AI business plan generator: the questions it asks and what you get

Prepared by the 15minuteplan.ai team. Facts checked 2026-10-13.

The 15minuteplan.ai generator is a form, not a prompt box. It asks seven groups of questions (your goal, basic facts, customers, products, strengths and weaknesses, start-up costs, first-year revenue and costs), shows a preview of five plan sections before you pay, and writes the rest, including the finance tables, after a one-time payment (US list price from US$69).

Summary: three questions people ask first

What the generator asks, step by step

The steps below are in the form's order: seven steps, then the preview.

Each table says whether a field is required (the form blocks Next or the label says "required") and which plan sections use the answer. We read the form code to fill the last column. "The writing AI" means the AI that writes each section of the plan.

Step 1, "Select Business Plan Objective"

Step 2, "Enter Basic Business Information"

The page note reads: "Answer these questions as if you would a person".

Step 3, "Enter Customer Group Details"

Step 4, "Enter Product or Service Details"

Step 5, "Enter Success Drivers"

The page defines them: "Success Drivers are the most important things that contribute to the success of a business."

Step 6, "Enter Currency and Initial Investment Details"

The form warns: "If your business sells a physical product, don't include the cost of making or buying the first batch of product in your initial investment. You should list this expense under 'Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)' on the next page".

Step 7, "Enter Financial Details"

What to have ready

Three answers on steps 6 and 7 are mandatory: a currency, a first-year revenue estimate and a yearly revenue growth rate.

The rest can wait, but the finance tables are only as specific as what you type. List your start-up costs with amounts for step 6, and decide on your own cost percentages for step 7 instead of accepting the prefilled ones. The next sections show why.

What you see before you pay

After step 7 the form generates the plan and shows a preview. The preview page says: "We've generated parts of the plan for you. To get full plan, go to the end of the page to proceed".

The Starter plan includes every row above. The Professional plan adds sections such as KPIs, technology and growth strategy, and a fuller management structure.

The preview has an AI edit box. Its note reads: "Note: changes here won't apply to the final plan so you can explore freely. Full editing will be available once unlocked at the end of the page."

Payment is one time: the checkout is Stripe Checkout in payment mode, not a subscription. US list price: Starter US$69, Professional US$99 (checked 2026-10-13; prices differ by country); a sale price may show at checkout. The Starter plan's editor has Save As Word and Save As PDF buttons.

Worked example: the finance step on an invented business

Kestrel Mobile Bike Repair is fictional. Every figure is invented for the arithmetic and is not a benchmark or tax advice. Picture two repair vans, two mechanics plus the owner, one metro area, repairs at the customer's door. Amounts are in whole currency units.

Step 6: the start-up costs

Following the form's warning, the first stock of parts is not here. It goes under cost of goods sold in step 7.

The form does not work out depreciation from these items. You type a percentage. For Kestrel we assumed vans last 8 years (52,000 / 8 = 6,500 a year) and tools 5 years (12,000 / 5 = 2,400 a year). That is 8,900 a year, entered as 3% of 300,000 revenue (9,000).

Step 7: the rule behind the read-outs

The form computes the on-screen figures in this order:

1. Each of the nine cost lines before tax is revenue times its percentage, rounded to a whole unit.
2. Tax is the tax percentage times pre-tax profit (revenue minus those nine lines), not times revenue. There is no floor at zero, so a loss gives a negative tax figure. If you expect a first-year loss, set income taxes to 0 so the read-outs do not show a negative tax.
3. Total cost is the nine lines plus tax. Net profit is revenue minus total cost.
4. Net margin is net profit divided by revenue, rounded to a whole percent.

The paid first-year table spreads revenue over a built-in ramp: month 1 is 5% of the year, and each month after is about 8.9% higher. For Kestrel that is 15,000 in month 1 and about 38,200 in month 12. Every cost line except rent follows that month's revenue; rent is split evenly. The ramp cannot be changed on the form. The twelve months add up to the read-outs, apart from a few units of rounding. To check our arithmetic, enter Case A or Case B on step 7 and compare the three read-outs ("Your First Year Total Cost is:", "Your First Year Net Profit is:", "Your Net Profit Margin is:").

