The 5 AI tools I pay for. None of them work alone.
A friend asked me which AI tools I pay for. I answered from memory, without opening my subscriptions. 5 came to mind, and the reason they matter surprised him more than the list.A friend asked which AI tools I pay for. 5 came to mind, and why they matter surprised him more than the list.
- Claude builds my tools, bots and pages. Work that took a team 2 weeks now takes a few hours.
- Plaud records every meeting, so I never take notes, and the notes feed my content.
- Higgsfield gives me pictures and videos with no shoot. Apify gives me research in minutes.
- The tools are not the win. The win is that each one hands its work to the next.
In this article
- 01The 5, in 1 look
- 021/5 Claude builds what used to need a team
- 032/5 Plaud means I never take notes in a meeting
- 043/5 Higgsfield means no shoot and no studio
- 054/5 Apify means research in minutes
- 065/5 Telegram Premium is my remote control
- 07None of these tools matter on their own
- 08Where to start if you have none of this
- 09Questions, answered
A friend sent me a WhatsApp message this week. He wanted to know which AI tools I actually pay for, and how they make my life easy. He asked me to answer in a voice note, without looking at my subscription list.
So I did. I pressed record and talked. 5 tools came out, in this order. If a tool does not come to mind without checking, I am probably not using it enough to pay for it.
One thing first. I run a growth marketing firm. AI is not my business. It is a set of tools inside 1 job, which is growing a business. That is how I judge every tool below.
01The 5, in 1 look
Here is the whole list before we go one by one. Notice that each one does a single job. None of them tries to do everything.
What each one does for me
- 01Claude
Builds my tools, my AI agents, my bots, my automations and my pages.
- 02Plaud
Records every meeting and writes the notes and the follow ups.
- 03Higgsfield
Makes pictures and videos for my content from an idea or a voice note.
- 04Apify
Pulls data from Instagram, Google Maps and websites for research.
- 05Telegram Premium
The one place where I talk to all my AI agents and bots.
021/5 Claude builds what used to need a team
Claude is the most important tool in my working life right now. And inside Claude, it is Claude Code. About 95% of my working time is spent there.
For me it is not a chat box. It is not a smarter Google. It builds things. My tools, my AI agents, my bots, my automations and my pages all come out of it.
Before this, a new funnel meant a team. A landing page developer, a website developer, a few rounds of changes, and about 2 weeks before anything went live. Now the same kind of work gets done in 3 hours, sometimes 6, and at times in 30 minutes.
- 95%of my working time is inside Claude Code
- 2 weeksis what a funnel used to take with a team
- 3 to 6his what the same work takes now
The time saved is nice. The bigger change is that an idea no longer waits for a free developer. If I can say it clearly, I can usually see it working the same day.
032/5 Plaud means I never take notes in a meeting
Plaud is a small recorder. I carry it into every meeting, and it sits on my phone all the time. It records, then it writes the notes, the action points and the follow ups.
That alone frees me to listen. I look at the person, not at my notepad. I ask a better second question because I am not busy writing down the first answer.
But the real reason I pay for it is what happens next. Plaud is connected to my AI agents on Telegram. So the meeting does not stop at notes. My agents turn it into articles, newsletters and captions.
Every meeting I have is already the first draft of my content.
This is the start of STORM, my way of making strategic, targeted, organic, relevant media. 1 long conversation becomes many small pieces, and Plaud is where the long conversation gets caught.
043/5 Higgsfield means no shoot and no studio
Content needs pictures and videos. That used to mean booking a shoot, finding a studio and waiting for the edit.
Higgsfield makes those visuals for me. It is connected to Claude, so I do not even open it most days. I give my idea or a voice note, much like the one my friend asked for, and the pictures come back.
1 rule I keep: real photos of me stay real. The tool is for ideas, scenes and explainers, not for faking my face.
054/5 Apify means research in minutes
Good marketing starts with knowing what is already working. Who is posting what, which places show up on Google Maps, what a website really says.
Apify pulls that data from Instagram, Google Maps and websites. When I need to study something or dig into why it works for someone, I have it in a couple of minutes instead of a lost afternoon.
065/5 Telegram Premium is my remote control
This one surprised my friend. Telegram is a chat app. Why pay for it?
Because all my AI agents, my command centers and my bots live there. I send a voice note, a photo or a link, and the right agent picks it up. Telegram is where I give the orders.
Premium lets me pin up to 10 chats on my home screen. That is my main reason to pay. My most used agents and bots sit at the top, 1 tap away, every day.
07None of these tools matter on their own
Here is the part my friend did not expect. If you bought these 5 tools tomorrow, your life would not get easier. You would have 5 more logins.
What made my life easy is that they are connected. Each one hands its work to the next. A meeting becomes a note. The note becomes content. The content goes out. Then the agents pick the next problem, and we do it again.
5 tools versus 1 chain
Notes sit in an app
Notes turn into content
Waits for a developer
Gets built the same day
Need a shoot
Come from the idea
5 apps, 5 logins
1 chat on your phone
08Where to start if you have none of this
Do not copy my list. My business is not your business. Copy the way the list was built.
Build your own chain, 1 link at a time
- 01Pick 1 problem
The task that eats the most of your week. Not the most exciting one. The most annoying one.
- 02Pay for 1 tool that fixes it
Use it every day for a month. If you forget it exists, cancel it.
- 03Connect the next one to it
Only add a second tool when it can take the first tool's work and do something with it.
Write down the 1 task you repeat most. Then ask yourself 1 question: if a tool did this, where would its work go next?
09Questions, answered
Do I need to be technical to use these tools?
No. I am not a developer. I describe what I want in plain words, and I check that it works. Being clear matters more than being technical.
Which tool should a service business start with?
The one that fixes your most repeated task. For many owners that is meetings, so a note taker is often a good first step.
Will these tools replace my team?
They replace waiting, not people. My team spends less time on slow work and more time on clients.
Why not 1 tool that does everything?
Because I have not found one that does every job well. 5 tools that each do 1 job, and pass the work along, have worked better for me.
If you want to see which tasks in your firm should get a tool first, that is one of the things the Capacity Diagnostic looks at.
Digital PratikA 37 year old, smiling, practical Gujarati, a Kathiyawadi businessman. Founder of JorrDaar LLC, Dubai.
