This is the total monthly budget for the complete AI stack I describe in this article. Time savings on manual work: 10-15 hours per week per managed campaign. The ROI is clear.
Every month, dozens of new AI tools launch promising to revolutionize marketing. Most of it is hype. Some are genuinely useful. Very few become an indispensable part of your daily workflow.
This article is not a list of tools I tested once. It's the stack we use every day, with real use cases and exact costs.
1. Claude (Anthropic) — 20 EUR per month
What it does: ad copy, campaign analysis, marketing strategy, creative brief writing, text review.
Why we use it: Claude excels at tasks requiring extended reasoning and the ability to maintain context across complex documents. When writing ad copy that follows precise brand guidelines, analyzing a 50-page campaign report, or building a structured strategy, Claude outperforms alternatives.
Real use case: writing 15-20 copy variants for Meta campaigns from a structured brief. Time saved compared to manual writing: 3-4 hours per campaign.
2. ChatGPT with browsing (OpenAI) — 20 EUR per month
What it does: real-time market research, competitor analysis, brainstorming, preliminary keyword research.
Why we use it: ChatGPT's browsing plugin enables real-time market research. It's useful for understanding what competitors are saying, identifying current trends, and discovering the most common questions users ask about a specific topic.
Real use case: quick competitor analysis before launching a new campaign. Time saved: 2-3 hours of manual research.
3. Midjourney — 10 EUR per month
What it does: generates images for campaigns, product mockups, creative variants for A/B testing.
Why we use it: it doesn't replace professional photography for primary product images. But it dramatically speeds up the production of creative variants for testing — different background, different mood, different use context. Testing 10 creative variants with Midjourney takes 10 minutes; with a photographer it would take a studio day.
4. Make (formerly Integromat) — €9 per month
What it does: automates workflows between Shopify, Klaviyo, Google Sheets, Slack, Gmail and any other app.
Why we use it: Make is the tool that frees up your time more than anything else. Automatic reports, synchronized inventory updates, notifications for specific events, automatic data backups. All without writing a single line of code.
Practical use case: whenever a product drops below a stock threshold, a notification is automatically sent to Slack and an email to the supplier. Zero manual intervention.
5. Perplexity — €20 per month
What it does: market research with cited, verifiable sources.
Why we use it: when you need data with verifiable citations — for articles, reports, client presentations — Perplexity outperforms ChatGPT because it always shows sources. Data is updated in real time, with direct links to original sources.
6. Runway ML — €15 per month
What it does: generates and edits videos for TikTok, Meta Reels, YouTube Shorts.
Why we use it: it creates variants of existing videos without shooting new footage. Change the background, adjust the pace, add effects, generate videos from static images. For brands with limited video production budgets, Runway drastically cuts costs while maintaining acceptable quality for social media.
7. Triple Whale — from €129 per month
What it does: analytics dashboard that unifies data from Shopify, Meta, Google, TikTok and other channels.
Why we use it: GA4 is useful but fragmented. Meta Ads Manager and Google Ads each have their own dashboards optimized to make their own campaigns look more effective. Triple Whale unifies everything in one single view with true multi-touch attribution. For brands spending over €10,000 per month in advertising, it's essential.
How to build your stack
You don't need to start with all 7 together. My advice: begin with Claude (for copywriting), Make (for automation) and Perplexity (for research). These three deliver the most immediate ROI and have the lowest costs. Add the others as you identify your main bottlenecks.