That £20 All-You-Can-Eat AI Buffet Could Cost You Everything

You’ve seen the ads. They’re slick, tempting, and everywhere. For the price of a few coffees a month, you get "unlimited" access to an incredible buffet of AI models: GPT- 5, Claude 4.1 Opus, Llama 3, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and a dozen others you’ve never even heard of. It feels like the deal of the century.

For a small business, this is incredibly appealing. Why pay separately for a ChatGPT Plus and a Claude Pro subscription when one tool can give you everything for a fraction of the price?

Here’s the problem: in most cases, it’s a deal that’s too good to be true. The business model for many of these all-in-one AI platforms isn't just questionable; it’s fundamentally broken. And when it breaks, it’s your data, your workflows, and your reputation that will pay the price.

The Maths Just Doesn't Add Up

To understand the risk, you need to understand the costs these platforms are trying to hide from you. The big AI labs—OpenAI, Anthropic, Google—charge for access to their top models via an Application Programming Interface (API). They bill based on usage, measured in "tokens" (roughly, a token is about three-quarters of a word).

Let’s look at the real-world costs as of September 2025:

• Anthropic’s Claude 3 Opus, one of the most powerful models, costs around £11.15 per million input tokens and £55.75 per million output tokens.

• OpenAI’s GPT-5, their flagship model, is cheaper but still significant, costing £3.70 per million input tokens and £11.15 per million output tokens.

• Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro sits in a similar bracket, with standard context windows costing around £5.20 per million tokens.

A power user—a copywriter, a paralegal, or a business coach—could easily rack up £15-£22 of API costs in a single afternoon of heavy use. So, how can a company charging you £20 a month possibly sustain that?

The short answer is: they can't. Not legally, and not for long.

The Three Hidden Perils in That "Bargain" Subscription

When a business model seems impossible, you have to ask what you're not seeing. With these platforms, the user isn’t just the customer; their data is often the real product. Here are the three biggest risks you take when you sign up.

1. Your Data Is Paying the Bill (The Compliance Nightmare)

This is the most critical risk. To make up for the financial shortfall, these services are heavily incentivised to monetise your data. Your prompts and the information you upload—client notes, draft contracts, financial summaries—are incredibly valuable. Under UK GDPR, if you upload client data, you are the data controller and legally responsible for how it’s processed. Using a platform with a vague privacy policy is a significant compliance breach.

2. The Service Will Disappear (The Business Continuity Risk)

Companies with unsustainable models don't last. When your cheap AI provider inevitably runs out of money or gets acquired for its user data, the service will shut down, often overnight. All the custom prompts you’ve saved and the workflows you’ve built will vanish. This is a massive business continuity risk for any small business that has come to rely on the tool.

3. It's a "Bait and Switch" (The Performance Risk)

A quieter way these services cut costs is by not giving you what you paid for. You might select "Claude 3 Opus," but your query is secretly routed to a much cheaper, less capable model. You're paying for a premium experience but receiving a budget one, undermining the very reason you signed up.

How to Use AI Safely and Sustainably

The solution isn't to avoid AI. It's to be smart and treat it like any other critical business supplier.

The Safest Path: Go Direct to the Source

For any serious, regular business use, especially involving sensitive or client data, subscribe directly to the business tiers of major providers like ChatGPT for Teams (OpenAI), Claude Pro (Anthropic), or Google Gemini for Workspace.

When you do this, you get a clear contract and a Data Processing Agreement (DPA). You get a legally binding promise that your data will not be used to train their models. The extra cost isn’t for more features; it’s for compliance, security, and peace of mind.

A Cautious Approach: Perform Your Due Diligence

If you are considering a third-party tool that bundles AI features, you must perform due diligence. Treat it like hiring a new employee who will handle sensitive information. Before you sign up, ask them these questions directly:

1. "Can I see your Data Processing Agreement (DPA)?" If they don't have one or don't know what it is, walk away.

2. "Is my data used to train any of your models?" Get a clear, unambiguous "no" in writing.

3. "What is your business model beyond my subscription fee?" A transparent company will have a clear answer. An unsustainable one will be evasive.

The High-Risk Zone: Know What to Avoid

If a service offers access to dozens of top-tier models for less than the cost of a single direct subscription, and its privacy policy is vague, do not use it for business purposes. It is not a legitimate business tool. Use it for creative writing or other non-sensitive personal tasks if you must, but keep your business and client data far away from it.

That cheap subscription isn't the product. In this broken model, your data is. And that's a price no responsible business can afford to pay.