Here’s every AI subscription I paid for in 2025 – and which ones I’m taking into 2026

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ZDNET’s key takeaways

• My 2025 AI spend hit $1,665 across tools and upgrades.
• $300 in agentic coding tools did years of coding in days.
• Adobe was half the bill, then I cut it down drastically.

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We’re approaching the end of 2025, which also marks the conclusion of the third year of the new wave of generative AI. At the end of 2024, we thought we had a handle on how much AI would change us, but 2025 took the game to an entirely new level with the emergence of agentic AI.

Leading the pack has been the rise in agentic coding tools. These tools, such as Gemini Jules, Claude Code, and OpenAI Codex, are capable of writing entire programs and products. I put both Codex and Claude Code to the test, creating four plug-in add-on security products for WordPress using Codex, as well as a full-featured iPhone app using Claude Code.

Also: The best AI chatbots: I tested ChatGPT, Copilot, and others to find the top tools now

I use other AI tools, too. In fact, I’ve added a few new ones to the lineup this year. In this article, I’m going to show you the AI tools I entered the year with, the products I kept, the products I added, the products I dumped, and any that are currently on the chopping block as we move into 2026.

Keep in mind two factors as you read over this end-of-year accounting. First, I still use many of the free AI tools I’ve reviewed here on ZDNET. And second, even though I review their products, I pay for all the pro versions of these tools out of my own pocket. That way, you know the AI companies have no influence over what I’m telling you.

Paid AI tools I began the year with

• Time period: January through May
• Tools used: Midjourney, ChatGPT Plus, Adobe Creative Cloud
• Cumulative spend by the end of May: $500

This year, I started with Midjourney, ChatGPT Plus, and Adobe Creative Cloud.

Midjourney ($10/mo): Midjourney is the first generative AI tool I ever paid for, starting in early 2023. Its excellent image creation capabilities helped me with many of my projects, ranging from social media posts for my wife’s e-commerce site to supporting images for my album covers and music website.

Also: How AI helped get my music on all the major streaming services

ChatGPT Plus ($20/month): As I started using OpenAI’s chatbot more frequently, I upgraded to the Plus tier. Early on, you needed the Plus tier to access the data analytics features that I found enormously helpful. Today, the Plus tier provides access to some agentic coding tools, significantly more capacity than the free tier, and higher-end thinking models.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET’s parent company, filed an April 2025 lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

Adobe Creative Cloud ($69.99/month): I’ve been an Adobe customer for decades. Although Photoshop has long had small AI-like features, it wasn’t until 2024 or so that generative AI significantly enhanced Photoshop’s capabilities. Adobe added AI features to Illustrator and other tools as well. At the beginning of 2025, I began to categorize my monthly Creative Cloud bill as part of my AI expense.

Also: Stop using ChatGPT for everything: I use these AI models for research, coding, and more

This put my monthly AI expense at $100 from January until the end of May. Cumulative AI expense from January through May was $500. Of that, $350 was Adobe.

Paying for API calls

• Time period: June through August
• Tools used: Midjourney, ChatGPT Plus, Adobe Creative Cloud
• Tools added: ChatGPT API
• Cumulative spend by the end of August: $835

In June, I set up a self-hosted server to keep track of articles I read on the internet. This is my personal replacement for Mozilla’s Pocket. One feature of the tool, called Karakeep, is that it uses OpenAI’s API to do keyword analysis on the articles. I find this enormously helpful because automatic keyword tagging can be a tremendous time saver.

Setting up that server with Karakeep involved importing and cataloging roughly 21,000 articles, which took a few months. OpenAI charges for its API calls based on the token use (an analog for processing power used).

Also: How to set up your own article archiving service – and why I did (RIP, Pocket)

In June, I used $10 worth of GPT-5 processing. July was my big import month, so I used another $20. And I spent another $5 on processing in August. Apparently, the few articles I’ve been adding to my archive each week haven’t hit the billing threshold since my last payment in August.

All told, I spent $35 on API calls in 2025, specifically between June and August.

I was still paying $100 per month for Midjourney, ChatGPT Plus, and Adobe, which brought my year-to-date AI expense by the end of August to $835. Of that, $560 was Adobe.

Vibe coding, part 1

• Time period: September and October
• Tools used: Midjourney, ChatGPT Plus, Adobe Creative Cloud, ChatGPT API
• Tools added (and dropped): ChatGPT Pro
• Tools added: Notion AI
• Cumulative spend by the end of October: $1,234.90

In September, I started tinkering with vibe coding. Vibe coding is the practice of allowing an AI agent to write code for you, under your supervision. OpenAI had enabled its Codex vibe coding tool for users of the $20/month ChatGPT Plus plan.

I decided to give it a spin, testing it by having it make some improvements to my WordPress-based open-source security product. I used it for about five hours, which demonstrated to me the power of this tool. But then ChatGPT cut me off.

