Last reviewed: 12 Oct 2026
What Are Claude Skills? (Plain English for Business Owners)
Claude Skills are saved instructions that teach Claude one specific job in your business: your steps, your tone and your rules. Once a Skill exists, staff do not have to explain the business again each time they open a chat.
A Skill is like a junior admin trained for one task. It does not replace a staff member, and it does not talk to customers on your website.
On this page
Why they exist
Ordinary chat is flexible, but it does not know your business unless someone explains it each time. A Skill stores the pattern, for example: “when we quote a standard switchboard job, use this structure and never include these items.” Every quote then starts from the same place, whoever is typing.
Skill vs Project vs Custom GPT
- Project: ongoing context for a body of work
- Skill: the how-to for one repeated task in Claude
- Custom GPT: the same idea inside ChatGPT
For a side by side comparison, see Skills vs Custom GPTs.
Five skills worth building first
- Standard quote draft from notes
- Customer FAQ answers from an approved list
- Job pack / day briefing from calendar notes
- Polite follow-up email variants
- Internal SOP checklist generator
What not to build first
Leave out complex negotiation, legal advice, and anything you would not let a new admin send without checking. A Skill writes the draft. A person reads it and sends it.
We build and maintain Skills for Australian small businesses and tradies: Claude Skills & Custom GPTs.
What a Skill contains
A Skill is a small set of files. At minimum it holds the job definition, three real examples of a good answer, and a short list of things it must not do. Many also include a price list, the suburbs you cover, or an approved FAQ. If those files do not exist yet, what you have is a prompt, and prompts get lost.
- Instructions: the steps, the tone and what to leave out
- Examples: three real quotes, emails or checklists you already like
- Boundaries: never invent a price, never send without a person checking, never guess a suburb you do not cover
- Owner: one person who reviews bad output on Friday
How a quote-draft Skill runs
- Staff paste job notes (or a voice transcript) into Claude.
- The Skill applies your template: inclusions, exclusions, GST line, validity period.
- It flags anything outside the catalogue instead of inventing a number.
- A human hits send. The Skill does not email the customer on its own.
Step 4 matters most. A quote that goes out with a wrong price is your problem, so a person sends it. If you want sending to happen automatically, you need a workflow with an approval step, which is a separate build.
What you need before we start
Bring three examples of a quote or email you were happy to send, your current price list (even if it only exists in someone’s head), and the suburbs you cover. We build the Skill Pack from those documents, so without them there is nothing to build from.
What it costs to run
Skills run inside Claude, so you need a Claude plan. An Australian team typically needs Claude Team: US$25 per user per month, or US$20 on annual billing, with a two-seat minimum. We plan on about $30 to 38 AUD per user before GST (USD list × 1.50, last checked 12 Oct 2026). Anthropic bills in USD. Our build fee is separate: a Skill Pack (three to five Skills) typically runs $2,500 to $5,000 + GST.
Keeping a Skill in use after month three
The Skills still in use after three months are the ones with an owner. Prices change, a suburb is dropped, a staff member adds a new disclaimer. If nobody updates the files, people go back to a blank chat. We treat that review as part of the job.
One assistant that works beats a Skill and a GPT that both sit unused.
FAQ
Are Claude Skills free for small business?
Skills run inside Claude's product surface; you still need a Claude plan that supports them. Building Skills for your own business also takes time, either yours or a partner’s such as eWEB TEC.
What happens to my Skills if I stop paying Claude?
The Skill files are yours. Export the instructions and examples before you cancel. They will not keep running inside Claude without a plan that supports them.
Will staff still use a Skill after the first month?
They will if it is faster than starting from scratch and someone updates it when the business changes. A Skill with no owner stops being used.
Do I own the Skill if eWEB TEC builds it?
Yes. You keep the instructions, examples and files. We do not lock you into a proprietary chatbot.
Is a Skill the same as a prompt?
No. A prompt is one message. A Skill is a set of instructions, examples and boundaries that someone keeps up to date.
Can Skills send email by themselves?
Not on their own. To send email, Claude has to be connected to your mail system through MCP or an automation platform such as n8n, Make or Zapier.
Want this set up for your team?