Small & medium business
Lots of firms, clear professional obligations, and a buyer who already pays about A$30 a seat for cloud AI. The most crowded space on this site.
Lots of firms, clear professional obligations, and a buyer who already pays about A$30 a seat for cloud AI. The most crowded space on this site.
Our cut of ABS data. The ideal buyer is a 20–199 person practice: it has a practice manager to sponsor it, a real document library, and partners who worry about privilege and PI claims.
Selma's edge here is certainty and a simple story ("it never leaves the building, and the Ledger proves it"). The law doesn't require it. Many firms will judge a no-training cloud tool good enough.
| Vertical | Hook | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Tax agents and accountants | Strong, new | TPB guidance (22 July 2026): entering client information into AI tools can be disclosure to a third party, which needs each client's permission. On-prem removes the consent step. ~4,100 accounting firms with 5–199 staff. |
| Law firms (litigation, family, criminal, IP) | Strong | Joint regulator statement (Dec 2024); NSW Supreme Court Practice Note SC Gen 23 on suppressed and subpoenaed material; court AI protocols in almost every jurisdiction; the US Heppner ruling that public AI use waived privilege. |
| Psychology and counselling | Strong | Highly sensitive session content, always covered by the Privacy Act. |
| Allied health / NDIS providers | Medium-strong | Overlaps our pilots; report-heavy work. |
| GP and specialists | Medium | Clear obligations, but ~40% of GPs already use cheap AU-hosted cloud scribes. Selma fits back-office and governance, not scribing. |
| Advisers, brokers | Medium-weak | Privacy and trust; no AI-specific rule found. Price-sensitive micro-licensees. |
| Engineering, architecture, agencies, consulting | Commercial only | Contractual confidentiality; Copilot usually acceptable. |
Shadow AI is the real buying trigger. A partner who knows staff are pasting client files into free ChatGPT has a live professional indemnity risk today. The pitch is less "adopt AI" and more "give people a sanctioned tool so they stop using the unsanctioned one".
The Privacy Act's small business exemption (turnover under A$3M) still applies outside health, so a privacy-law pitch has little force for many 5–19 person firms. Professional rules apply regardless.
| Product | A$/user/month | 25 users, 3 years | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 Copilot Business | 31.40 (26.91 promo) | ~A$28K | Under 300 seats; needs a base licence |
| ChatGPT Business | ~28 | ~A$25K | No training on business data by default |
| Claude Team | ~30 | ~A$27K | No training by default |
| Copilot Enterprise | 44.90 | ~A$40K | Over 300 seats |
| Perplexity Enterprise Pro | ~61 | ~A$55K |
| Product | Price (estimates where unpublished) | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Harvey | ~A$1,800–3,000 per seat/month, ~25 seat minimum Estimate | Top-tier firms (Clayton Utz, Gilbert + Tobin) in an Australian environment |
| Legora | ~A$460–1,200 per seat/month Estimate | |
| LexisNexis Protégé, Thomson Reuters CoCounsel | ~A$340–760 per seat/month Estimate | Need Lexis+ or Westlaw. A 10-lawyer firm pays ~A$137K–274K over 3 years. |
| LEAP, Smokeball, Clio | Bundled | Own the small-firm relationship: channel or threat |
| Xero JAX | Included in A$78–143/month plans | Ledger-level AI is effectively free |
| Lyrebird, Heidi, NovoNote | Free tiers; A$30–160/month | Scribing is crowded and cheap |
| Offer | Price (A$) | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Ollama, LM Studio, AnythingLLM, Open WebUI, Jan | Free | The runtime. No ingestion quality, access control, audit or support. |
| Sandlabs (Melbourne) | From 2,500 + GST | Done-for-you private AI setup on the client's hardware. Law, accounting, health, brokers. |
| AI Compute Australia (Melbourne) | 6,500–12,500+ | On-prem inference appliances plus an Australian-hosted API |
| Nexus Tech, FlowWorks | Quoted | Private AI builds for health, legal and finance SMEs |
| Custom LLM (Melbourne) | 80K–150K upfront + 3K–8K/month | Enterprise on-prem builds |
| NVIDIA DGX Spark / ASUS GX10 | ~9,000–10,800 | 128GB memory, runs 70B+ models |
| Ryzen AI Max+ mini PCs (Framework, GMKtec, Beelink) | ~5,200–6,600 | 128GB unified memory |
| Olares One | ~7,600 | Consumer "own your AI" box, RTX 5090 mobile |
| Go Abacus Go1, Zylon in a Box | Not published | Overseas appliances for regulated enterprise |
The spec sheet problem. For A$5K–10K a firm or its IT provider can buy a box with 128GB of model memory. Selma's 16GB card runs 8–14B models. Side by side on paper, Selma looks like the weaker machine. Nobody else visibly offers the Constitution, citations, audit ledger, measured accuracy and sector packs. Memory prices also rose sharply in 2026, so the A$3K build cost needs re-quoting.
A$100 per user per month is about three times Copilot Business and would fail here. One option explored: a packaged "Selma Practice" tier, sold through channels, with commissioning cut to 2–3 days using templated Constitutions per profession.
| Illustrative tier | For | Setup incl. unit | Monthly | 3 years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Practice 10 | 5–19 staff, one site | A$6,000 | A$400 | A$20,400 |
| Practice 50 | 20–50 staff | A$9,500 | A$750 | A$36,500 |
| Business 150 | 50–150 staff, bigger hardware | A$15K–20K | A$1,200 | A$58K–63K |
Monthly fee would include monitoring, model updates, annual re-measurement and hardware swap. Profession packs (court practice notes, TPB and ATO rulings, RACGP and Ahpra standards) as add-ons at perhaps A$100–250 a month each.
| Channel | Why | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Managed service providers | Hold the IT relationship and are being asked "what do we do about AI?" | They can build a DIY box. Selma needs to offer margin, training and a partner portal. |
| Practice software (LEAP, Smokeball, Best Practice, Cliniko, Xero apps) | Own the daily workflow and data | Building their own AI; may see Selma as a rival |
| Professional bodies | Publish the guidance that creates the hook; member benefits | Slow, careful about endorsement |
| PI insurers (LawCover, Avant, MDA National) | Carry the cost of breaches; a premium discount would be powerful | Long cycles, prefer neutral guidance |
| IT distributors (Dicker Data, Ingram Micro) | Reach thousands of resellers | Only once it truly self-installs |