AI Shortlist · Guides
Every AI subscription is a bet. The vendor says "save hours". Your job is to find out whether those hours are worth more than the price. That's the whole test — and it takes about 90 seconds per tool.
Hourly value doesn't have to be your salary. Use what an hour is worth to you — if five saved hours a month mean one extra evening with your family, price that honestly.
An AI meeting notetaker: $20/month. It saves ~20 minutes of note-writing after every call.
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Calls per week | 5 |
| Minutes saved per call | 20 |
| Hours saved per month | ~7 |
| Hourly value | $50 |
| Value created | $350 |
| Cost | $20 |
| Payback | 17× ✓ |
That one stays. Now run the same math on the AI writing assistant you opened twice last month.
If nothing was being done before, it isn't saving time — it's creating a new task. New tasks rarely pay.
If the honest answer is "nothing, I'd just do it slightly slower", cancel it. The exception: tools whose output you're contractually or legally on the hook for (invoicing, compliance, tax).
Tools used by 1 of 5 people in a team are almost always an unbudgeted cost. Either roll it out or cut it.
Not because the tech is bad — because the value is too diffuse to measure:
• General-purpose "AI writer" subscriptions when you already pay for a frontier model
• The $19/month "wrapper" apps that call the same API you can call yourself
• AI features bundled into a product you bought for something else (you're paying twice)
• Anything bought during a launch-week discount and never opened since
Open your card statement, filter for software, and list every subscription for the last 3 months. Next to each one write the payback number from above. Sort ascending. Everything in the top third is a candidate to cancel this week — and that money is your budget for the tools that do pay.
No. At 1× you've broken even on arithmetic but not on switching cost, training, and the risk the tool changes pricing. Aim for 3× or skip it.
Two real work cycles. If the tool can't show value inside two weeks of actual use, it won't.
Only after one paid month at full price. The discount is worth less than the flexibility you give up.