I just got off a call with a founder who’s paying an extra $300/month for AI features across their tool stack. When I asked which features they actually use, there was an uncomfortable silence.

This is becoming an epidemic. Every B2B SaaS tool is slapping “AI-powered” onto features and charging premium prices. Most of it is either useless, immature, or solving problems startups don’t have.

Let me tell you what to skip.

AI Features That Rarely Deliver Value

”AI Insights” in Analytics Dashboards

You know those automated insights that pop up saying things like “Traffic increased 12% this week”? Yeah, you can see that in the graph. You don’t need AI to tell you what’s already visible.

Worse, these insights often highlight statistical noise as if it’s meaningful. “Sales in the 25-34 demographic segment on Tuesdays increased by 8%!” Cool. What am I supposed to do with that when I have 200 total customers?

Skip it unless: You have enough data volume that genuine patterns might be hard to spot manually (usually not until you’re well past startup stage).

AI Writing Assistants in Every Tool

Your project management tool has AI writing. Your CRM has AI writing. Your email client has AI writing. Your document editor has AI writing.

You’re paying for essentially the same capability four times.

Better approach: Pick one good AI writing tool (ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro at $20-25/month) and use it for everything. Copy-paste is not that hard.

”AI-Powered” Search That’s Just Fuzzy Matching

Many tools relabelled their search as “AI-powered” when it’s just tolerant of typos and synonyms. That’s useful, but it’s not worth premium pricing—it’s been standard technology for 20 years.

Skip it unless: It genuinely understands semantic queries and finds content based on meaning, not keywords. Test with something like “that email about the delay last month” and see if it actually works.

Automated Lead Scoring

For startups with small sales pipelines, AI lead scoring adds complexity without value. When you have 50 leads, you can manually review them. When you have 5,000, maybe AI helps.

I’ve watched founders obsess over lead scores while ignoring the basic fact that they just needed to call people faster.

Skip it unless: You’re genuinely drowning in leads and can’t manually prioritise. That’s a good problem most startups wish they had.

AI Chatbots for Customer Support

Before you have established support patterns, AI chatbots will frustrate customers more than help them. Your early customers expect to talk to a human. That’s part of what makes buying from a startup tolerable.

Skip it unless: You have hundreds of support tickets weekly and clear patterns in what people ask about.

AI Features That Actually Deliver

Transcription and Meeting Summaries

Tools like Otter.ai or built-in transcription in Zoom actually save time. Recording and transcribing calls means you can focus on the conversation instead of taking notes.

Worth paying for if you have frequent meetings with customers, partners, or investors.

Code Completion

If you’re a technical founder or have engineers, GitHub Copilot or similar tools genuinely speed up development. Not by writing code for you, but by reducing typing and catching common patterns.

At $10-20/month per developer, the time savings are real.

Image Generation for Marketing

Need social media graphics or blog images? Midjourney or DALL-E can produce decent results faster than hiring a designer for every small need.

Not perfect, but good enough for many startup uses.

Basic Document Processing

If you’re dealing with contracts, invoices, or other structured documents at volume, AI extraction tools can save significant manual work.

But “at volume” is the key phrase. If you process 10 invoices a month, a spreadsheet is fine.

The Audit You Should Do

Go through your SaaS bills. For every tool:

1. Does it have AI features?
2. Are you paying extra for them?
3. Have you actually used them in the past 30 days?

I guarantee you’ll find at least one subscription where you’re paying for AI features you forgot existed.

When to Revisit

AI features that are useless today might be valuable later. The inflection points:

• Team size: What’s manual at 3 people might need automation at 15
• Data volume: AI needs patterns to find, which requires data
• Process maturity: AI optimises processes; you need processes first
• Revenue: Premium features make more sense when $500/month is rounding error, not a budget line item

Keep notes on what you turned down and why. Revisit quarterly.

The Real Alternative

Instead of scattered AI features, most startups get more value from one good AI subscription used creatively.

$20/month for ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro gives you:

• Writing assistance for any context
• Research and analysis
• Code help
• Strategy brainstorming
• Customer email drafting
• Document summarisation

That covers 80% of what all those embedded AI features promise, at 10% of the cost.

Bottom Line

Every tool adding AI features is hoping you’ll upgrade without thinking. Don’t.

Ask: What specific problem does this solve? How often do I have that problem? Is there a simpler solution?

Most of the time, the answer leads away from the premium tier.

Save your money for things that actually matter: acquiring customers, building product, and staying alive long enough to need enterprise AI features someday.