offers a helpful questions to ask when deciding whether to keep paying for a tool: “Does this help us reach the right people, convert them, or bring them back? If not, why are we paying for it?” Mollett prefers to tackle things singly: “My advice is to budget around one commercial bottleneck at a time, such as unanswered enquiries or poor repeat purchasing.” Between a quarterly audit, a revenue test and a single bottleneck, there’s very little room left for a tool that was bought because a competitor had one.

 

Staying Online Costs More Than Getting There

 

Getting a business online has never been cheaper, which makes it easy to forget that being online and being profitable are separate projects. The cost of entry fell; the cost of staying visible, staying subscribed and keeping up with whatever the platforms change next went up, and the bills land hardest on the businesses with the thinnest cushion.

AI is the one thing in the picture pushing costs the other way, though it rewards the businesses that already know who they’re selling to.

 

Our Experts:

 

• Christina Lindley: Founder and CEO of VPRG Consulting
• Ben Metcalfe: Founder of BlackFire Marketing
• Ed Smith: Founder and CEO, Fractional Sales Experts
• Aidan Cramer: Founder and CEO of AiApply
• Wiktoria Korbecka: Founder of Women Lead AI
• Mercedes Mollett: Chartered Marketer and Marketing Director, after.marketing

 

 

Christina Lindley, Founder and CEO Of VPRG Consulting

 

 

“A business can look impressively digital and still have terrible economics.”

“You pay to acquire a customer, pay the platform to serve them, and pay for the tools that are supposed to make it all work. If that customer doesn’t come back, you’re paying for their attention again.”

“The uneven playing field is room for error.”

“Bigger companies can absorb experiments that a small business cannot.”

“My filter is simple: Does this help us reach the right people, convert them, or bring them back? If not, why are we paying for it?”

“I’d prioritise partnerships that bring in qualified customers and retention that gives those customers a reason to return.”

“Every tool needs a job that justifies its cost.”

“A subscription should have to earn its renewal.”

 

Ben Metcalfe, Founder Of BlackFire Marketing

 

 

“The cost of competing online has crept up fairly quietly.”

“A small business pays for ad clicks, a website platform, email software, design tools, and, increasingly, AI subscriptions and each one feels cheap until you add them up – however AI is about to change that dramatically by giving small businesses to build their own tailored custom software without the subscription cost of legacy companies.”

“The bigger problem is paid ad auctions.”

“Small brands bid against companies with far bigger budgets and more data, so they often pay more to acquire the same customer.”

“Small businesses can move faster, test creative quickly and speak to a niche far better than a big brand can.”

“My advice is to audit your software stack every quarter, cut tools that you barely use and can build yourself, and put the savings into content that earns attention organically, like SEO and creator-led social.”

 

Ed Smith, Founder And CEO, Fractional Sales Experts

 

 

“The digital economy hasn’t made competing more expensive so much as it has made waste more expensive.”

“Smaller companies often stack up ad spend, software subscriptions and AI tools before they’ve defined who their best customer is and how that customer actually buys.”

“That’s where the uneven playing field shows up: large companies can absorb inefficient spend, while a small business can’t.”

“The good news is that small businesses have an advantage big brands can’t buy: speed and direct access to their customers.”

“The ones winning right now start with a clear ideal customer profile, pick the two or three channels where those buyers already are, and measure every tool against revenue, not activity.”

“A lean, focused stack run with discipline will beat a bloated one almost every time.”

 

Aidan Cramer, Founder And CEO Of AiApply

 

 

“The biggest cost for small businesses now isn’t building a product, it’s getting found.”

“Paid search and social are auctions, and the biggest players with the deepest budgets set the price for everyone else.”

“Platform rules change overnight too: one algorithm update can wipe out a small company’s traffic while a big brand barely notices.”

“So yes, the field is uneven.”

“The counterweight is AI.”

“Work that used to need a team (copy, support, coding, analytics) now costs a subscription, so a small company can move at the speed of a much bigger one.”

“My advice to SMEs: stop trying to win on ad spend, own a specific niche, invest in organic channels like SEO and visibility in AI search tools, and automate everything that isn’t talking to customers.”

 

Wiktoria Korbecka, Founder Of Women Lead AI

 

 

 

“When I left my Fortune 500 field sales job in August 2026 to build Women Lead AI, I assumed running a business online would mean stacking up software.”

“Small businesses get sold a new subscription for every task, and those monthly fees add up fast, while big companies negotiate discounts.”

“We used to spend thousands on software subscriptions, and we’ve now cancelled 80% of them because Claude does those jobs.”

“AI also edits my podcast, which replaced the editor I was paying, and handles my short-form and long-form video production.”

“The uneven playing field is real, but small businesses can close a lot of it by fitting AI into the workflow they already have and keeping their own design taste, so the output still looks like them and not generic.”

 

Mercedes Mollett, Chartered Marketer And Marketing Director At after.marketing

 

 

“Digital competition has a cost of entry and a cost of learning.”

“Smaller businesses can often afford the first but struggle with the second.”

“Paying for advertising, AI and software gets them access; building reliable data, testing offers and integrating systems determines whether that access produces profit.”

“The disadvantage compounds when a larger competitor can fund months of testing while an SME needs this week’s campaign to cover this week’s bills.”

“The smaller business has less room to learn what works.”

“My advice is to budget around one commercial bottleneck at a time, such as unanswered enquiries or poor repeat purchasing.”

“Include staff time and integration alongside licence fees.”

“Before adding another tool, ask whether it removes an existing cost or improves a result you can measure.”

“Cheap technology can still create an expensive operating model.”