I paid for Perplexity, Claude, and NotebookLM, and only one was worth keeping

There's a point in AI adoption where the tools stopped being optional. Think about it, how many tools have you tried out at this point or even become reliant on, spanning across domains like productivity, creativity, coding, learning, and so on - a big chunk of this stuff happens in some kind of chat window now. This shift toward AI isn't really news anymore, but with so many new companies popping up all wanting you to try their product, the bill is. And it's not like AI subscriptions are $5 throwaways - some are $20 a pop, if not more, and they all sit alongside whatever else you've already got renewing in the background.

Every single AI tool is competing for the same slot in your monthly budget. So the key is to pick only what you actually need, and stick to the free tiers on the rest. At least, that's how I've been approaching it. And that's why I gave three different categories a fair shot: a search engine, source-grounded research, and a general chatbot. I subscribed to Claude, Perplexity, and NotebookLM (Google AI), and here's how that panned out for me...

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I use ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini daily -- here's the only one worth paying for

One stands above the rest.

Posts 16

By Mahnoor Faisal

The case for Perplexity Pro

My other search engines were already giving me what I needed for free

First up is Perplexity. The Pro tier is $20 a month, and it's the obvious upgrade pitch for anyone who already uses the free version a lot. You get unlimited Pro Searches instead of being capped daily, access to bigger models like GPT-5, Claude Sonnet 4.6, and Gemini 3 Pro instead of being routed through whatever default it gives you, way more file uploads inside Spaces (50 per Space instead of 5), and Deep Research without the monthly limit you hit pretty quickly on the free plan. There's also image generation, some API credits, and access to a few premium data sources like Statista that would normally cost money to read.

So on paper, I was getting plenty. And I do genuinely like Perplexity; the citation system is one of the better things going for it, and Deep Research is great when you actually need a structured multi-source breakdown of something instead of just an answer. Spaces also has potential as a sort of project hub for research. But after the month was over, I didn't feel like I was actually getting anything that I couldn't already get by combining my existing search engines and chatbots. Both Google and Brave have some AI features baked in already, their AI summaries and dedicated chatbots have gotten really good over the past year or so. So the $20 didn't earn its place for me, however, if your stack is research-heavy, I would actually recommend Perplexity Pro.

Perplexity

See at Perplexity

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Claude Pro's turn

You don't need to be a coder to get your money's worth

Pro is also $20 a month, and you get a lot for it - the obvious thing being five times the usage of the free tier, but the bigger draw is access to Opus 4.7 (Anthropic's most capable model) and Sonnet 4.6, both with a 200k context window that you can push up to 1 million tokens with Extra Usage enabled. You also get unlimited Projects instead of being capped at 5, Artifacts with way more headroom, the inline interactive visuals, Claude Design, and Cowork. Claude Code is also included but it's not something I need for my workflow as of yet.

The thing about Opus 4.7 is that it actually pushes back, which is a weirdly rare thing in chatbots right now. Most of them are just trying to agree with you faster. Opus will tell me when an approach isn't going to work, and that makes it a much better thinking partner for the design work and research I do. Projects is still the feature I lean on the hardest - my design briefs, novel drafts, and research stacks all live in their own contained spaces, which means no re-explaining the context every single time. Claude Design has also been a nice addition for quick visual mockups and honestly just playing around with UI concepts. Plus, I've got Cowork set up to handle a couple of folders in my Obsidian vault and screenshots directory on a schedule.

Usage caps still hit on the heaviest design days, but most of the time the sessions stay smooth. So $20 for Opus, Artifacts, Projects, inline visuals, Claude Design, and Cowork - all wrapped in an interface that's mostly pleasant to use - is the easiest subscription justification in my stack. It's truly an all-in-one tool, it spans across so many domains, and it's why I've actually had the subscription for three months now.

I cancelled my ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini subscriptions for Claude -- and I should have sooner

Wish I did this sooner.

Posts 50

By Mahnoor Faisal

Claude

OS Windows, macOS

Individual pricing Free plan available; $17/month Pro plan

Group pricing $100/month per person for the Max plan

See at Claude

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And then there's NotebookLM

The cheapest option, with unexpected benefits

NotebookLM is the one I'm newest to in subscription form. You can't actually buy NotebookLM Plus on its own - it's bundled into Google AI Plus, which is $8 a month and is the cheapest of the three. The plan bumps up NotebookLM's limits across the board: 200 notebooks instead of 100, 100 sources per notebook instead of 50, 200 daily chat queries instead of 50, more Audio and Video Overviews per day, and 3 Deep Research reports daily instead of 10 a month. Basically every limit roughly doubles.

I haven't been on it for a full month yet, so the verdict is still a bit early. But the source bump alone has been the most useful thing for me - my notebooks already hit the free tier ceiling pretty quickly, so being able to load more in without juggling them has been worth it on its own. What I didn't consider was the Gemini side of things: Google AI Plus also gives you access to Gemini 3 Pro in the Gemini app with a bigger context window and higher daily prompt limits, so my Gemini chats feel noticeably more capable and run longer. If Claude wasn't a thing, Google AI is probably the subscription I would have swung toward because Gemini is a close second for me. Who knows, I might even renew it next month.

NotebookLM

See at NotebookLM

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It honestly just depends on what you actually need

There's no universally right answer here. If your work is research-heavy, I'd probably go with Perplexity. NotebookLM is a steal if you're already deep into the Google ecosystem and use NotebookLM regularly. Claude is the one that does the most across the widest range of work. For me, Claude is the one I'm keeping without a doubt because of its models, the design workflows, and projects. I will say, Gemini is actually better with live web data than Claude, so I'm actually tempted to keep the Google AI sub and see where it goes, but the free tier has been serving me well too.

At the end of the day, it entirely depends on your workflow and preferences. I just wouldn't recommend stacking three or more of them just because the hype says you should. Figure out what kind of AI work you actually do most, and pay for that one, if the free tier has too many barriers.