SMB, short for small and medium-sized business, is generally defined by revenue and headcount thresholds that vary by country. In the UAE, a business is typically classified as an SMB if it earns under AED 250 million in annual revenue or employs fewer than 200 people, a definition used across government reporting, banking eligibility criteria, and vendor pricing tiers aimed at this segment of the market.
SMBs make up over 90% of businesses in the UAE, meaning most customer-facing companies in the country, from retail shops to logistics providers to clinics, fall into this category rather than being large enterprises. For an Arabic-and-English AI concierge provider, this segment needs customer service automation that is affordable and fast to deploy on channels like WhatsApp, without the lengthy implementation or enterprise-level budget that large corporate deployments often require.
In Eshal: Eshal's Starter and Growth pricing tiers are built specifically for the SMB segment, giving smaller UAE businesses access to core AI concierge capabilities, including WhatsApp deployment and Arabic dialect support, as larger enterprise customers get, without enterprise-level cost or implementation timelines. This lets SMBs automate customer service without needing the dedicated technical resources larger organisations rely on.