If you’ve been paying attention at all, you’ve probably seen the number tossed around.

Two hundred dollars a month. Two fifty. Three hundred.

For a lot of creatives, that’s the moment the conversation stops. It sounds expensive. It sounds like a commitment. It sounds like something you should only do if you’re already making money, already established, already sure.

But, I don’t think that framing is very useful.

Not because money doesn’t matter, but because it skips over the part that actually determines whether this is worth it for you.

How I actually think about cost

I don’t think about AI tools as an annual expense. I don’t think about them as “$250 a month for a year.”

I think about them as flexible utilities.

I switch AI tools constantly. Month to month. Sometimes more often than that. Where I put my subscription dollars depends entirely on what I’m working on. If I’m building something technical or working deep in structured systems, I’ll lean toward one model, typically Gemini. If I’m writing, thinking, or ideating, I might lean toward another, usually ChatGPT. If I need video or heavy visuals, that changes again (hello Kling).

The tools leapfrog each other every few weeks. New features show up. Capabilities shift. The idea that you pick one platform and lock yourself into it long-term doesn’t really match reality.

What matters more than the price is whether the tool is currently helping you think or execute better.

Why the dollar amount isn’t the real question

Two to three hundred dollars a month does sound like a lot — if you can’t recoup it, or if it’s not changing what you’re able to do.

In my case, I bill clients. Using AI means my clients get more. More range. More speed. More experimentation. More value.

This alone changes the math, but it goes even further.

Most creatives don’t hesitate to spend money on tools that signal seriousness — cameras, lenses, software, gear, plugins, hardware. I’ve done all of that. Over the years, I’ve spent close to six figures on physical equipment.

Compared to that, a few hundred dollars for tools that actively help you think, plan, write, design, analyze, and iterate isn’t some wild outlier. It’s just a different kind of investment.

You don’t need the most expensive plan

This part is important, and it often gets lost.

You don’t need the top-tier plan to get value from AI tools.

Most platforms offer a free tier, and you can do a lot with it. The usual limitation isn’t capability — it’s usage. You get a certain number of prompts or a certain amount of time before you have to wait.

The reason I moved to paid plans early wasn’t because the free versions were useless. It was because of how I like to work. I use voice a lot. I think out loud. I go on walks and talk things through. I didn’t want to hit a wall after twenty or thirty minutes and be told to come back tomorrow.

Another reason I’ll sometimes pay for higher-tier plans is access. New features almost always land there first. New image models. New video tools. Experimental workflows. Sometimes I’ll pay for a month just to explore what’s possible, then cancel when I’m done.

But none of that is required to begin.

If you’re just starting out, especially if you’re not billing clients yet, the free tier is enough. The goal isn’t to buy the “professional” plan. The goal is to start using the tool enough that you understand what it’s good at and where it helps you.

You can always upgrade later (or downgrade) once you know why you’d want to.

Value shows up before revenue

If you’re not running a business yet, or you’re early in your career, the value doesn’t show up as money right away.

It shows up as being able to get unstuck without waiting on someone else. As being able to test an idea instead of carrying it around in your head for weeks. As having a place to put half-formed thoughts and see what they could become.

So, it changes how you work long before it changes how much you earn which is what you'd expect.

Why waiting for your job to pay for it costs you time

I hear this a lot: “I’ll wait until my company pays for AI tools.”

What that really means is waiting to build your own relationship with the technology.

When your employer controls the tools, you usually get the cheapest, safest, most locked-down version. It’s rarely tailored to how you think or work. And you don’t get to experiment freely.

The cost of waiting isn’t money. It’s time, familiarity, autonomy, and confidence.

By the time AI becomes mandatory, the people who started earlier won’t be better because they paid more — they’ll be better because they’ve spent time learning how to work this way.

A first-principles way to think about cost

If you want to strip this down to basics, I’d start with one question:

Is it more likely than not that you’ll need to learn AI for your work at some point in the future?

If the answer is yes, then the rest is just sequencing.

You’re not deciding if you’ll learn it. You’re deciding when, and under what conditions.

Starting earlier means learning with lower stakes, fewer expectations, and more room to explore. Starting later usually means learning under pressure.

Where to start, realistically

If you’ve never used AI at all, don’t overthink it.

Sign up for a ChatGPT account. Use the free version. Start there.

Drop in something you’ve already made and ask it to analyze it. Ask what it notices. Ask questions about your work. Ask it for help with something you don’t enjoy doing. Treat it like a collaborator, not a vending machine.

If you’ve used AI a little, look for one or two things you can hand off — not everything. Maybe it’s first drafts. Maybe it’s feedback. Maybe it’s research or structure or sanity-checking your thinking.

The point isn’t to optimize your spending. It’s to reduce the distance between what you’re thinking and what you can actually ship.

That’s where the value shows up.