Hey, it's Cindy 🌱 Here's the exact free stack I use to run my content. The trick most people miss: Claude is the brain that ties it together, so every free tool just executes a plan that's already good, instead of you guessing prompts.
Here's the whole thing, stage by stage. Every tool is free to start, and Claude is what makes them work together instead of you reinventing a prompt every time.
stage one
Stage 1: find the idea 🔍
The job: post what is already rising, not a guess.
- 🔥 Google Trends check if a topic is climbing or fading before you make it. Free, no account. Open
- 🔎 TikTok Creator Search Insights shows what people search for that has low supply, so you find gaps before they saturate. Free in the TikTok app. How it works
- 💡 YouTube Studio Inspiration tab AI video ideas tied to your own audience, with title and hook suggestions. Free in YouTube Studio (desktop). Details
stage two
Stage 2: voice it 🎙️
The job: turn a script into audio for faceless or b-roll segments.
- 🆓 TTSMaker genuinely free, even for commercial use, no watermark. The no-catch workhorse. Open
- 🗣️ ElevenLabs the most human-sounding voices. Heads-up: the free tier is test-only, you need a paid plan to use it commercially. Pricing
- 🎛️ Clipchamp hundreds of AI voices built into a free editor. Open
stage three
Stage 3: edit and caption ✂️
The job: cut the video and burn in captions, because reels are watched on mute.
- ✅ CapCut free 1080p export with no watermark, plus free animated captions (about 10 minutes per video). Open · free vs pro
- 📝 Descript edit video by deleting words in the transcript. Heads-up: the free tier is limited (about an hour of media, 720p, and video exports carry a watermark), so it is best for the transcript-based cut rather than final export. Pricing
- 🌐 Clipchamp no-fuss browser editor with free auto-captions, good if you are on Windows. Open
stage four
Stage 4: make the visuals 🎨
The job: thumbnails, covers, and in-video graphics.
- 🖼️ Bing Image Creator (Microsoft), free DALL-E 3, the strongest free option for getting readable text inside an image. Open
- ⚡ Leonardo AI about 150 free tokens a day, model choice, no watermark. Pricing
- 🌱 Reve for a stronger image model when a cover or thumbnail has to carry the post, this is the one I actually reach for. Paid rather than free, so treat it as the upgrade step. Open
the real unlock
The part most people skip: Claude is the brain 🧠
The free tools are the hands. Claude is the strategist. Run everything through it first:
🧠 the weekly plan
Here is my niche, my audience, and my offer. Plan a week of content: 5 hooks, the angle for each, the caption, and the exact prompt I should paste into my voice tool and my image tool for each one. Make the hooks specific, not generic, and tell me which trend each one is riding.
Now the free tools execute a plan that is already good.
go further
3 bonus prompts to run next 🎁
🔁 Repurpose one reel.
🔁 the repurposer
Turn this one reel script into a carousel, a text post, and a YouTube Short title, keeping my voice.
📊 Find your winning themes.
📊 find your themes
Look at my last 10 post topics and tell me the 3 themes that are working, then give me 5 new hooks in those themes.
⏭️ Make it a one-command skill.
⏭️ make it a skill
Write me a reusable prompt I can save as a skill, so a week of content is one command.
the craft
How to get the most out of it 🎓
The tools change every month, the system does not. Once Claude knows your niche, audience, and offer, you can swap any free tool in or out and the engine still runs.
🌱 Starting out Use just one stage first, let Claude plan the week and pick the ideas.
🔁 Further along Save your planning prompt as a skill and wire the handoffs so a week of content runs from one command.
what to watch
One honest heads-up ⚠️
Free tiers move fast. Two to watch: ElevenLabs free cannot be used commercially (your own voice on camera is the free, unlimited option), and CapCut adds a watermark on some AI-generated clips. Re-check both before you rely on them.
Follow
@cindiezhu for more AI tips every single day 🌱