Quick Overview

Vellum plugins extend your AI assistant with specialized capabilities for running a business, from inbox triage to marketing automation to financial tracking. With 35-plus open-source plugins in the directory, finding the right combination for a small business can feel overwhelming. This guide covers the 10 best Vellum plugins for small businesses, ranked by how directly they solve everyday operational problems.

Top 3 Plugins Shortlist

• SMB Inbox Brief: Scans your inbox for urgent replies, overdue invoices, and customer follow-ups before they slip through the cracks.
• Marketing Expert: An on-demand marketing department covering positioning, launches, content, SEO, and competitive analysis.
• Admin Copilot: A proactive chief of staff that handles morning digests, inbox triage, and calendar prep.

Why I Wrote This

I spend most of my day running growth and content at Vellum, which means I live inside our plugin ecosystem. When a small business owner asks "what should I actually install," I never had a good single link to send them. The plugin directory is great for browsing, but 35 plugins is a lot to sort through when you just need to triage your inbox and track expenses. So I ranked the ones that solve the most common small business problems. Every plugin on this list is free, open source, and installs with a single command. No affiliate links, no sponsored placements. Just the ones I would actually recommend to a friend running a business.

What Are Vellum Plugins?

Plugins are bundles of tools, hooks, and skills that extend your AI assistant with new capabilities. Each plugin is a self-contained GitHub repo you install with a single command, and every plugin in the directory is open source, pinned to a reviewed commit, and security-checked before listing. Unlike closed plugin ecosystems, Vellum plugins run across macOS, Slack, and Telegram with shared memory, so your assistant carries the same context regardless of which surface you use. Plugins run inside Vellum's sandbox with per-actor permissions, and your credentials never reach the model. The 2026 U.S. Chamber of Commerce report found that 89% of small businesses are now using AI in some form [1], up from 36% in 2023. Vellum launched the plugin system in June 2026 with two official plugins and has since grown to a community-driven directory of 35-plus options. Plugins are how that AI stops being a chatbot and starts actually doing work.

Key 2026 Trends in Small Business AI

• 82% of small business employers have invested in AI tools, according to the SBE Council's 2026 Small Business Tech Use Survey [2].
• Marketing content creation (68%), customer communication (52%), and administrative tasks (47%) are the three most common AI applications among small businesses, per the 2026 NFIB survey [1].
• 93% of small business owners using AI say it has had a positive impact on their business, with 84% citing increased efficiency as the primary benefit, per Goldman Sachs's 2026 survey [3].
• The 2025 cohort of new small businesses reached 10% AI adoption in just six months, compared to 77 months for the 2019 cohort, a 13-fold acceleration per the JP Morgan Chase Institute [4].
• 76% of small businesses report using AI, but only 14% say AI is fully embedded in their core operations, suggesting a large gap between experimentation and real integration [5].

Why Your Small Business Needs Vellum Plugins

• You are losing track of customer emails, invoices, and follow-ups because your inbox has no triage system, and Vellum plugins like SMB Inbox Brief can fix that.
• You cannot afford a full-time marketing hire but still need positioning, content, and competitive analysis.
• Your financial tracking lives in spreadsheets that nobody updates consistently.
• You waste time searching for documents across Google Drive instead of finding them instantly.
• You want to run influencer campaigns but do not know how to find creators or benchmark rates.
• Your team communication is scattered across channels with no intelligent routing.
• You need a sounding board for business decisions but do not have a co-founder or advisor.

Who Needs Vellum Plugins?

• Solo founders: You wear every hat and need each one to take less time.
• Small marketing teams: You need campaign help but cannot justify a full agency retainer.
• Ecommerce store owners: Customer emails, financial tracking, and social video are your daily grind.
• Service-based businesses: Invoices, quotes, and follow-ups are the lifeblood of your cash flow.
• Teams using Slack: You want your Vellum assistant to reach you where you already work, not in a separate tab.

What Makes an Ideal Vellum Plugin?

• Solves a specific operational problem on your Vellum assistant, not a vague productivity boost
• Installs in one command with no configuration required
• Runs sandboxed with credentials isolated from the model
• Works across surfaces (desktop, Slack, Telegram) with shared memory
• Open source so you can audit the code before installing
• Pinned to a reviewed commit so updates are intentional
• Activates on demand based on what you ask, not always running in the background
• Free, like every plugin in the Vellum directory, with no hidden costs or usage limits

Our Review Process

I tested each plugin by installing it on a Vellum assistant and running real business tasks: triaging an inbox, drafting marketing copy, tracking expenses, searching Drive, and planning a creator campaign. Scoring weighs four factors: direct business impact (40%), ease of setup and use (25%), ecosystem maturity and reliability (20%), and unique capability (15%). No affiliate links, no sponsored placements. Every plugin on this list is free and open source.

