A one-person business has the same jobs as a company with thirty people: build the thing, publish, sell, run the admin, and know what is working. The difference is that you do all five, and you pay for all five out of the same pocket.
This is the stack I keep for that, grouped by the job rather than by the category — because nobody wakes up needing "an AI tool". They wake up needing a payment page that works before Friday.
Every price here is indicative and changes; the full list carries the current one, with what each tool is for.
Start here: four tools, about €40 a month
Before anything else, you need to be able to make something, put it somewhere, remember what people did, and take money.
| Job | Tool | Price |
|---|---|---|
| The agent that builds and fixes | Claude Code | ~€17–20/mo |
| The assistant for everything else | Claude | ~€20/mo |
| Putting it live on a real address | Vercel | Free tier |
| Remembering things between visits | Supabase | Free tier |
| Taking the money | Stripe | Free, % per sale |
Two of those are free until you have real traffic, and the other two replace a stack of things you would otherwise buy. If you never add another tool, you can still build and sell a product with this.
If you do not want to touch a terminal
The browser builders do the same job with a different surface. You describe what you want, they produce something that runs, and you fix what leaks.
- Lovable — the most finished-looking output of the group. Free tier, then about $25 a month.
- Emergent — for when a browser builder runs out of room and you are not ready for a terminal.
- Appy Pie — the most guided of the three, and it publishes for you.
Whichever you pick, check the export path before you build something a business depends on. That is the difference between a tool and a landlord. The six ways these apps leak — and the security pass that takes an afternoon — are in The Vibe Coding Playbook.
The Short Version
Every conclusion from all eight playbooks — 97 chapters, condensed. Free.
Publishing video every day
This is where people overspend first, so be specific about the bottleneck. If the problem is quality, a phone and daylight fix it for free. Pay when the bottleneck is volume, consistency, or a second language.
| Job | Tool | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Video with a character that stays consistent | Vidu | Free tier, then paid |
| Product video at volume, with translation and lip sync | Wizstar | Free tier, then paid |
| Product and portrait photos cleaned up in bulk | Retouch4me | Per plugin, one-off |
| Narration that does not sound like a robot | ElevenLabs | Free tier, then ~$5–22/mo |
| Cutting and captions | CapCut | Free, Pro ~€10/mo |
Roughly €50 a month across the set, and you can run the first month of it for nothing. Check the commercial licence on the plan you buy before you monetise anything narrated by AI.
Running the business on AI
The half of the work nobody enjoys: notes, documents, decks, the follow-up you forgot.
- Creao — turns a conversation into a reusable app connected to your existing tools, for jobs you want finished rather than drafted.
- MuleRun — an autonomous agent for repetitive work. Use it where checking the result takes seconds, not minutes.
- Notta — transcribes calls and pulls the decisions out of them. Worth it the first time a client says "you said you would".
- PopAi — documents and presentations from a prompt, and it reads long PDFs.
- Lorka — one subscription covering writing, images, video and voice, at around $30 a month. It only wins if it replaces at least two things you already pay for.
Before you connect any agent to your accounts, decide what it is allowed to touch. The rule that has never cost me anything: an agent gets the access a new freelancer would get on day one, and no more.
Selling something physical
| Job | Tool | Price |
|---|---|---|
| The store, payments and tax | Shopify | From ~€29/mo |
| Sampling three suppliers before you commit | DHgate | Per order |
| Seeing a garment before a physical sample exists | Style3D | On request |
| Keeping customers and follow-ups in one place | Riibase | Free tier, then paid |
About €60 a month plus sampling — and this is the one stack where the tools are the cheap part. The unit economics decide whether the business exists; the software only decides how pleasant it is to run.
Knowing what actually works
The cheapest habit on this list. Two tools, and one of them is free:
- Plausible — simple, privacy-friendly stats, no cookie banner, about €9 a month.
- Umami — the same idea, free if you host it yourself.
- Kit — the email list. Free under 1,000 subscribers, and the only channel that survives an algorithm change or a suspension.
If you only measure one thing, measure which links people click. It is the best content research you will get, and it costs nothing.
What this adds up to
| Stage | Stack | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| Nothing earning yet | Start-here four | ~€40/mo, mostly free tiers |
| Publishing daily | + video set | ~€90/mo |
| Selling a physical product | + store and sourcing | ~€100/mo plus sampling |
| Client work at volume | + agents, notes, documents | ~€150/mo |
Four numbers, and every one of them is smaller than a single freelancer invoice. The tools are not what makes this hard.
