Paid over three years. The service stops when the payments stop.
The Honest Comparison
Renting AI vs owning it
Most business AI is sold per person, per month. The number looks small until a whole team keeps paying it. Here is the three-year arithmetic — including the cases where renting is honestly the better call.
The multiplication nobody does out loud
One seat is coffee money. A team is not.
This worked example uses a 20-person firm paying £25 per person each month. It is illustrative, not a quote for a particular product, and assumes the subscription price never rises and the team never grows.
20 people · £25 each · three years
Installed with optional Cortex Care throughout all three years.
| Cost or condition | Renting per seat | Owning Cortex |
|---|---|---|
| Up front | £0 | From £4,950 installed; first three months of care included |
| Year 1 | £6,000 | £4,950 plus optional care from month four (£1,755) |
| Year 2 | £6,000 | Optional Cortex Care (£2,340) |
| Year 3 | £6,000 | Optional Cortex Care (£2,340) |
| Three-year total | £18,000 and still counting | £11,385 with full support; £4,950 without ongoing care |
| Staff member 21 joins | Another £300 each year | £0; one box serves the team |
| If you stop paying | The service stops | The installed system keeps working |
| Where documents are processed | On the supplier’s infrastructure | Inside your building |
Cortex Care is £195 a month, optional and rolling monthly. The per-seat figures are an illustrative mid-2026 example; check a supplier’s current price before comparing.
The part that is not about money
You are choosing who controls the change.
Price matters, but it is not the only difference between a subscription and a system in your building.
Terms and availability
A rented product can change price, move features between tiers, replace its model or close. An installed system changes when you decide to change it.
Where the work goes
A cloud service processes questions and documents on somebody else’s infrastructure. Cortex processes them inside your building.
Who pays for growth
Per-seat costs rise with headcount. An owned system has a capacity, but adding the next colleague does not create another monthly licence.
Where renting genuinely wins
Sometimes the subscription is the sensible answer.
We would rather lose a sale than turn a comparison page into a foregone conclusion.
You barely use it
One or two occasional users will usually spend less on a subscription or free tier. Set clear rules about what may be entered.
You need the absolute frontier
Some creative and research work benefits from the largest cloud models. If that is your daily work and the data is suitable, rent it.
You are not sure yet
Do not buy hardware to discover whether AI helps. Start small, measure the work and buy only when the repeated use is real.
For occasional public AI use, set the rules with the free policy builder. If you are still finding the problem, start with the two-minute time and cost calculator.
The one-minute version
Watch the comparison, once you have seen the numbers.
Renting vs owning, in under a minute.The written comparison above works without video.
The familiar subscriptions
What about Microsoft 365 Copilot and ChatGPT Business?
They are good products, and for light or occasional use they may be the sensible purchase. Two things are worth knowing before renewal.
First, per-seat pricing scales with headcount rather than use. The tenth person costs the same as the first whether or not they open it. Second, when underlying model prices fall, that is the wholesale metered rate changing, not necessarily the seat price on your invoice. We explained that distinction here.
An owned appliance reverses both: one price at the start, no per-seat fee, and documents processed in the building. Whether that is better for you is arithmetic. If the arithmetic says rent, rent.
Read more about private AI for small businesses, or consider business process automation if the real problem is repeated admin rather than document knowledge.
Bring us one real question
See whether the owned version earns its place.
A fifteen-minute call is enough to establish whether Cortex, a subscription, simple automation or doing nothing is the sensible next step.
Book the free fifteen-minute call