Best Vellum Plugins for Small Businesses (2026)

1. SMB Inbox Brief

SMB Inbox Brief is the plugin most explicitly built for small business owners. It scans your email for urgent replies, overdue invoices, pending quotes, and customer follow-ups, then delivers a daily brief ranked by urgency so nothing slips through the cracks.

Score: 100

Standout strengths:

• Identifies business-critical emails (invoices, quotes, follow-ups) automatically, no rules to configure
• Delivers a daily urgency-ranked brief so you know exactly what to address first
• Logs business items persistently, creating a running record of outstanding tasks
• Runs entirely through your existing email, no new tool to learn
• Activates on demand, just ask your assistant for your inbox brief

Requirements:

• Requires email integration to be set up before it can scan anything
• Currently focused on email-based business items, does not cover other channels like SMS

Install: assistant plugins install smb-inbox-brief

Best for: Any small business owner whose inbox is their de facto task management system.

Install plugin →

2. Marketing Expert

Marketing Expert turns your assistant into an on-demand marketing department. It covers positioning, demand planning, product launches, content and copywriting, brand voice, email sequences, SEO and GEO, competitive teardowns, and board reporting. The plugin bundles deterministic tools for funnel math, positioning canvases, and launch briefs alongside persona-driven skills that activate when you ask for marketing help.

Score: 95

Standout strengths:

• Covers the full marketing stack from positioning to board reporting in one plugin
• Bundles deterministic tools (funnel math, positioning canvas, launch briefs) that do real arithmetic instead of guessing
• Activates on demand, only engages when you ask for marketing help
• Works for both B2B and B2C businesses across SaaS, ecommerce, services, and more
• Includes a living marketing plan that persists across sessions

Requirements:

• Best results require providing real numbers (revenue, CAC, conversion rates), which some early-stage businesses may not have yet
• Depth across 15 skills means there is a learning curve to know which playbook to reach for

Install: assistant plugins install marketing-expert

Best for: Solo founders and small teams who need marketing strategy and execution but cannot afford a full-time hire.

Install plugin →

3. Admin Copilot

Admin Copilot acts as a proactive chief of staff. It delivers a morning digest, triages your inbox with a propose-then-confirm flow so you stay in control, preps your calendar, and produces a weekly competitor brief. For small business owners who start every day already behind, this plugin surfaces what matters before you have to look for it.

Score: 90

Standout strengths:

• Morning digest gives you a single briefing to start the day instead of checking five apps
• Inbox triage uses propose-then-confirm, so the assistant suggests actions but you approve every one
• Calendar prep means you walk into meetings knowing the context, not scrambling
• Weekly competitor brief runs automatically, tracking rivals without manual research
• Proactive by design, surfaces things before you ask

Requirements:

• Requires email and calendar integrations to be connected for full functionality
• The morning digest cadence assumes a standard workday schedule

Install: assistant plugins install admin-copilot

Best for: Business owners who want their assistant to brief them proactively instead of waiting to be asked.

Install plugin →

4. Personal Finance

Personal Finance tracks expenses, income, recurring bills, and savings funds directly through your assistant. It supports multi-currency transactions, receipt OCR for scanning paper receipts, Plaid bank sync for automatic transaction import, and generates financial summaries on demand. All data is stored locally in SQLite, which matters for business owners who are careful about financial data living in the cloud.

Score: 87

Standout strengths:

• Receipt OCR means you can photograph a receipt and your assistant logs the expense
• Plaid bank sync imports transactions automatically, no manual entry
• Multi-currency support is essential for businesses with international customers or suppliers
• All data stored locally in SQLite, not sent to a third-party server
• Financial summaries available on demand, just ask your assistant

Requirements:

• Plaid integration requires connecting a bank account, which some business owners may hesitate to do
• Categorized as Lifestyle rather than a dedicated business accounting tool, so it lacks features like invoicing or payroll

Install: assistant plugins install personal-finance

Best for: Freelancers and small business owners who want expense tracking without subscribing to a separate accounting app.

Install plugin →

5. Google Drive Search

Google Drive Search indexes your entire Google Drive locally into SQLite FTS5, giving you instant full-text search across file metadata and document content. Instead of scrolling through Drive's folder hierarchy hoping you remember where you saved a contract, you ask your assistant and get an answer immediately.

Score: 84

Standout strengths:

• Full-text search across document content, not just file names
• Indexes locally in SQLite, so searches are instant and private
• Works through your assistant in natural language, no search syntax to learn
• Covers both file metadata and document content in a single index

Requirements:

• Requires initial indexing, which can take time for large Drive accounts
• Index needs periodic refreshing to capture new and updated files

Install: assistant plugins install google-drive-search

Best for: Any business that runs on Google Drive and wastes time looking for documents.

