My current AI stack: 6 tools I actually pay for (and what each one costs me)

Most 'AI stack' posts are thinly disguised affiliate pages. They recommend twelve tools, none of which the author pays for, and every one of which has a generous commission programme.

This is not that.

Below are the six AI tools I currently subscribe to. I've included what I pay, what I use each for, and an honest assessment of whether I think it's worth it. I'll review each in more depth over the coming weeks — this post is the starting point, not the conclusion.

Total monthly spend: £87. Here's where it goes.

1. Claude Pro — £17/month

Claude is my primary writing tool. I use it for drafting, editing, structuring long documents, and working through ideas. I've been using it daily for the better part of a year.

The Pro tier gives you significantly more usage than the free version and access to the more capable models. For anyone using Claude seriously — meaning more than a few queries a day — the free tier runs out quickly. The upgrade is straightforward.

What it does well: long-form drafting, following complex instructions, maintaining a consistent voice across a long piece of work. What it does less well: anything requiring real-time information, since its knowledge has a cutoff date.

Verdict so far: Recommended. It's the tool I'd keep if I had to cut everything else.

2. Notion AI — £8/month

I use Notion to manage projects across several publishing businesses. The AI add-on sits inside the workspace and can summarise, draft, and reorganise content within your existing documents.

The honest assessment: Notion AI is convenient rather than powerful. It's useful for quick summaries and tidying up notes, but it's not a replacement for Claude when you need serious drafting. What it provides is context — it works inside your existing documents, which saves switching between tools.

Whether it's worth it depends on how heavily you use Notion. If you're already paying for Notion and you live inside it, £8 is probably fine. If you're not already a Notion user, don't start here.

Verdict so far: Conditional. Useful if Notion is already your home base.

3. Frase — £14/month

Frase is an SEO content tool. It analyses the top-ranking pages for a given keyword and builds a content brief showing what they cover, how long they are, and what questions they answer. I use it before writing any post where search traffic matters.

It's not an AI writing tool in the sense of generating prose — I don't use the writing features, which are mediocre. What it does well is the research and brief-building layer: it saves me 30–45 minutes per post and produces better-structured content than I'd write without it.

At £14/month for a solo creator, it's one of the most straightforwardly cost-effective tools in this list.

Verdict so far: Recommended, specifically for the research and brief features. Ignore the AI writer.

4. ElevenLabs — £17/month

ElevenLabs generates AI voiceover. I use it to create audio versions of longer posts and to produce voice content for a separate project. The voice quality at this price point is genuinely impressive — noticeably better than competitors I've tested at similar prices.

The catches: you go through credits faster than you expect, particularly on longer pieces, and the mid-tier plan limits you in ways that push you toward the next price point. I'm currently on the Creator plan, which covers my needs, but I've hit the ceiling a few times.

Verdict so far: Recommended if you have a genuine use case for voiceover. Not worth it if you're experimenting.

5. Perplexity Pro — £17/month

Perplexity is an AI search tool — it pulls from the live web and synthesises answers with citations. I use it for research that requires current information: recent news, up-to-date statistics, checking whether something has changed since an AI model's training cutoff.

The Pro tier unlocks better models and more searches per day. Whether you need it depends on how often you hit the free tier's limits. I do, so I upgraded.

It's not a replacement for doing proper research — the citations need checking and the summaries occasionally miss nuance. But as a starting point for finding current information quickly, it's genuinely useful.

Verdict so far: Conditional. The free tier covers casual use. Pro is for people who use it as a daily research tool.

6. Descript — £14/month

Descript is a podcast and video editor that lets you edit audio by editing a transcript — delete a word from the text, it's gone from the recording. I use it for audio editing on a separate project. The AI features include overdub (re-recording words without a microphone) and Studio Sound (cleaning up audio quality).

It's genuinely good software that does something other tools don't. The transcript-based editing saves significant time once you're used to it. Studio Sound works well on reasonable-quality source audio, less well on poor recordings.

Verdict so far: Recommended if you produce audio or video content regularly. Probably overkill if you're occasional.

What's not on this list

ChatGPT: I've tested it extensively. It's capable. It's not what I reach for when Claude is available, which is almost always. A full comparison is coming.

Midjourney and image tools: I use them occasionally but not on subscription. A project-specific post is coming.

Jasper, Copy.ai, and the other writing assistants: tested, cancelled. Posts incoming on why.

How this list changes

I update the My Stack page on this site when subscriptions change. I cancel things when they stop being worth it and I'll write about that when it happens. This list reflects April 2026. It will look different by summer.

Full reviews of each tool listed above are coming over the next several weeks. If you want to know when they land, the newsletter goes out every Wednesday.

— Ellis

Some links in this post are or will become affiliate links once programmes are approved. I only link to tools I subscribe to. Full disclosure at /disclosure/