Midjourney (from about $10/mo, no free plan).
Nano Banana ($0), Google's Gemini image model, great for product shots, edits, and consistent characters. Free in the Gemini app with a generous daily limit (not unlimited).
Jasper AI (from about $69/mo).
Claude ($0), its free tier writes captions, emails, and ad angles that sound human and need the least cleanup. It's my daily writing driver. The only limit is a message cap.
Runway (from about $15/mo).
Dreamina (by ByteDance/CapCut, $0), 225 free credits every day that reset every 24 hours, no card. Honest catch: free renders are watermarked and lower resolution, and CapCut's terms describe the service as private, non-commercial use, so it's for drafts and personal projects, not client delivery.
HeyGen (from about $29/mo).
Hedra ($0), turns a photo into a talking-head avatar. Honest catch: the free tier covers a few short clips, not ongoing production.
Canva Pro (from about $18/mo).
Lovart ($0), an AI design agent for logos, posters, and brand kits from a prompt. Free plan is about 100 credits a day (roughly 5 to 10 images), personal use.
Buffer (from about $6/mo per channel).
Publer ($0), its free plan queues and auto-posts to up to 3 accounts. Note: X/Twitter isn't included on the free plan.