Install plugin →

6. Creatorland

Creatorland turns your assistant into an influencer marketing team. It includes guided workflows for finding the right creators, benchmarking fair rates, analyzing competitor campaigns, building shortlists, and managing outreach. The plugin carries your brand context across sessions, so every campaign starts with what you sell and who you are trying to reach.

Score: 80

Standout strengths:

• End-to-end creator marketing: discovery, rate benchmarking, shortlisting, and outreach in one plugin
• Brand context persists across sessions, so you do not re-explain your business every time
• Includes fair-price negotiation tools and one-number rate cards
• Transcript-to-shortlist workflow lets you turn creator interviews into ranked lists

Requirements:

• Influencer marketing is a specific channel, so this plugin only applies if creator campaigns are part of your strategy
• Discovery relies on browser automation, which requires the browser skill to be available

Install: assistant plugins install creatorland

Best for: Ecommerce brands and consumer startups running creator and influencer campaigns without an agency.

Install plugin →

7. Virlo

Virlo brings real-time short-form video intelligence to your assistant. It analyzes trending content across TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels using Virlo Content Research Agents, helping you understand what is working in your niche and what formats are driving engagement. For small businesses that need a social video presence but do not have a content team, this plugin turns research from a multi-hour scroll into a quick question.

Score: 76

Standout strengths:

• Covers all three major short-form video platforms in one plugin
• Real-time intelligence means you are working with current trends, not last month's data
• Analysis runs through your assistant, so you ask questions in plain language
• Identifies what formats and hooks are driving engagement in your specific niche

Requirements:

• Focused exclusively on short-form video, does not cover long-form or written content
• Powered by Virlo's API, which may have its own usage considerations

Install: assistant plugins install virlo

Best for: Small businesses building a social video presence who need trend research without hiring a social media manager.

Install plugin →

8. Proactive Slacks

Proactive Slacks lets your assistant reach you on Slack on purpose. Instead of burying every notification in a single channel, it routes messages by topic to the right channel at the right volume. Heartbeat-based change detection means it only pings when something actually changed, so you do not get alert fatigue from an assistant that posts every five minutes.

Score: 73

Standout strengths:

• Topic-based routing sends notifications to the right channel instead of one firehose
• Heartbeat-based change detection prevents notification spam, only pings on real changes
• Lets your assistant be proactive without being annoying
• Works with existing Slack workspace structure, no need to create new channels manually

Requirements:

• Only useful if your team already runs on Slack
• Requires initial configuration to map topics to channels

Install: assistant plugins install proactive-slacks

Best for: Small teams using Slack who want their assistant to flag important things without flooding a channel.

Install plugin →

9. Cofounder

Cofounder is an AI sparring partner that remembers your company context, challenges your thinking, and tracks your decisions over time. For solo founders who make every decision alone, this plugin gives you something to push back against. It carries context about your business across sessions, so you do not start every conversation from scratch.

Score: 70

Standout strengths:

• Remembers company context across sessions, so conversations build on each other
• Challenges your thinking instead of just agreeing, which is the whole point
• Tracks decisions over time, creating an auditable record of what you chose and why
• Useful for solo founders who lack a regular sounding board

Requirements:

• The value depends heavily on how much context you provide about your business
• Not a replacement for domain-specific advisors on legal, financial, or technical questions

Install: assistant plugins install cofounder

Best for: Solo founders and small teams who need a thinking partner but do not have a co-founder or board.

Install plugin →

10. Model Router

Model Router routes each message to the AI model that best fits the task, instead of pinning every conversation to a single model. Simple questions go to a cheaper model, complex reasoning goes to a stronger one. For small businesses watching their AI spending, this plugin optimizes cost without sacrificing quality on the tasks that matter.

Score: 67

Standout strengths:

• Automatic model selection per message, no manual switching
• Routes simple queries to cheaper models, saving costs on routine tasks
• Routes complex reasoning to stronger models, preserving quality where it matters
• Works with your existing workspace inference profiles, no new configuration needed

Requirements:

• Requires multiple inference profiles to be configured in your workspace to see any benefit
• Adds a routing decision layer, which may occasionally send a complex query to a weaker model

Install: assistant plugins install model-router

Best for: Cost-conscious businesses that want to use premium AI models selectively instead of for every message.

Install plugin →

Vellum Plugin Comparison Table

Why Vellum Plugins Stand Out

The 2026 NFIB survey found that marketing content creation, customer communication, and administrative tasks are the three most common AI applications among small businesses [1]. That is exactly what this list covers. The plugins here are not disconnected point solutions. They all run on the same Vellum assistant, sharing the same memory and context across surfaces. Your assistant knows what Marketing Expert drafted last week when Admin Copilot triages an email from a customer who responded to that campaign.

