AI in practice
AI Tools for Solopreneurs: My Complete Stack
My AI stack costs under 100 euros a month. In return, it does work I used to pay freelancers and agencies for. Texts, landing pages, Instagram automation, bookkeeping.
I have been self-employed for 20 years. I have never had as much leverage as I have today. In this article, I show you every tool from my daily work. With the price, the task and the workflow behind it. No list of 50 tools nobody uses. Only what runs in my business every day.
Why a few AI tools for solopreneurs are enough
There are thousands of AI tools for solopreneurs. I have tested many and deleted almost all of them again. Six are left.
My standard is simple. A tool stays if I open it every week. Everything else costs money and attention.
Behind this is an observation. Value is shifting right now from the how to the what. With AI, execution is rarely the problem anymore. What matters is that you pursue the right idea. Your tools should free up time for that, not create new problems to deal with.
My stack at a glance
| Tool | Task | Price per month |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT Plus | Texts, ideas, images, research | 20 dollars |
| Claude Pro | Long texts, analysis | about 20 euros |
| Claude Code | Website, automation, bookkeeping | included in the Claude subscription |
| Wispr Flow | Dictating instead of typing | 12 to 15 dollars |
| ManyChat | Turning Instagram comments into contacts | 15 to 29 dollars |
| Own email system | Email marketing and newsletter | no subscription, built myself with Claude Code |
All prices as of August 2026. Providers change their plans often. Check them before you sign up.
Writing: ChatGPT and Claude
ChatGPT is my all-rounder. I use it for emails, offers, posts and quick research. I also work through strategic questions there, such as positioning or offer ideas. Images come out of ChatGPT too. The cover for my latest lead magnet came entirely from it. The free version is enough to start. Plus costs 20 dollars a month.
Claude takes the long texts off my hands. Newsletters, sales pages, articles like this one. To me, its tone sounds more natural than ChatGPT’s. I show how I use both tools in my business in my article on ChatGPT for business owners.
One workflow saves me a lot of time. I pull transcripts of YouTube videos on my topic. I give them to Claude and have it turn them into newsletter drafts. One hour of video becomes several finished texts. I check every draft, cut it down and add my own view. I built the transcript tool for this myself with Claude Code.
Dictating instead of typing: Wispr Flow
Wispr Flow has changed how I work with AI. I no longer type my prompts. I speak them. The tool turns speech into clean text. Filler words are removed automatically.
I use it to dictate emails, prompts and whole article drafts. I speak about three times as fast as I type. That’s why I give Claude and ChatGPT much more context than before. More context means better results.
The free plan covers about 2,000 words per week. Pro costs 15 dollars a month, or 12 dollars with annual billing.
Winning customers: ManyChat and my own email system
I win my customers through an email list. Your reach on Instagram belongs to the platform. Your email list belongs to you. In my business, AI tools fill this list almost automatically.
The workflow looks like this. I record a short Reel on my phone. In it, I give one concrete tip on my topic. At the end, I say: “Comment with a keyword, and I’ll send you my list for free.” ManyChat replies automatically to every comment. Through a direct message, it asks for name and email address. Then My self-built email system sends the confirmation via double opt-in. The contact lands on my list. The selling happens later by email, not in the video.
A single Reel with 14,000 views brought me 37 prospects this way. Without an ad budget. If a video does well organically, I run Meta ads on it. This way, I only scale videos that have proven themselves first. My math behind this is simple. If a contact from ads costs me 3 euros, I want to earn those 3 euros back within 60 days. If that works, the list keeps growing, and the ads don’t burn money.
Depending on the pricing model, ManyChat Pro starts at 15 to 29 dollars a month. The price grows with the number of contacts. I built my email system myself with Claude Code, so I pay no subscription for it. To begin with, a ready-made tool like Mailchimp will do too, and it’s free. I describe the complete process in my article on how to get customers with AI.
Tech and automation: Claude Code
Claude Code is the heart of my stack. The tool runs in the terminal on my computer. I describe what I need in plain language. Claude Code writes the code, runs it and checks the result.
This is how I build my website, my landing pages and my funnels. The tool also sets up DNS records and manages my server. I no longer need to know how it works. I only need to know what I want. That’s why you no longer need a developer for standard tasks today.
Claude Code is part of the Claude subscription. Pro costs about 20 euros a month and is enough to start. With heavy use, Max from 100 dollars is worth it. OpenAI Codex can do similar things, and many people work with it just as well. I stick with Claude Code because its workflow suits me better.
Bookkeeping: AI collects the receipts
Once a month, I tell Claude Code: “Do the bookkeeping for last month.” The tool reads the bank statement as a PDF. For each debit, it looks for the matching receipt. It downloads invoices from Gmail automatically. It fetches outgoing invoices from my invoicing tool via API. Then it names all files consistently and sorts them into folders.
I used to need half a day for this. Today it runs in the background in one hour. My tax advisor gets neatly sorted folders instead of a box full of PDFs. He still does the actual bookkeeping and the annual financial statements. The AI does all of the prep work.
Content: videos and lead magnets
For content, I need little tech. I film Reels on my phone and edit them in an app like CapCut. Subtitles are created automatically. This way, one video a day takes less than 30 minutes.
I build lead magnets with ChatGPT. A checklist, a template or a short e-book is plenty. ChatGPT delivers the structure, the text and the cover. I check the content and add my own examples. For voiced content, I use ElevenLabs. The tool creates natural voices from text, in German too.
How the tools work together
A typical morning shows how it all fits together. I use Wispr Flow to dictate an idea for a Reel into ChatGPT. ChatGPT turns it into three hook variants. I film the variant that feels right on my phone and do a quick edit in CapCut.
The Reel goes up on Instagram, and ManyChat handles the comments. My email system collects the addresses and starts the welcome series. Claude wrote the texts for this series, based on my transcripts.
At the same time, Claude Code runs in the terminal. It works on a landing page while I record videos. In between, I check the result and dictate the next instruction. None of these tools is magic. The leverage comes from the chain.
What I deliberately don’t use
No Jasper, no Notion AI, no ten image generators. I hardly need classic automation platforms like Zapier anymore either. What used to be an automation subscription is now a prompt to Claude Code.
Every extra subscription costs money and time to learn. A typical mistake among solopreneurs: signing up for five tools and using none of them properly. Master two tools in depth rather than ten on the surface.
How to start with AI tools as a solopreneur
Start with one tool, not six. Here is the order I recommend:
- Use ChatGPT or Claude for free. For two weeks, do every writing task with it.
- Add Wispr Flow and dictate your prompts instead of typing them.
- Start an email list. One Reel, one keyword, ManyChat, plus an email tool like Mailchimp. Later, you can build your own system with Claude Code.
- Test Claude Code as soon as you need a website or an automation.
You can find more basics for getting started in my article on AI for solopreneurs. I collect all my writing on this topic under AI for business owners.
The stack doesn’t have to be big. It has to run. Under 100 euros a month, six tools, one business that benefits every day. That is where I stand in August 2026. If anything changes, I will update this article.