Case A: the prefilled percentages, revenue 300,000

A shortcut gives the same answer: 0.45 × (1 − 0.20) = 0.36.

A 36% margin is a property of the starting values. Nothing in our code says they describe an industry, so treat them as placeholders and replace them with your own figures before anyone else reads the plan.

Case B: Kestrel's own percentages, revenue 300,000

Invented inputs: growth rate 12%. Cost of goods sold 28% (parts and consumables sold with repairs). Wages 30% (two mechanics and part-time dispatch, not the owner). Marketing 4%. Rent 3% (a storage bay at 9,000 a year). General and administrative 4% (insurance, software, accounting). Depreciation 3% (see above). Utilities 1% (phones). Other 5% (fuel, van upkeep, card fees). Interest 1% (about 3,000 in the first year on a 40,000 van loan at 7.5%, a little less if the loan amortizes). Tax left at 20% for the arithmetic only. If Kestrel is a sole proprietorship or a single-member LLC, the business itself usually pays no federal income tax; the owner does, and a lender then reads the owner's tax return.

The paid tables reach the same 50,400 net income from the top down: gross profit 216,000 (the table labels this row "Gross Margin"), earnings before interest and taxes 66,000, interest 3,000, tax 12,600.

The five-year table applies the same percentages to each year's revenue. Every line except rent grows with revenue. At Kestrel's 12% growth, depreciation rises from 9,000 to about 14,200 by year 5, though the vans and tools stay the same. Interest rises from 3,000 to about 4,700 on a loan that is being paid down. Wages rise exactly with sales. Rent stays at its year-1 amount. Before a lender sees years 2 to 5, check those lines against your own schedule.

Wages explain the whole drop in pre-tax margin from 45% to 21%: the default 6% becomes 30%, a 24-point swing (45 − 24 = 21). The other eight lines cancel out: lower cost of goods sold (+12) and marketing (+1) offset rent, general and administrative, depreciation, utilities, other and interest (−13). After 20% tax, 21 × 0.8 = 16.8. The prefilled 6% for wages suits a business with almost no payroll, not one built on mechanics.

The 50,400 is before repaying the van loan's principal, which never appears on an income statement, and before any draw the owner takes; Kestrel's wages line pays the mechanics, not the owner. That cash question is why lenders ask for the cash flow statement this generator does not write. Kestrel's 77,000 start-up cost against a 40,000 van loan also leaves 37,000 to come from the owner. A funding request would state both figures, and the form has no place for them.

How the output lines up with the sections SBA lists

SBA's page on writing a business plan says of the traditional plan: "Lenders and investors commonly request this plan." It also says you "don't have to stick to the exact business plan outline". Source: SBA, Write your business plan, read 2026-10-11.

The table lines up the sections SBA lists with what the generator writes. This is a comparison of headings, not an approval by SBA or any lender.

For funding, SBA writes: "Specify whether you want debt or equity, the terms you'd like applied, and the length of time your request will cover." For projections it asks for "forecasted income statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements, and capital expenditure budgets", with the first year "even more specific", quarterly or monthly. The generator meets the monthly first year and five years for the income statement only. A capital expenditure budget schedules asset purchases across the projection years. The Initial Investment table lists start-up spending once, at the start, so it does not do that job.

The generator also writes an operations section (key activities, implementation plan) and a risk and mitigation section, neither of which is a separate heading on SBA's list.

How the first input differs from a prompt box

Three other generators open with a text box. The table sorts by the style of the first input. It does not rank quality. Quotes are from each company's own page, read 2026-10-11, and may have changed since.

A prompt box is quicker and suits a first look at an idea; a form takes longer but asks for the numbers a finance section needs.

Grammarly's FAQ suggests putting "funding goals or needs" in the prompt. Our form has no field for them, which is the funding-request gap above.

To try the form, start step 1, or read more about the 15minuteplan.ai business plan generator on the homepage. Kestrel Mobile Bike Repair is a made-up business; no customer data is used on this page.