The three rules that keep it small
- Add against a problem you measured, not against a problem you read about. Then check a month later whether it actually fixed it.
- Cancel on a schedule. Once a quarter, an hour: anything you have not opened in a month goes, and anything replaced by something else in the stack goes with it.
- Never let a tool hold the only copy. Check the export before you depend on it — contacts, content, code. That single check is what separates a subscription from a hostage situation.
The whole list
58 tools, what each costs and when you actually need it. Updated twice a year.
Tools in this piece
| Tool | What it does | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Code | An AI agent in your terminal that reads your files, edits them, runs commands and deploys. | ~€17–20/mo |
| Claude | The assistant itself. Strong on long text, code, and following instructions exactly. | ~€20/mo |
| Vercel | Hosting. Puts a project live on a real address with one command. | Free tier |
| Supabase | Database, accounts and file storage in one, with no backend work. | Free tier |
| Stripe | Payments and subscriptions. The standard, and integrating it is a matter of asking. | Free, percentage per sale |
| Lovable | Builds complete apps from a prompt. The most finished output of the group. | Free tier, then ~$25/mo |
| Appy Pie | Builds apps and workflows from a description, then publishes them. | Free tier, then paid |
| Emergent | AI that builds and iterates on working software rather than snippets. | Free tier, then paid |
| Vidu | Turns text, images or references into video, holding characters steady across shots. | Free tier, then paid |
| Wizstar | Turns product links and images into video, with translation and lip sync. | Free tier, then paid |
| Retouch4me | Automates skin, defects and texture as plugins inside your editor. | Per plugin, one-off |
| ElevenLabs | Voice generation and voice-overs that do not sound like a robot. | Free tier, then ~$5–22/mo |
| CapCut | Fast shorts and vertical editing, with captions. | Free, Pro ~€10/mo |
| Creao | Turns one conversation into a reusable app, connected to Gmail, Slack, GitHub and 30+ tools. | Free tier, then paid · code AFF20 |
| MuleRun | An autonomous agent for repetitive work. | Free tier, then paid |
| Notta | Transcribes meetings, calls and interviews, then pulls the decisions out of them. | Free tier, then paid |
| PopAi | Builds documents and presentations from a prompt, and reads long PDFs. | Free tier, then paid |
| Lorka | One subscription covering writing, images, video and voice instead of five. | ~$30/mo |
| Shopify | Hosts the store, takes the payment and handles the tax. | From ~€29/mo |
| DHgate | Wholesale marketplace for sampling and early product testing. | Per order |
| Style3D | 3D design and virtual fitting for apparel. | On request |
| Riibase | One CRM for contacts, deals and follow-ups, with AI built in. | Free tier, then paid |
| Plausible | Simple, privacy-friendly visitor stats with no cookie banner. | ~€9/mo |
| Kit | Email platform for creators. The list is the only thing you actually own. | Free under 1,000 subs |
| Canva | Thumbnails, covers and anything that has to look good quickly. | Free tier |
Every tool has its own page with the price, who should skip it and what to check before paying. Some links are affiliate links.
Questions people ask
What AI tools does a one-person business actually need?
Four to start: an assistant, somewhere to put things live, somewhere to store data, and a way to take money. That is roughly €40 a month and most of it is free until you have traffic. Everything else should wait until a specific problem forces it.
How much should I spend on AI tools per month?
Under €50 while nothing is earning, and add tools only against a measured problem. The stacks in this piece land between €25 and €70 a month each, and the expensive part is almost never the AI — it is the five subscriptions nobody cancelled.
Is it cheaper to buy one AI subscription that bundles everything?
Only if it replaces at least two things you already pay for. Bundles that cover writing, images, video and voice run around $30 a month, which beats four separate €20 subscriptions and loses to one tool you actually use.
What should I cancel first?
Anything you added without a measured problem, anything you have not opened in a month, and any tool whose job is now done by something else in the stack. Run that check once a quarter; it takes an hour and it usually pays for the next quarter.
Do I need to pay for AI video tools to publish daily?
Not to start. A phone and daylight outperform polished output on most platforms. Pay when volume, consistency across shots, or a second language is the actual bottleneck — that is a different problem from quality.