Why I just canceled ChatGPT Plus and two other AI subscriptions

A few months ago, I reviewed my AI subscriptions and simply asked, “Am I really using this?” The answer, in three out of four cases, was really no. I was paying for Adobe Firefly, ChatGPT Plus, and Perplexity Pro. Each served a different purpose on paper, but in reality I used them similarly and paid three times for the same convenience. I canceled all three, switched to free alternatives, and saved about $50 a month in the process.

To understand my choices and their consequences, let me explain what I removed, what I replaced it with, and my honest view of the trade-offs.

I subscribed to Adobe firefly due to a specific selling point: it is trained on licensed content, which, in theory, makes it safer to use commercially. For anyone who produces content professionally, that’s important, or at least it seems like it should.

The reality is that it generated AI images from time to time, not constantly. And Firefly’s production, while clean, rarely blew me away. I was paying for a security guarantee I didn’t often need and image quality that free tools have largely achieved.

I changed to Ideograms for header images, social graphics and occasional illustrations for my travel site. In my case, I use occasional images for 48-hour city guides and social graphics for the site’s Instagram account.

The free tier gives you many generations and the quality of the photorealistic and stylized prompts is impressive. I never wanted to go back to Firefly.

What I miss about Firely: The peace of mind of business licenses, if I’m honest. If you’re producing work where intellectual property ownership is a real concern, Firefly’s training data argument still holds. However, for most casual users, it is difficult to justify the cost.

Verdict: I canceled Firefly because I didn’t need its specific benefits and found that the free alternatives were sufficient for my needs. I have no regrets here.

It’s trickier to talk about this one because not only did I switch to free ChatGPT; I already had Claude Pro, which costs about the same as ChatGPT Plus. As such, I didn’t really save $20; I redirected it. But the cancellation was still worth it.

I kept ChatGPT Plus mainly out of habit. Most of my usage was for quick queries that the free ChatGPT could handle. The real problem was not its capacity, but that it was using it automatically.

As a freelance technology writer, the audit was about identifying which tools really added professional value.

If you’re a casual ChatGPT user, the free tier covers the vast majority of everyday tasks. Summarizing, writing, answering questions, helping you think through problems – it’s all there. GPT-4o access In the free tier you are limited in speed, but unless you hit those limits regularly, you probably won’t notice.

What I miss about ChatGPT Plus: Unlimited access to GPT-4o. On heavy usage days, the rate caps on the free tier are real and sometimes frustrating. If you’re a power user who uses ChatGPT constantly throughout the day, Plus may still be worth it.

Verdict: I canceled ChatGPT Plus because it overlapped with Claude Pro and the free version covered my daily needs. This made the decision easier.

This might be the easiest of the three cancellations. I subscribed to Professional perplexity for its AI-powered search and additional features, but the simple truth is that I didn’t use them.

I used Perplexity primarily for quick research, where I wanted synthesized answers with verifiable links. The free tier did this just as well; I rarely reached its limits and the differences between models were not significant for my needs.

The Pro Upsell makes the most sense if you do intense, sustained research and need access to the expanded model. For regular use, the free version is one of the best free tools in the AI ​​space, period.

What I miss about Perplexity Pro: Nothing, really. This is the cleanest cancellation of the three.

Verdict: I canceled Perplexity Pro because the free tier provided everything I needed. No features were missed and there were no hiccups.

All that said, I’m still paying for a subscription to AI: Claude Pro.

To be clear, this is not a criticism of the tools above: they all work well. However, of all my subscriptions, Claude Pro was the only one that performed regular, specific tasks that I couldn’t get for free anywhere else. As my colleague Andrew Grush recently discovered, I discovered that go from ChatGPT to Claude Pro It was good for me.

I use Claude Pro for journalism, working with B2B clients, coding for my site, and writing a novel, which requires managing complexity over long sessions. For journalism, client work, and a novel in progress, Claude Pro was indispensable in ways the other previous services were not.

The right subscription is different for everyone. Your audit could land in a completely different place. The question is not which tool wins, but rather performing the audit in the first place.

The real lesson was not about artificial intelligence tools, but about the gap between my perception and reality.

I subscribed to Firefly for a commercial license, kept ChatGPT Plus out of habit, and tried Perplexity Pro for its cool features. None of those are good reasons to keep spending money.

If you haven’t looked at your AI subscriptions lately, open your credit card statement and ask yourself the same question I did: Am I really using this? Not “I could use this” or “I like to have this.” Am I using it enough to justify the cost?

You may be surprised by the answer.