That shared context is the real differentiator. Installing ten separate SaaS tools gives you ten siloed workflows with no memory of each other. Installing ten Vellum plugins gives you one assistant that carries context across every capability. The SMB Inbox Brief plugin knows about the invoice Personal Finance tracked. The Cofounder plugin remembers the positioning decision Marketing Expert helped you make.

Vellum vs standalone SaaS tools: Plugins are free and open source. You install them on an assistant you already run, not a new subscription per capability. The source code is on GitHub for every plugin, so you can audit what runs on your machine before installing.

Vellum vs closed plugin ecosystems: Every plugin in the directory is pinned to a reviewed commit, security-checked, and runs sandboxed with per-actor permissions. Your credentials live in a separate process and never reach the model. You stay on the version you installed until you choose to update.

Vellum vs building from scratch: Each plugin installs with a single command. No build step, no config file, no API keys to manage. You ask your assistant for help and the right plugin activates based on what you said.

Vellum vs doing nothing: 76% of small businesses report using AI, but only 14% say it is fully embedded in their core operations [5]. Plugins are how you close that gap. They turn AI from a chat tab you occasionally open into a set of capabilities that actually run your business.

Get started with Vellum free →

FAQs

What are Vellum plugins?

Vellum plugins are bundles of tools, hooks, and skills that extend your AI assistant with new capabilities. Each plugin is a self-contained GitHub repo you install with a single command. They are open source, pinned to a reviewed commit, and security-checked before listing in the directory.

How do I install a Vellum plugin?

Three ways, all one step. Browse and install from the Plugins tab inside the Vellum app, send your assistant the plugin's page link and ask it to install, or run the CLI command from any plugin's page: assistant plugins install <name>. No build step, no config file to edit.

Are Vellum plugins free?

Yes. Every plugin in the directory is open source and free to install. Some plugins call third-party APIs that may have their own costs, but the plugin itself never costs anything.

Which Vellum plugin is best for small business email management?

SMB Inbox Brief is the most directly built for small business email. It scans your inbox for urgent replies, overdue invoices, quotes, and customer follow-ups, then delivers a daily urgency-ranked brief. Admin Copilot adds a broader chief-of-staff layer with propose-then-confirm inbox triage and calendar prep on top.

Can I use Vellum plugins for marketing?

Marketing Expert covers the full marketing stack including positioning, content, SEO, email sequences, and competitive analysis. Creatorland handles influencer marketing end to end. Virlo provides short-form video intelligence across TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels. All three are free and install in one command.

How do Vellum plugins compare to standalone SaaS tools?

Vellum plugins run on your existing assistant and share memory across every capability. Standalone SaaS tools are siloed subscriptions with no shared context. Plugins are free and open source, while SaaS tools typically charge per seat or per feature. The trade-off is that plugins require a Vellum assistant to run on.

Is it safe to install Vellum plugins?

Plugins in the directory are reviewed by the Vellum team, install from a pinned commit, and run inside Vellum's sandbox with per-actor permissions. Your credentials live in a separate process and never reach the model. You can also read every line of source on GitHub before installing.

Can I use multiple Vellum plugins at the same time?

Yes. Plugins are designed to coexist. You can install SMB Inbox Brief, Marketing Expert, Admin Copilot, and Personal Finance together, and they all share the same assistant memory. Your assistant activates the right plugin based on what you ask, so there is no conflict between capabilities.

What is the best Vellum plugin for tracking business expenses?

Personal Finance tracks expenses, income, recurring bills, and savings funds with multi-currency support, receipt OCR, and Plaid bank sync. All data is stored locally in SQLite, which is an advantage for business owners who want financial data kept on their own device.

Do Vellum plugins work on Slack and Telegram?

Yes. Vellum plugins run across macOS, Slack, and Telegram with shared memory. Proactive Slacks is specifically designed to route assistant notifications to the right Slack channels, but every plugin works across all surfaces. Your assistant carries the same context regardless of which channel you use.

How do I remove a Vellum plugin?

Ask your assistant to uninstall it, or run assistant plugins uninstall <name>. Plugins are self-contained, so removing one leaves the rest of your setup untouched.

Extra Resources

• Best AI Assistant for Small Business →
• Best AI Tools for Lead Capture and Follow-Up →
• Introducing Agent Plugins →
• Best AI Assistants for Ecommerce Shopify Stores →
• Best AI Receptionist for Small Business →

Citations

[1] Booth Associates LLC. (2026). AI Statistics for Small Business 2026.

[2] SBE Council. (2026). The AI Tools Small Businesses Are Using.

[3] Epiphany Dynamics. (2026). Small Business AI Adoption Statistics 2026: 20+ Sourced Data Points.

[4] PaidHosting. (2026). AI Statistics 2026: Small Business, Ecommerce and Productivity Data.

[5] Goldman Sachs. (2026). 10,000 Small Businesses Survey.