I’ve reviewed a lot of tools on this site by now, and the question I get asked more than any other single thing is some version of “okay but what do you actually use?” Fair question. Here’s the honest answer — not the idealized stack I’d recommend to a stranger, but what I’m actually paying for right now, what I dropped, and what I’d reconsider if I were starting from zero.
The Core Stack
| Role | What I use | What it costs me |
|---|---|---|
| Writing & research | ChatGPT or Claude | ~$20/month |
| Editing | Grammarly free tier | $0 |
| Organization | Notion or ClickUp | $0-13/month |
| Automation | Zapier free tier | $0 to start |
| Design | Canva | ~$13/month |
Total right now: somewhere between $35 and $50 a month, depending on which tier I’m on for organization that month. That’s the whole stack for actually producing this site — everything else I’ve reviewed is something I researched thoroughly, not something I’m necessarily paying for myself yet.
Why This Specific Combination
The generalist assistant is the one I’d never cut. Research, drafting, restructuring a messy first pass into something publishable — it touches almost every post on this site before it goes anywhere near an editor. I made the actual case for Claude vs ChatGPT elsewhere on this site, and I stand by the framework there more than any specific brand loyalty — document-heavy work leans one way, format-varied work leans the other.
Grammarly’s free tier stays on permanently for the same reason it’s the easiest recommendation on this whole site: it costs nothing and it catches things a first draft misses, every time, with zero decision required.
The organization tool is the one I’ve actually gone back and forth on. I wrote the Notion vs ClickUp comparison partly to force myself to actually decide instead of running both indefinitely — my honest take from that piece still holds: it comes down to whether you think in documents or tasks, and that answer is personal enough that I won’t pretend there’s a universally correct choice.
What I Don’t Pay For (Yet)
This list is longer than the one above, and that’s deliberate. I’ve reviewed customer support tools, CRMs, phone systems, and a handful of other categories without paying for any of them, because none of those problems exist for me yet at this stage of running this site. That’s not an oversight — it’s the whole argument I keep making across this site: add a tool when a real bottleneck justifies it, not because a stack list implies you should already have one.
If and when this site has enough reader questions or business inquiries to justify it, Freshdesk or Tidio’s free tiers are where I’d start — not because I’ve tested them personally yet, but because that’s exactly the discipline the research behind those reviews pointed to.
What I’d Change If I Were Starting Over
Knowing what I know now, from having actually researched every category on this site, I’d set the SEO and content-structure discipline in place from post one, not add it after the fact. The pricing tricks and free tier trap pieces are the ones I’m proudest of, and they came later in the process than they should have — that kind of original analysis is what actually separates a site like this from a list of tool descriptions, and I’d front-load it earlier next time.
The One Rule I Actually Follow
Every tool in my real stack above earns its place because I use it weekly, not because it looked impressive when I was researching a comparison post. That’s the test I’d genuinely suggest applying to your own stack, not just something I say in a guide: if you had to justify each subscription out loud, in one sentence, based on this week specifically — not a hypothetical future need — would it survive the explanation?
FAQ
What AI tools does this site actually recommend using together? The core stack — a generalist assistant, Grammarly’s free tier, an organization tool, and light automation — covers the majority of what a solo business needs before anything more specialized becomes necessary.
Why doesn’t this list include every tool reviewed on the site? Because most categories covered here — customer support, CRM, phone systems — solve problems that don’t exist yet at every stage of a business. The stack should match your actual bottlenecks, not the full catalog of what’s out there.
How much does a realistic starting AI stack cost? Based on the breakdown above, a genuinely useful starting stack runs $35-50/month — consistent with the broader budget guidance across this site’s full stack guide.
Should I copy this exact stack for my own business? Use it as a starting framework, not a checklist. The right stack depends on your specific bottlenecks — the full stack guide walks through how to figure out your own version of this list.
This is the real-world version of the complete AI tool stack guide already on this site — see Best AI Tools for a One-Person Business for the full catalog everything above was chosen from.
