The subscription shame spiral

I added up my AI subscriptions last month. The total was embarrassing. I'm not going to tell you the exact number because I have some dignity left, but let's just say it was more than my electricity bill.

And the worst part? I was actively using about three of them. The rest were sitting there, quietly draining my bank account like a slow leak in a tyre that you keep meaning to fix but never quite get around to.

If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. The average person who works in tech is subscribed to somewhere between four and eight AI tools, and research suggests they regularly use fewer than half of them. We've all fallen for the same trick: a flashy demo, a "limited time" discount, and the vague promise that this tool will make us 10x more productive.

Let's fix that.

Step 1: The brutal audit

Open your bank statement. Yes, right now. Search for recurring charges. You're looking for anything from OpenAI, Anthropic, Notion, Midjourney, Jasper, Grammarly, Zapier, or any other tool name you vaguely recognise.

Write them all down. Every single one. Include the monthly cost.

Now, next to each one, write when you last actually used it. Not when you last opened it by accident. When you last used it to do something that mattered.

If the answer is "I can't remember," that's your answer. Cancel it.

Step 2: The overlap problem

Here's something nobody talks about: most AI tools do roughly the same thing with slightly different interfaces. You don't need ChatGPT Plus AND Claude Pro AND Perplexity Pro. Pick the one you actually reach for when you have a real question, and cancel the other two.

Same goes for writing tools. Grammarly Premium plus Notion AI plus Jasper? That's three tools fighting over the same job. Grammarly for editing, and one generative AI tool for drafting. That's all you need.

The tricky overlaps to watch for: - ChatGPT Plus + Claude Pro - Unless you have specific tasks where one dramatically outperforms the other, pick one. (I keep both, but I also write about AI tools for a living, so I have an excuse. You probably don't.) - Notion AI + ChatGPT - Notion AI is just a wrapper around an LLM. If you already have ChatGPT, Notion AI is redundant unless you genuinely love having it embedded in your notes. - Grammarly + any AI writing tool - Grammarly is for editing. Jasper/Copy.ai are for drafting. These don't overlap as much as you'd think. This is one case where having both might actually make sense. - Midjourney + DALL-E + Stable Diffusion - You do not need three image generators. You just don't. Pick the one whose aesthetic you prefer and cancel the rest.

Step 3: The free tier test

Before you pay for anything, spend a full week using only free tiers. You might be shocked at how far they get you.

ChatGPT's free tier gives you GPT-4o with rate limits. For most people, that's enough. The paid tier is worth it if you hit the rate limits regularly or need the latest model, but "I might need it someday" is not a good reason to pay $20/month.

Claude's free tier is similarly generous. Unless you're doing heavy coding work or need the extended context window, free Claude handles most tasks perfectly well.

Canva's free tier covers 90% of what most people use Canva for. The Pro features are nice, but "I might want to resize something one day" isn't worth $120/year.

The pattern: if a tool's free tier feels limiting, that means you're actually using the tool enough to justify paying. If the free tier feels fine, you were paying for peace of mind, not utility.

Step 4: The Monday morning test

Here's my favourite method for deciding what to keep. On Monday morning, start your work without opening any AI tools. Just work normally. When you hit a moment where you think "I wish I had [tool name] right now," write that down.

Do this for a full week.

At the end of the week, you'll have a short list of tools you genuinely reached for. Everything else is a nice-to-have at best and a waste of money at worst.

When I did this exercise, my list was: - ChatGPT (daily, for thinking through problems) - Grammarly (constantly, because I can't spell) - Midjourney (twice, for article images)

Everything else? Didn't miss it. Not once.

Step 5: The annual cost reality check

Monthly subscriptions are psychologically designed to feel cheap. $20/month sounds like nothing. But reframe it: - ChatGPT Plus: $240/year - Claude Pro: $240/year - Midjourney: $120/year - Notion AI: $120/year - Grammarly: $144/year - Zapier: $240/year (at minimum)

If you had all of these, that's $1,104/year. On AI tools alone. That's a holiday. That's a very nice piece of furniture. That's a lot of really excellent dinners.

When you think of each subscription as its annual cost, the calculus changes fast.

What I actually recommend keeping

For most people who work with text and code: One chatbot (ChatGPT or Claude, not both) Grammarly (free tier is usually enough) One image tool if you actually make images (Midjourney if you care about quality, DALL-E if you care about convenience)

That's it. That's the stack. Everything else is either a luxury or a redundancy.

For developers, add Cursor or GitHub Copilot (not both) and you're sorted.

Total monthly cost: somewhere between $20 and $60 depending on your choices. That's a massive improvement over the $100+ most of us are quietly spending.

The cancellation trick

Most tools make cancelling slightly annoying on purpose. They'll offer you a discount, show you usage stats, or hit you with "are you sure?" screens. Ignore all of it. If you haven't used it in two weeks, cancel. You can always re-subscribe. They'll take your money back happily. They always do.

The money you save is real. The productivity you lose is almost certainly imaginary. Trust me on this one.