Also: I did 24 days of coding in 12 hours with a $20 AI tool – but there’s one big pitfall

It turns out the Plus tier throttles your Codex usage. I was able to do a few longer runs, but had to wait days in between runs for the throttle to reset. Even so, I calculated that I completed the equivalent of about 20 days of hand-coding time in only 12 hours.

But I wanted to see if I could do more. I had a few quiet days with no big deadlines, so I decided to up my spend to the $200/month Pro tier of ChatGPT. This allowed me to have virtually unlimited use of Codex without throttling.

In four days, I built four individual add-on products for my WordPress security plugin. Previously, I had been building only about one add-on per year, so I considered that to be four years of work in four days. Well worth the $200.

I tend to be very careful about my services spend, so once I completed the project, I turned off the $200/month Pro tier and went back to the $20/month Plus tier. I did have to make an update to my code using Codex, but the Plus tier was sufficient to make some quick fixes.

In September, I also added Notion AI to my list of AI tools. I had some very specific work I wanted it to do inside my Notion database, particularly with automatically building databases based on lists of data. The Notion AI Business tier added $20/month to my expenses, with billing beginning in October.

Also: I got 4 years of product development done in 4 days for $200, and I’m still stunned

I had paid that $200 for the Pro tier of ChatGPT Codex in September, which replaced the $20 for ChatGPT Plus for just that month. I was still paying $80 in September for Midjourney and Adobe. That brought September’s AI expense to $300.

In October, I was back to paying $120 per month for Midjourney, ChatGPT Plus, Notion AI, and Adobe, which brought my year-to-date AI expense by the end of October to $1,235. Of that, $700 was for Adobe.

Vibe coding, part 2

• Time period: November
• Tools used: Midjourney, ChatGPT Plus, Adobe Creative Cloud, ChatGPT API, Notion AI
• Tools added: Claude Code Max 5x
• Cumulative spend by the end of November: $1,455

After releasing my series of articles about vibe coding with Codex, I heard back from several coders. They wanted to know why I had not yet checked out Claude Code. While Codex is OpenAI’s product, it’s Claude Code that appears to have captured the imagination of most programmers.

Also: How to install and configure Claude Code, step by step

I discussed why in this article, where I also showcased the full-featured iPhone app I built with Claude Code. Essentially, Claude Code is both less expensive than Codex and was initially more accessible, as it operates within the terminal app rather than in a GitHub repository.

So, in November, I decided to sign up for Claude Code’s $20/month Pro plan. As with Codex, I used up the plan’s AI token capacity in a matter of hours. So, I upgraded from Claude Pro to Claude Max. It turns out there are various Max plans, based on usage. I signed up for the Max 5x plan, which is $100/month.

Over 17 days, during which I used Claude Code for a few hours a day on 11 of those days, I created a full-featured, fairly powerful, and highly customized iPhone app that solved a real-world problem I have with managing my 3D printing filament in the Fab Lab.

Also: 10 things I wish I knew before trusting Claude Code to build my iPhone app

I’ve decided to keep paying the $100/month Claude Code fee for another month or two. I want to create native Mac and Apple Watch versions of my iPhone app. Stay tuned, because I’ll take you along on that ride, too.

In November, I paid $120 for Midjourney, ChatGPT Plus, Notion AI, and Adobe. I still have the OpenAI API service going, but now that all the bulk processing is done, it hasn’t incurred any new bills. Then, I added Claude Code’s Max 5x plan for $100. That made November’s AI expense $220.

As of the end of November, my year-to-date AI expense was $1,455. Of that, $770 was for Adobe.

Ratcheting down Adobe expense

• Time period: December
• Tools used: Midjourney, ChatGPT Plus, ChatGPT API, Notion AI, Claude Code
• Tools dropped: Adobe Creative Cloud
• Tools added (and dropped): Canva and Leonardo AI
• Tools added: Adobe Photography plan, Google AI Pro (for Gemini)
• Cumulative spend for the whole year: $1,605

In December, I started working on my “Best AI image generators” article, which will be published soon. I also decided it was time to address the Adobe expense. Fully half of my overall AI expenditures has been paying for Creative Cloud. While I use Photoshop extensively, I barely touch the other tools.

Also: I love Photoshop, but Canva’s free Affinity tools won me over (and saved me money)

Initially, my plan was to use Canva and the newly free Affinity graphics tools to supplement my Creative Cloud use. But I found the generative features in the Affinity program to be, at least for now, underwhelming. And that’s kind.

I did spend $20 for one month of the Canva Business plan. This allowed me to test Canva for my article, as well as to test Leonardo AI (which comes with the Canva Business plan). Neither rocked my world. So once testing was done, I cancelled that plan.

Then, there’s Photoshop. I should mention that I’ve been using Photoshop for decades and have major muscle memory. I can be incredibly productive in Photoshop. Sure, I could use free or less expensive alternative tools. I just don’t want to sacrifice the proficiency and alacrity with which I use the tool. I decided to keep Photoshop, but ditch the Creative Cloud. That changed my Adobe spend from $70/month to $20/month.

