Ten AI Tools People Pay For, and the Free Version of Each

Each paid tool below is priced on its SECOND paid tier, the plan you move to when the entry plan stops being enough. That is the number in the video. The entry price is in brackets so you can see both.

1. 1
   IMAGE CREATION. Midjourney Standard, 30 dollars a month (Basic is 10), to Nano Banana. gemini.google.com. Googles image model, free inside the Gemini app. No card, no queue.
2. 2
   AI RESEARCH. Perplexity Max, 200 dollars a month (Pro is 20), to Consensus. consensus.app. Searches actual peer reviewed papers instead of the open web and shows how many studies support the answer. Free tier.
3. 3
   AVATAR CREATION. HeyGen Pro, 99 dollars a month (Creator is 29), to Hedra. hedra.com. Talking avatars from one photo plus a script. Free credits refresh monthly.
4. 4
   CODE GENERATION. GitHub Copilot Pro+, 39 dollars a month (Pro is 10), to Cursor. cursor.com. The Hobby plan is 0 dollars with no card and no time limit. Limited agent requests and tab completions.
5. 5
   VIDEO GENERATION. Higgsfield Plus, 39 dollars a month (Starter is 15), to Hailuo. hailuoai.video. Free credits every day, roughly 3 to 5 clips, topped up on sign in.
6. 6
   IMAGE EDITING. Adobe Firefly Pro, 30 dollars a month (Standard is 10), to Photoroom. photoroom.com. Background removal and product shots. Free plan exports up to 250 images a month with a watermark.
7. 7
   SOCIAL SCHEDULING. Buffer Team, 12 dollars a month per channel (Essentials is 6), to Publer. publer.com. Free plan covers 3 accounts with 10 scheduled posts each.
8. 8
   WEBSITE BUILDER. Framer Pro, 30 dollars a month (Basic is 10), to Lovable. lovable.dev. Free plan gives 5 credits a day up to 30 a month and publishes live to a lovable.app subdomain. No card.
9. 9
   VIDEO EDITING. CapCut Pro, 20 dollars a month, to Edits. instagram.com/edits. Instagrams own editor. Genuinely free, no watermark. CapCut has only one paid tier for individuals, so this row is the same at either end.
10. 10
    VOICE GENERATION. ElevenLabs Creator, 22 dollars a month (Starter is 5), to MiniMax. minimaxi.com. Free text to speech credits across many languages.