Buckets that are not interchangeable
| Bucket | Paid examples | Pick at most |
|---|---|---|
| General chat | ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, Gemini Advanced | One |
| IDE / code agent | Cursor Pro, Copilot, Codeium | One per editor |
| Image / video | Midjourney, Runway, Leonardo | One if you ship creatives weekly |
| API metered | OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter | Budget cap in dashboard |
Paying for two general chat subs is almost always waste — same prompts, different logos.
Monthly TCO worksheet
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| Line | Your price | ×12 annualized |
|---|---|---|
| Chat sub A | $ | |
| Chat sub B | $ | ← cut this row first |
| IDE agent | $ | |
| API (avg last 3 mo) | $ |
Full walkthrough: AI stack monthly cost.
When a “bundle” is real
- GitHub Copilot bundled with student / org plans — do not add Cursor Pro on the same repo unless you measured velocity gain.
- ChatGPT with browsing vs Claude with projects — keep the one that holds your system prompts and files.
Free tiers and trials
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Trials roll to paid silently on the same card as Netflix. Tag them in your subscription audit export with AI-TRIAL and set cancel before day 7 if you only needed one project.
Disclosure for affiliate pages
We compare AI tools editorially. When we link Amazon or SaaS bounties, we pair with cancel steps — same standard as bounty programs.
