My 8 AI Subscriptions: What I Actually Use, What I’d Cut, and the One I’d Keep
April 20, 2026
If your AI subscriptions feel like they’re getting out of control, you’re not alone.
I’m currently paying for eight different AI tools. The total is in the mid-high hundreds per month. And the truth is: most teams don’t need more AI subscriptions, they need to use the ones they already have better.
This isn’t an anti-AI rant. I’m all in on AI. But I’m anti paying for tools that never make it into a real workflow.
Here’s my stack, what each tool is actually good at for enterprise sales and research work, and the one I’d keep if I had to cancel everything else.
My current AI stack (and what each is good at)
1) ChatGPT The first one I subscribed to. At this point it’s my generalist: long-form thinking, drafting, brainstorming, and quick what-ifs. When I need to sanity-check something or reshape content in a different tone, it’s still a solid workhorse.
2) Perplexity This is my go-to research engine. It’s excellent at crawling specific websites, pulling from earnings call transcripts and SEC filings, and then structuring that information into something usable. For strategic account research, public company intel, and “show me everything about this initiative,” it earns its keep.
3) Grok Cheap, fast, and decent at finding current sales trigger events. When I want quick signals like news, changes, or moments that might justify outreach. This is a low‑friction way to get a pulse without overthinking prompts.
4) Gemini (plus NanoBanana) It’s Google and that matters. For up‑to‑date, broad knowledge, it’s incredibly strong. Paired with NanoBanana, it also becomes a great way to generate images and visuals to spec. When I need something that blends search-grade awareness with image creation, this combo is hard to beat. Some of the other AI platforms have information that's 6 months old as its most current.
5) Claude If I had to describe it in one phrase: “great at everything, especially complex reasoning.” I lean on Claude for thinking through tricky problems, modifying code, and helping build or refactor small applications. When I need an AI to understand structure and logic (not just text), this is where I go.
6) n8n + APIs (agents) This is the connective tissue. I use n8n to build workflow agents. For example, one of my agents will build personalized cold prospecting emails end‑to‑end. It does the research with Perplexity, fact‑checks in ChatGPT, and then builds a full sequence or cadence of cold emails. This is where AI moves from “chat” to actual automation.
7) Synthesia I use this to build humanoid AI videos, like the one on the Databahn home page. For explaining offers, onboarding, or creating personalized video at scale, it’s a specialized but valuable piece of the stack.
8) Manus This is the one that sits above everything. Manus connects large volumes of information and turns it into real deliverables like the deep‑dive research, strategic account dossiers, and beautiful PowerPoint decks. For my work in sales intelligence and enterprise account strategy, it’s the closest thing I have to an autonomous “strategic sales intelligence analyst” that can also build winning slides. It’s also the one that gets expensive the fastest when you start pushing token limits and running heavy jobs.
The real problem: under‑using the stack you already pay for
Here’s what I see in most sales teams:
They’ve got one or two of these tools on a corporate card. Maybe more. But day‑to‑day usage boils down to:
- “Help me rewrite this email.”
- “Summarize this PDF.”
- “Polish this LinkedIn post.”
That’s it.
The problem isn’t that they picked the “wrong” tools. The problem is they’re barely scratching the surface of what those tools can do for sales intelligence:
- No deep strategic account research workflows.
- No real multi‑tool agents wired into their prospecting process.
- No consistent way to turn raw data into account plays and decks.
Meanwhile, the subscription meter keeps running.
In my world (enterprise, strategic accounts), the question isn’t “Which AI should I add next?” It’s:
“Given the AI I already pay for, where could I go much deeper and actually build workflows that generate new pipeline, better account plans, and better conversations?”
If I had to keep only one: Manus
If I had to cancel everything tomorrow and keep just one paid AI subscription for sales intelligence work, I’d keep Manus. (I'm not affiliated with Manus and this article is not an endorsement. Just relaying my experience.)
Not because the others are bad, they’re all strong at what they do, but because Manus:
- Lets me connect a huge amount of data into one place (docs, URLs, transcripts, briefs).
- Behaves like a multi‑role virtual deal team (analyst, strategist, product marketer, account insider).
- Produces tangible outputs that matter in enterprise sales: deep‑dive account reports, strategic plays, and client‑ready decks.
It’s not cheap when you push it hard. But when I think about return on time and pipeline, this is the one that consistently gives me leverage I can’t get anywhere else.
That’s my point:
One tool used deeply is almost always more valuable than seven tools used casually.
How I’d think about your own AI stack
If you’re in enterprise sales, sales leadership, or revenue operations, here’s a simple way to look at your AI subscriptions:
- List every paid AI tool you’re on. Don’t guess, actually write them down. Include those $20-$30/month “no‑brainer” plans that quietly stacked up.
- For each tool, write one specific workflow it supports that directly impacts pipeline or account strategy. If you can’t name a workflow you run weekly (or at least monthly), you’re probably under‑using it.
- Choose one tool to go much deeper on for 90 days. Commit to making it your primary workhorse. Build real workflows around it like account research, play creation, messaging, agents. Push it past “nice demo” into “this changed how we work.”
- Only then decide if you need another subscription. Most teams will realize they don’t need more AI, they just need to fully exploit the right AI.
Most teams don’t need more AI; they need to go deeper on the right AI.
If you’re curious why Manus is the one subscription I’d keep for sales intelligence work, connect with me on LinkedIn and drop “One Tool” in your message—I’ll send over a short breakdown of how I actually use it.
