The best AI service to sell to a small business is not the most advanced one. It’s the one where you can say, in a single sentence, “you currently lose this much money or time every month, and here’s what changes.” A business owner does not care that you used AI. They care that three people stopped answering the same WhatsApp question forty times a day, or that a lead no longer sits in an inbox until Friday.
This is the catalogue, ordered by how much a small business will actually pay — with local NPR pricing for Nepal and international USD pricing for clients abroad.
The top tier: highest value, easiest to justify
1. Customer-service chatbot
- What it is: A bot on their site or Facebook page that answers their repeat questions — prices, hours, menu, order status, return policy — and passes anything else to a human.
- Local price: NPR 8,000–20,000 setup + NPR 2,000–6,000/month
- International: $250–800 setup + $40–150/month
- Why they buy it: it’s staffed, always open, and it captures enquiries that currently go unanswered at 10pm.
- Do this well: train it on their real price list and past tickets, and write down what it must never answer. Full method: building AI chatbots.
2. Lead capture and follow-up automation
- What it is: A website or Facebook enquiry lands in a sheet or CRM, the owner gets an instant WhatsApp alert, and a follow-up sequence goes out automatically.
- Local price: NPR 5,000–12,000 setup + NPR 1,500–4,000/month
- International: $200–600 setup + $30–120/month
- Why they buy it: one missed enquiry is a lost sale. This is the easiest pitch in AI because the maths is undeniable.
- Do this well: show them last month’s enquiry count. Multiply by their average sale. That’s the number the proposal leads with.
3. Workflow automation between their apps
- What it is: Form → spreadsheet → invoice → email, with no human copying data. Google Workspace, Sheets, Gmail, Shopify, a POS, a CRM.
- Local price: NPR 6,000–25,000 setup + NPR 2,000–8,000/month
- International: $200–900 setup + $50–200/month
- Why they buy it: staff time. The proposal is “this saves about 40 hours a month.”
- Do this well: map their real process first, one manual step at a time. Full method: the automation business guide.
The middle tier: volume work, steady income
4. Content and product descriptions
- What it is: Social posts, captions, product descriptions and menu copy written and scheduled, in Nepali and English.
- Local price: NPR 2,000–6,000/month for 12–20 posts
- International: $150–500/month
- Why they buy it: they know they should post and never do.
- Do this well: write the first three yourself, then use AI for volume. Clients pay for voice, not volume.
5. Presentation and design work
- What it is: Pitch decks, menus, festival banners, posters, social graphics, product visuals.
- Local price: NPR 500–3,000 per piece, NPR 3,000–10,000/month
- International: $30–150 per piece
- Why they buy it: tuition centres, hotels and SMEs need constant design and have nobody in-house.
- Do this well: bring a template you’ve already adapted. Detail in the AI presentation guide.
6. Video and short-form editing
- What it is: Their long recordings turned into captioned shorts, plus reels for social.
- Local price: NPR 2,000–8,000 per video, NPR 5,000–20,000/month
- International: $15–60 per short, $250–400/month
- Why they buy it: they record and never edit.
- Do this well: the diagnostic call before the quote. Details: AI video editing.
7. Document, proposal and report preparation
- What it is: Turning messy notes, contracts and data into a clean one-page summary, a formatted proposal, or a monthly report.
- Local price: NPR 1,000–5,000 per document
- International: $40–200 per document
- Why they buy it: founders and small teams write everything by hand at midnight.
The entry tier: easy first sale, real money
8. Research and competitor summaries
- What it is: A short, verified brief on competitors, market pricing or a “should we do this” question.
- Local price: NPR 2,000–6,000
- International: $50–300
- Why they buy it: they don’t have time, and they don’t trust their own quick search.
9. Localisation and translation
- What it is: English business content rewritten into natural Nepali, or Nepali content translated for international clients. AI output rewritten properly rather than translated literally.
- Local price: NPR 500–3,000 per piece
- International: $30–150 per piece
- Why they buy it: machine translation reads as machine translation, and their customers notice.
10. Staff training on AI tools
- What it is: A two-hour session for a client’s team — how to prompt, how to verify, where the limits are.
- Local price: NPR 5,000–20,000 per session
- International: $150–500 per session
- Why they buy it: they bought licences and nobody uses them. High margin, almost no tooling cost.
How to price anything on this list
Use their numbers, not your costs. Three sentences in every proposal:
- “Right now, [specific person] does [task] — roughly [X] hours a month.”
- “This handles it automatically. That’s about NPR [Y] a month in staff time.”
- “Setup is NPR [A], and NPR [B] a month to keep it running.”
When the saving is ten times the price, the decision is obvious and you don’t negotiate. When it isn’t, walk away.
Then convert it to a retainer. Every project should end with: “The build is one-off. Ongoing, I’ll update the content, monitor for failures, and make changes when your process shifts — NPR [B] a month.” One retainer client at NPR 5,000 is worth three one-off projects, and takes the same time.
Finding Nepali small business clients
Nepal has 16.6 million internet users at 56.0% penetration and 14.8 million social media identities — a market of small businesses already online, mostly without anyone maintaining their presence (DataReportal, Digital 2026: Nepal).
- Walk in, don’t cold email. Restaurants, boutiques, tuition centres, clinics, travel agencies, gyms, real-estate offices, hardware shops. Physical presence beats a pitch deck.
- Look for the visible problem. A business whose Instagram posts have no captions, whose Google listing is dead, or whose contact form goes nowhere. That is a pre-qualified lead.
- Bring their content, not a portfolio. One free sample built from their actual price list, menu or FAQ. This single tactic outperforms a portfolio of strangers’ work by a wide margin.
- Charge the first one low, in exchange for a testimonial and a case study you can name. Then raise.
- Local payments land the same day — eSewa, Khalti, Fonepay, or bank transfer. No waiting for an international wire, no platform fee.
Then take the proof international, where the same work pays several times more. Rate benchmarks: Upwork’s 2026 guide lists marketing automation consultants at $40–90/hr; Fiverr’s AI automation projects average $75–520. Full method for that step: selling AI services to international clients.
Common mistakes
- Selling tools. “I set up a Make scenario” is a commodity. “Your enquiries now reach you on WhatsApp in 30 seconds” is a product.
- Not quantifying the saving. Without the hours figure, the client is guessing whether it matters.
- Doing one-off projects forever. No income between them. Make the retainer the default offer.
- Building for a business that has no plan to use it. Adoption decides whether you get paid next month.
- Pricing below the local market out of politeness. Nepalese rates deserve Nepali prices; international rates deserve international prices. Don’t mix them.
- Not keeping the relationship off the platform. Own the invoice and the contact. Marketplaces are a channel, not your business.
Next steps
- Start an AI automation business in Nepal — the retainer model in full
- Build AI chatbots for businesses — the highest-value item on this list
- Sell AI services to international clients — where the rates jump
- Online business ideas in Nepal — the wider landscape
This week: pick three local businesses, write one sentence for each naming a specific visible problem, and walk in with a free sample built from their own content. Offer the sample, ask for the monthly price — and don’t leave without asking for the retainer.
General information, fact-checked September 2026 — price bands reflect typical Nepali and international freelance ranges in 2026; adjust to your market and the value you can prove. Not financial or tax advice.
