AI Guides › Workbench
By Nigel Guy · 6 min read
Most people subscribe the moment a tool hits its first wall, then discover they were using a tenth of it. The wall is usually informational: you do not know where the free tier actually ends, so you pay to find out. This guide names the limit up front for four free tools, so you can pay only when you hit a limit that matters to you.
The rule: use the free tier until it blocks a specific job, then pay for that job's tool only, never for a bundle.
All four cost £0 at time of writing. Limits move often and several vendors say so themselves, so treat the catch column as "check the current page".
| Tool | What it replaces | Free tier gives you | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude (Free plan) | A paid writing and analysis assistant | Chat, with usage limits that reset on a five-hour session | Limits vary with demand, so there is no fixed message count |
| ChatGPT (Free tier) | A paid general assistant | Web search, file and image upload, image creation, data analysis, GPTs, 500 MB Library storage | File uploads, images, voice and data analysis each have their own caps; you cannot create your own GPTs |
| Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM) | A paid research or reading-list tool | Standard plan: 100 notebooks, 50 sources per notebook | Usage is quota-based; paid tiers raise notebooks and sources |
| Canva (Free) | A paid design seat for simple graphics | Large template and stock library, drag-and-drop editor, some AI design tools | Pro features are gated; check the £ price on Canva's own page before upgrading |
I could not load Canva's pricing page or OpenAI's help article directly while checking (both refused the request), so the Canva and ChatGPT rows rest on search summaries of those pages. Verify them before you rely on them.
Claude Free. Use it for drafting, rewriting and thinking through a messy problem. Paste the text in; ask for the output in the format you need. The free plan has a session-based limit that resets every five hours, and the number of messages varies with demand. Practical consequence: do one substantial job per session rather than twenty small ones, and put everything the job needs into the first message.
ChatGPT Free. Its strength is breadth: web search, uploading an image or file, and image creation all sit on the free tier. Text chat is described as unlimited day to day, subject to abuse safeguards, but uploads, image generation, voice and data analysis each carry separate limits. When you hit one, the reset time is shown in the product. Spend the uploads on things only an upload can do, such as reading a screenshot or a spreadsheet.
Canva Free. Replaces paid design software for social graphics, simple documents and slides. Check the free tier covers your job before you start, particularly brand-specific features, which tend to sit behind a paid plan.
Gemini Notebook is the one to learn. Google's help page lists the Standard (free) plan at 100 notebooks per user and 50 sources per notebook. Make one notebook per project, load your sources, and ask questions that must be answered from those sources. Its page states that, where a plan runs on daily quotas, they reset after 24 hours. Other reporting says Google moved to compute-based limits with five-hour resets from September 2026; I could not confirm that on a Google page, so check the managing-usage article before planning around either figure.
Note the name: NotebookLM was reported as renamed Gemini Notebook in July 2026, and Google's current help page uses the new name. Search old guides under both.
Yes, and it is the most worthwhile thing to spend an image upload on. For small jobs it saves you buying screen-recording or documentation software. Capture one screenshot for each stage of the task, keep them in sequence, and give Claude or ChatGPT the prompt below.
Act as a technical author writing instructions for someone who has never used this system. The attached screenshots show, in order, a routine task I carry out: [PROCESS_NAME].
Aim: a numbered walkthrough that a newcomer could follow cold. Each step should hold a single action, quote the button or menu text exactly as it appears in my screenshots, and flag the places where a newcomer might realistically get stuck.
How to work:
1. Go through every screenshot first and list the stages you can identify, in sequence.
2. Then write each stage as a number, a single instruction, the exact name of the button or menu, and, only where a newcomer could plausibly stall, a line beginning "If this goes wrong:".
3. Finish with a brief "Check it worked" line saying what the reader should see once they are done.
Rules:
- Use British English and everyday words. Avoid jargon that is not visible in the screenshots, or explain it on first use.
- Where a stage seems to be missing between two screenshots, or a label cannot be read, do not invent anything. Write "[NEEDS CHECKING: what you need to know]" and ask me.
- The reader is: [WHO_WILL_FOLLOW_IT].
Before you reply, confirm the steps run in order and that every button name you quote is visible in a screenshot.
Swap in your process name and the intended reader, attach the screenshots in sequence, and cover up anything private beforehand.
Next, paste the output into Canva or a document and place each screenshot beside its step. Then follow it yourself against the live system once, since the model has never used it.
| If your job is... | Start with |
|---|---|
| Drafting or editing text | Claude Free |
| Reading a screenshot, file or image creation | ChatGPT Free |
| Answering questions across many documents you supply | Gemini Notebook |
| A graphic or simple slide | Canva Free |
Upgrade when you hit the same limit three times in a week on a job that earns or saves you money. Not before.
Free tiers are priced to get you to rely on them. Three habits to watch: building a workflow around a limit that can change without notice; pasting private or client material into a free consumer product without checking its data settings; and keeping four assistants open to do one job. Pick the tool by job, not by novelty.