Six tools, and every one of them except Claude Code has a real free tier you can start on. Read this as layers rather than logos: a brain, a pair of hands, a renderer, a memory, an ear, and the plumbing. If you understand what each layer is for, you can swap any individual tool later without rebuilding your setup.
Everything else in this list is a spoke. Claude is where the thinking happens and where the other five tools plug in, which is why the setup order matters: get this right and the rest is twenty minutes of clicking.
The single highest-leverage move is a context file. One document that says who you are, what you sell, who you sell it to, and how you write. Put it in a Claude Project and every conversation inside that project starts already knowing your business, so you stop re-explaining yourself five times a day.
I'm setting you up as the hub of my business, so I want one context document you will use in every future conversation.
Interview me first. Ask me one question at a time, and no more than ten questions total, covering: what I sell and to whom, what makes my offer different, my pricing, my customer's three biggest problems in their own words, my tone of voice, the things I never want said in my writing, and what a good week looks like in numbers.
Then write the document itself, organised under clear headings, in plain language, no longer than two pages. End it with a short section called "how to work with me" that tells you how to respond to me by default: how long, how direct, and when to push back on my ideas instead of agreeing.This is the tool most people skip because the name sounds like it is for engineers. It is not. Claude Code is Claude running on your own computer, with permission to read and write actual files, which means it does the jobs a chat window physically cannot: rename four hundred photos, build the weekly report from a spreadsheet, publish a landing page, run the same process every Monday without being re-briefed.
It is included with a paid Claude plan, so this is a second surface on a subscription you already have rather than a new bill. The upgrade that makes it worth it is turning a repeated task into a saved command you can trigger by name.
claude.CLAUDE.md. Claude Code reads it automatically every session, so both surfaces know the same business (how memory files work)..claude/commands/, and from then on you type one word instead of a paragraph (slash command docs).I do this task every week and I want it to become a saved slash command I can run in one word: [describe the task, for example "turn my raw sales notes into the Monday client report"].
First ask me the three or four things you need to know to do it exactly my way: where the input lives, what the output format is, who reads it, and anything you must never include.
Then write the command file into .claude/commands/ with a short lowercase-hyphenated name, and make the instructions specific enough that a stranger could follow them and produce the same output I would. Finish by running it once on my real input so we can see where it needs tightening, and tell me plainly what you were unsure about.Ad creative, thumbnails, product shots, slide visuals and social graphics all come out of one place instead of four subscriptions. Nano Banana is the image model people reach for when they want edits that actually hold: changing one element while the rest of the picture stays put. You can try it on the free tier in Google AI Studio, where free usage is capped and heavier or automated use is billed through the API, so check your quota before you plan a batch. If you would rather not use a Google product, Reve is the swap I use for anything where text has to render cleanly inside the image.
The connection here is not technical, it is editorial. Claude writes the art brief, the image model draws it. Most people's AI images look generic because they typed nine words. A real brief is a paragraph, and it names lighting, palette, framing and mood.
Using my business context, write image prompts for [what you need, for example "three ad creatives for my launch" or "a thumbnail for this week's video"].
Each prompt must be a single paragraph of 60 to 100 words that an image model can use with no other context, and it must name the lighting (direction and warmth), the colour palette as actual colours, the framing and depth of field, the surface textures, and the mood in three words. Keep my brand palette consistent across all of them so they read as a set.
Give me three variations that differ on concept, not on wording, and under each one write a single line explaining what that version is testing. End with the aspect ratio [4:5].Notes, tasks, content calendar, client records, SOPs. Free for one person and $10 per member a month if you bring in a team (Notion pricing). What makes it the fourth tool rather than just an app you already have is the connector: Claude can read your pages and write to them directly, so "log that call in the client database" becomes a sentence instead of ten minutes of copying.
https://mcp.notion.com/mcp. Sign in through the pop-up and choose which pages Claude may see. Custom connectors work on every plan, with Free capped at one (connector docs).claude mcp add --transport http notion https://mcp.notion.com/mcp, then type /mcp and complete the sign-in (Notion's MCP docs).Using the Notion connector and my business context, build me a simple operations hub in Notion and tell me what you created as you go.
I want four linked databases: clients or customers, projects with status and owner, a content calendar with platform and publish date, and a tasks database that rolls up to both projects and content. Add the properties that actually get used and skip the decorative ones, then create one dashboard page that shows this week's tasks, anything overdue, and what is publishing in the next seven days.
Keep the structure as small as possible while still answering the question "what needs doing this week", and explain in two lines how I should add things day to day so it does not rot.It joins your Zoom, Meet or Teams calls, records, transcribes, and summarises them, so you can hold eye contact through a sales call instead of typing. The free plan genuinely includes unlimited recordings and transcriptions plus instant summaries. The AI action items and follow-up emails sit on Premium at $20 a month, or $16 a month billed annually, which is the honest gate to know about before you plan a workflow around it.
Here is the thing worth knowing: even on the free plan this is a Claude tool, because the transcript is text. Paste it in and every call becomes a follow-up email, a proposal, a task list and a record in Notion.
Here is the transcript of a call with [who they are and what the meeting was for]. Work through it and give me four things.
One, a five-line summary of what was actually decided, not everything that was discussed. Two, the action items split into mine and theirs, each with an owner and a due date, and flag anything where the owner was never actually agreed. Three, a follow-up email in my voice that confirms the decisions, restates their deadlines, and asks the one question that unblocks the next step. Four, the objections or hesitations they raised, quoted in their own words, because that is the language I want in my marketing.
Then write the summary and the action items into this client's page in Notion.Email, calendar, docs and drive. It is the least exciting item on the list and the one you would miss first. A personal Google account is fine to start, and a business plan gets you your own domain on email, which quietly changes how people read your first message.
Claude connects to Gmail, Calendar and Drive as pre-built connectors, available across plans, with Team and Enterprise needing an owner to switch them on first (Anthropic's Google Workspace docs). Claude mirrors the access you already have, so it cannot see anything you could not, and by default it asks before it sends anything.
Every weekday morning I want the same briefing, built from my Gmail and Google Calendar.
Give me: anything from a client or prospect that is still waiting on a reply from me and how long it has been sitting, anything with a deadline attached in the next three days, my meetings today with a one-line note on what each one needs me to have ready, and the three things that would most move my business forward today based on my business context.
Then draft replies for the waiting emails, in my tone, short, and leave every one of them as a draft for me to approve rather than sending anything. Tell me at the end what you deliberately ignored and why, so I can check your filter.Six connected tools beat sixty disconnected ones because work moves on its own between them. This is what a week looks like once the connectors are in, and none of these steps need you to open more than one app.
You can run this entire stack for nothing while you are figuring out whether the business is real. Claude has a free plan, Claude Code needs a paid one, Nano Banana has a free tier in AI Studio, Notion is free for one person, Fathom records unlimited calls free, and a personal Google account costs nothing. The first thing worth paying for is Claude Pro at around $20 a month, because it unlocks Claude Code, which is where the repeatable work lives. The second is Fathom Premium, and only once you are on enough calls that action items matter. Everything else can wait until it hurts.
Claude plans and pricing
Claude Code, official setup docs
About custom connectors (remote MCP)
Use Google Workspace connectors
Notion MCP, official docs
Fathom pricing and free plan limits