AI certification for small businesses
Most "AI certification" search results are courses — a person sits an exam and gets a certificate. This page is about something different: certifying your organisation. Ethicality assesses how your business actually uses AI, against a published standard of 15 plain-language requirements, and lists you in a public registry when you meet it. It is built for businesses of 1 to 500 people, priced accordingly, and run from Canada.
Quick answer
- What it is: an independent assessment of how your organisation uses AI — your written rules, who is responsible for AI-assisted decisions, what you disclose to customers, and how you protect confidential information — against the Ethicality AI Use Standard (EAUS).
- What it costs: from $300 USD a year for organisations of 1–10 people, rising by size to $3,000 at 201–500. Full pricing.
- What it takes: about 10 minutes to apply; a decision within 5 business days. The assessment is free — you pay only if you are certified.
- What you get: the Ethicality Badge, a numbered certificate, and an entry in the public registry that customers and partners can check.
This certifies your organisation, not a person
A training course certifies that an employee finished a curriculum. Useful, but it says nothing about how your business behaves on a Tuesday afternoon: whether staff paste client data into chatbots, whether anyone checks AI-drafted work before it ships, whether your customers know AI was involved.
EAUS certification covers the organisation's working practices. It is the kind of evidence a client, an insurer or a procurement team means when they ask "how do you govern your use of AI?" — a standard, an independent check, and a registry entry they can verify without taking your word for it.
What gets checked
The standard has 15 requirements, written to be read in one sitting. In practice, the assessment looks at:
- Written rules. Do you have a short AI use policy — approved tools, prohibited uses, data that must never be entered into AI tools?
- Human responsibility. Is a named person accountable for important decisions that AI helps make, with a real ability to overrule the tool?
- Disclosure. Do customers and clients know when they are interacting with AI, or receiving AI-generated work, where that matters?
- Confidentiality. Are there working safeguards against client and company information leaking into tools that train on their inputs?
- Staying current. Do the rules get revisited when the tools change?
If some of this isn't in place yet, that is the normal starting point. The free 2-minute readiness check shows where you stand before you apply, and free templates cover the policy and disclosure documents most businesses need to write.
What it costs
| Organisation size | Annual fee (USD) |
|---|---|
| 1–10 people | $300 |
| 11–50 people | $700 |
| 51–200 people | $1,500 |
| 201–500 people | $3,000 |
| 501+ people | Quoted on scope |
The assessment itself is free, and your card is charged only if certification is issued. If you don't pass, one re-review within 90 days is included at no extra charge. Renewal each year is a five-minute re-attestation. For comparison, our cost guide sets these figures against ISO/IEC 42001, where published estimates for firms under 500 people run from $15,000 to $80,000 or more in the first year, over 4 to 12 months.
How it works
- Apply. About 10 minutes: what your organisation does, which AI tools you use, and your current rules. Start at get certified.
- Assessment. Your evidence is reviewed against each of the 15 EAUS requirements.
- Decision. Within 5 business days, signed by a named certification officer — not an automated score.
- Badge and registry. If you pass, you receive the Ethicality Badge and a numbered certificate, and your organisation appears in the public registry.
- Stay certified. Keep the practices in place, tell us if they change, and complete the short annual re-attestation.
Why small businesses get certified
- A client asked. AI questions now appear in vendor questionnaires, RFPs and due-diligence calls. A registry entry answers most of them in one link.
- Trust, stated plainly. "We use AI, here are our rules, and an independent body checked them" is a stronger sentence than a paragraph of assurances.
- The rules were worth writing anyway. Most firms that apply say the policy and disclosure work needed doing regardless; certification is what made it happen.
- Regulation is moving. Disclosure duties for AI use are already law in the EU, and Canada is still working out its own regime — the proposed federal AI act (AIDA) died in January 2025, leaving privacy and consumer-protection law to carry the weight for now. Documented, certified practices are how a small business stays ready without hiring a compliance team.
A Canadian certification, open to businesses anywhere
Ethicality is operated by Ethicality Inc., an Ontario corporation based in North York, Toronto. Most AI governance offerings aimed at small businesses are either American enterprise platforms or European law-firm services; the one other organisation-level certification priced for small businesses that shows up in search results is Australian. This one is priced in published tiers, assessed against a public standard, and listed in a public registry — and it accepts applicants from any country.
Not ISO 42001 — deliberately
ISO/IEC 42001 certifies an AI management system: the full apparatus of documented processes, roles and monitoring, built mainly for organisations that develop AI or operate at enterprise scale. It is the right tool for some firms, and this comparison sets out where each fits. EAUS certifies something narrower and, for most small businesses, more relevant: how your people use AI at work. Narrower scope is why it costs $300 instead of $30,000, and why the decision takes days instead of months.
Frequently asked questions
Is this a course or an exam?
Neither. It is an assessment of your organisation's practices against a published standard. No one on your team sits a test.
How long does it take, start to finish?
About 10 minutes to apply, and a decision within 5 business days. If your AI use policy and disclosure practices aren't written down yet, allow your own time to draft them first — the readiness check and templates shorten that.
What if we don't pass?
Your findings stay private and nothing is published. You are told which requirements weren't met, and one re-review within 90 days is included at no extra charge.
Does certification make us legally compliant?
No certification does that, including this one. EAUS certification is independent evidence that your AI use practices meet a published standard. Legal duties — privacy law, sector rules, and AI-specific laws where they apply to you — remain yours. See the FAQ for how certification treats legal compliance questions.
Who is already certified?
The first certified organisations are listed in the public registry, with their certificate numbers, standard version and status shown publicly.
We're outside Canada. Can we apply?
Yes. The standard, the assessment and the registry are the same everywhere; only the annual fee tiers apply, in USD.
Start with where you stand
Run the free 2-minute readiness check to see how your current practices line up with the standard, or go straight to pricing and apply for certification. The assessment costs nothing unless you pass.