A lender or investor asks for a business plan, and suddenly you’re staring at a blank document with 15 section headings. Artificial intelligence (AI) can get you past that blank page fast. It just can’t do the part that matters most: the numbers.
Here’s how to split the work so you get a solid draft in an afternoon without handing anyone a plan built on made-up figures.
Let AI Write the Words
The free versions of ChatGPT and Claude are good at turning rough notes into clean paragraphs. Paste in bullet points about what you sell, who buys it, who you compete with, and why you’re different. Then ask for one section at a time: “Write a one-page company description from these notes. Plain language, no hype.”
One section at a time matters. Ask for the whole plan at once and you get 10 pages of confident filler.
If you work on it over several days, Claude Pro ($20 a month, or $17 a month billed yearly) lets you keep your notes in a Project so you don’t re-paste everything. ChatGPT Plus is also $20 a month. Neither is required. The free tiers handle a one-time plan fine.
Do the Numbers Yourself (With a Free Template)
This is where people get burned. Ask a chatbot for “financial projections” and it will happily produce three years of revenue that looks precise and means nothing. It doesn’t know your prices, your rent, or how many customers you actually close.
Use SCORE‘s free Financial Projections Template instead. It’s a downloadable spreadsheet that walks you through startup expenses, payroll, a sales forecast, and three years of cash flow and income statements. You fill in real numbers.
Then AI is useful again. Paste in your finished figures and ask it to explain them in plain English for the plan’s financial summary, or to point out anything that doesn’t add up. Check its math. It makes arithmetic mistakes more often than you’d think.
When a Paid Tool Makes Sense
If you’re applying for a loan and want lender-ready statements without building spreadsheets, LivePlan is the budget option built for this. Its Standard plan is $20 a month, or $15 a month billed yearly, and includes AI writing help, 550+ sample plans, and a full financial forecast. Cancel it once the plan is done.
You may also see Causal recommended for forecasting. Causal is now part of Lucanet’s platform for corporate finance teams, so it’s not built for a small business writing its first plan.
When This Isn’t Worth It
If nobody is asking you for a formal plan, skip the 20-page version. A one-page plan covering what you sell, who buys it, what it costs to run, and how you’ll find customers is enough to run your business by. You can write that in an hour, with or without AI.
And if you’re asking for money, don’t let a chatbot be the last set of eyes. SCORE will match you with a volunteer mentor for free. A real person who has read hundreds of plans will catch what AI won’t.
Your Next Step
Open the free version of ChatGPT or Claude, paste in your notes, and ask for just the company description. Then download SCORE’s projections template and block off an hour for the numbers. Words from AI, numbers from you.
Prices checked on vendor websites on October 8, 2026.