You want to use AI in your stack, but you're not trying to blow $500/month on subscriptions. Real talk: you don't have to pick between "free tier forever" and "expensive as hell. " You just need to be smart about which tools do what.
Source: [Dev.to](https://dev.to/learnairesource/building-cost-effective-ai-workflows-open-source-paid-tools-done-right-4e4j)