Claude and Claude Code for SMEs: lots of power, little scaffolding

A disclosure first: Claude Code is the AI harness (An AI harness is the workspace on your computer in which AI reads files and carries out agreed steps.) we recommend ourselves and the one we run our own company with. That is exactly why an honest comparison is worth it. If you can make good use of Claude Code on your own, you should know before you pay us anything.

This article belongs to our series of comparisons: the same six questions for every tool. We read Anthropic (An AI provider runs language models and sells access to them, for example OpenAI (ChatGPT), Anthropic (Claude) or Google (Gemini).)’s information on 14 October 2026; the sources are listed at the end.

What you use today

Claude comes as an app in the browser, on the desktop and on the phone, plus Claude Code for work with files and commands. Pro costs USD 17.– a month billed yearly, Max USD 100.– or 200.–. For companies there is Team, from two people: a standard seat costs USD 20.– billed yearly and USD 25.– billed monthly, a premium seat with five times the usage USD 100.– to 125.–. These are US prices excluding tax. Claude Code is included in Pro, Max and Team.

Where Claude is strong

In the chat, Claude writes and analyses, works in shared projects, uses skills (A skill is a written instruction for a specific AI task, such as checking invoice details.) and connects to Google Workspace and Microsoft 365. Custom connections through MCP (MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard for connecting an AI harness to other software and data sources.), the open protocol for tools, are possible on every plan. In the desktop app, Claude can work directly in folders you choose, and asks before it deletes anything for good.

Claude Code goes further: it reads a whole project folder, changes files, runs commands and follows instructions in a file called CLAUDE.md. Skills, hooks, subagents and MCP servers (A server is a computer that runs all the time and provides services to other devices, such as email, files or a website.) make it a tool that adapts to your work. The desktop app works without the command line (The command line, also called the terminal, is a window in which you give the computer instructions by typing text instead of clicking.).

On the Team plan Anthropic does not train on your data, the data processing agreement (A data processing agreement (DPA) sets out how a service provider handles personal data it receives on your behalf.) is part of the commercial terms, and there are SOC 2, ISO 27001 and ISO 42001. For a technically curious person, it is one of the strongest tools there is.

Where Claude stops

Claude Code is an engine. What it lacks is the scaffolding a team works in.

• Everyone builds their own scaffolding. Skills, MCP connections and settings live on each person’s computer. The Team plan has central rules for Claude Code, but Anthropic describes them as a control on the device, not a security boundary.
• The laptop has to stay awake. Scheduled tasks in the desktop app run only while the app is open and the computer is awake. Routines in the cloud (The cloud means computers in a provider’s data centres on which programs run and data is kept, instead of on your own device.) are a preview, need GitHub (A Git repository is storage for files that records every change with its date and author; GitHub is a well-known service for it.), run at most hourly and belong to the personal account, not the team.
• Usage has limits. Claude and Claude Code share one limit per five hours and another per week. Anyone who works with it all day soon needs a premium seat.
• The data lives in the US. Anthropic stores data in the US. US-only processing is available on Enterprise, European processing only through cloud platforms such as AWS Bedrock or Google Vertex. Custom MCP connections in the chat must be reachable from the internet.
• Your other systems stay outside. Claude reaches Bexio, Abacus or the supplier portal only if someone builds and maintains the connection.

Claude connected to our platform

The first way keeps Claude as it is and gives it shared scaffolding. In the chat, the owner adds the Jules Solutions Platform as a custom connection through its MCP gateway; each person signs in with their own access. In Claude Code the same connection sits in a file in the shared project repository, so everyone has the same tools without setting them up themselves.

Claude then reaches the parts of the platform: tasks, the document processing for invoices and delivery notes, documents from your templates (A template is a prepared structure, for a document, an email or a folder for example, which you only complete for each case.), search across your project files with the passages behind each answer, your database with its own structures, and workflows (A workflow specifies what information goes in, what happens to it and who checks the result.) that talk to your systems within the agreed scope. What should run on a schedule, the platform schedules and runs, even with your laptop closed.

The rules apply to every call: messages to the outside and payments only after a person decides, each connection limited to the projects you grant, every step in the log (A log records what a program or an AI agent did and when, so that afterwards you can trace who triggered what and what happened.). For five people this costs Operator System (Operator System is our package for teams at CHF 3'500.– to 5'000.–: the shared base with workflows for the team and connected systems.), CHF 3'500.– to 5'000.– once, with six months of Business seat (The Business seat is one person’s access to our platform (open alpha); Pro Setup includes three months, and with Operator System it is six per person.) per person, then CHF 199.– per person per month, or CHF 169.– billed yearly. You keep paying for Claude Team.

The whole system

In the whole system, Claude Code is the harness and we build the scaffolding for everyone. Each person gets a vault (The vault is a folder of your working files on your computer; we create it from the vault template.), a folder with working files, skills and instructions, organised by PARA (PARA organises storage into four parts: projects, areas, resources and archives.) and readable in Obsidian (Obsidian is a note-taking program that shows a folder of text files on your computer as linked notes.). With Pro Setup (Pro Setup is our recommended package at CHF 1'490.–: vault, workflows with AI agents, first integrations, an introduction session and three months of Business seat.) we set up three to five commands your people use to start workflows without writing a prompt (A prompt is the input to a language model: the question, instruction or template the AI responds to.). The platform starts Claude Code with the right project and the access the task needs, and each agent sees only its own project.

AI agents (An AI agent carries out several steps of a defined task. A person decides before it sends anything outside your firm or spends money.) work on their own branches and propose changes; a person accepts them. Workflows run on your device, on a computer in the office, on our platform or with a cloud provider, as the quote sets out. For each task the platform chooses model, tool and integration (An integration connects your setup to software you already use, such as your email inbox.): Claude in the cloud, another model from the US or the EU, or an open-weight model (An open-weight model is a language model whose weights are freely available, so it can run on your own hardware.) on your own hardware when data should not leave the building.

The platform runs on our own infrastructure in Switzerland and is in open alpha (Open alpha means the platform is at an early stage: we use it ourselves, and it changes all the time.); we run our own company on it. For five people: Operator System plus one Pro Setup per person, CHF 10'950.– to 12'450.– once, with 60 days of follow-up support (Follow-up support means that questions and adjustments by email and phone are included for 30 days (Pro Setup) or 60 days (Operator System) after handover.), then the Business seats and Claude as the model.

Our verdict

If you work alone, like setting things up yourself and your laptop runs all day anyway, Claude Pro or Max with Claude Code is enough. Really. Read the documentation, write your first skills, and come back when the scaffolding wobbles.

For a team the sums change. Five people each building their own scaffolding have five of them and no shared one. The first way gives everyone the same tools and keeps workflows running when the laptops are closed. The whole system pays off when colleagues with no interest in technology should also start a workflow with one command, with approvals, a log and the data where you decide.

What such a setup costs in its first year is worked out item by item in ‘What does AI automation cost an SME?’.