I Spent a Week Using Only Free AI Tools. Here Is What Happened.

Can you survive as a knowledge worker using only free-tier AI tools? I decided to find out. For one week, I cancelled my ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, and Midjourney subscriptions and relied entirely on free tiers.

Day 1: Fine. ChatGPT free gives you GPT-4o with rate limits. Claude free is generous enough for a few solid conversations.

Day 3: Starting to feel the squeeze. Rate limits hit during a complex coding session. Had to switch between three different free chatbots to finish a single project.

Day 5: Meta AI became my unexpected MVP. No rate limits, surprisingly capable for general tasks. HuggingChat filled in for open-ended exploration.

Day 7: Verdict — it is absolutely possible, but it is death by a thousand paper cuts. The free tier is designed to give you just enough to get hooked, then pull back at the exact moment you need it most. The AI economy runs on the same freemium psychology as every other SaaS product.