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
| 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
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.