Also: I tested the new ChatGPT Images – it’s a stunning improvement, and enormously fun

Adobe has a weird program of generative credits. They charge you based on how much AI you use. If you have the $70/month Creative Cloud plan that I just dropped, you get 4,000 credits. That’s good enough for all but the most intensive users.

On the other hand, if you choose their $20/month Photography plan — which I just switched to — you get only 25 generative AI credits. I really think that’s kind of stingy, but Adobe has always had fairly restrictive monthly plans. They only allow their apps to be loaded on two machines at a time, so for those of us who need to jump between three or four machines, they have a “see ya, wouldn’t want to be ya” policy.

You can buy 2,000 more credits for $10/month using the Adobe Firefly Standard plan. If I use up my generative credits, I’ll simply pay to add more credits, at least for the months when I need them.

I also added the $20/month Google AI Pro plan. This was so I could test out Gemini 3 and Nano Banana Pro for my articles. I tried Nano Banana Pro on the free plan. It only allowed me to generate two images.

Also: I’ve been testing AI content detectors for years – these are your best options in 2025

It turns out Nano Banana Pro is amazing, especially when it comes to replacing objects in an image.However, with ChatGPT’s new ChatGPT Images feature, just released this week, ChatGPT Plus is able to do some of what made Nano Banana Pro stand out.

I’ll continue to pay for Gemini’s AI Pro plan for another month or two to test it further. Unless something really stands out about it, I’ll probably drop it early next year.

In December, I’m now paying $30 per month for Midjourney and ChatGPT Plus, plus an additional $20 for Notion AI. I still have the OpenAI API service going, but there are no new charges. I’m also still using and paying for Claude Code’s Max plan, which costs $100. I replaced Adobe’s $70 plan with a $20 plan (but I’m aware I might need to add another $10/month for AI credits at any time). No additional generative credit plans were purchased in 2025. Then I added (and dropped) Canva’s $20 plan. Finally, I added Google’s $20 AI Pro plan.

Whew! That made December’s AI expense $210. My year-to-date AI expense for 2025 was $1,665. Of that, $790 was Adobe.

My AI budget

Would I spend this much if I weren’t writing reviews for ZDNET? Probably not. I’m pretty frugal about the services I subscribe to for my own personal use.

On the other hand, I also put a great deal of attention into anything that could save me time. If I had a coding project I wanted to undertake, I probably would have signed up for Claude Code anyway. Almost undoubtedly, I would have bought into ChatGPT Plus, just for the analysis features. I even used it to check my math in this article, which took the AI five minutes and would have probably taken me at least an hour.

Also: I tested the new ChatGPT Images – it’s a stunning improvement, and enormously fun

I’m on the fence about Midjourney. I can generate the graphics I need to support my wife’s business using ChatGPT. However, Midjourney is so off-the-chain creative that I can deploy it anytime I have a new project for which I need creative imagery. And, at $10/month, it’s fairly inexpensive.

I’m also on the fence about Notion AI. Even though I use Notion constantly, I don’t use Notion AI all that much. On the other hand, when I do use it, it comes in seriously clutch. Additionally, it has saved me enough time on that one database project to cover the cost of its use for the entire year.

I really should have dropped the big Adobe expense much earlier — $70 is a lot to spend each month. While $20 for Photoshop is still costly, I view it as an almost unavoidable expense due to how tightly integrated Photoshop is into my workflow.

So, it’s really down to some of the experimental expenses. I prefer personally purchasing the plans I’m evaluating, so you know that no company is influencing my ZDNET coverage. But I also don’t like paying for them longer than I have to.

So, yeah, I spent a little more than $1,600 on AI expenses. If I had reduced my Adobe plan earlier, that would have been closer to roughly $1,200. And if I hadn’t spent on the coding tools, that would have been closer to $900.

Is it worth it? Well, obviously, as fodder for article content, sure. However, in terms of productivity, I must also say yes. These various AI tools certainly saved me hours. If you look at it in terms of cost versus hourly rate, the AI tools have definitely paid for themselves. They definitely helped me save time.

As for you, I recommend budgeting your AI tool expenses. My wife, who is also my business partner, reviews our accounts every day. This helps us manage any unexpected costs, and is our first line of defense against fraudulent charges. I turn off monthly expenses as soon as it’s clear I’m not using them, even if I think I might turn them back on later.

Also: Gemini vs. Copilot: I compared the AI tools on 7 everyday tasks, and there’s a clear winner

And because time is so tight for me, I often do the mental calculus of trying to decide if the time savings is worth more, or whether it would be better to save the money. Right now, given that I work pretty much seven days a week, the time savings benefits I’m getting versus the cost of AI tools seem to be worth the price. For now.

What about you? How many AI tools are you currently paying for, and how do you decide which ones are worth keeping? Have agentic coding tools, image generators, or note-taking assistants meaningfully changed your workflow or productivity? Do you track your AI spending? Have you dropped or downgraded any tools once the novelty wore off? Finally, do you think the time savings from AI justify the ongoing costs for your own work? Share your experience and thoughts in the comments below.

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