I Tracked My AI Subscription Spending for 3 Months — The Numbers Were Brutal

Three months ago I opened my credit card statement and noticed I'd spent more on AI tools than on groceries. That's not an exaggeration. It was a Tuesday in January and I just sat there looking at the number. $90 in AI subscriptions. In one month. I'd accumulated them gradually enough that none of it felt dramatic at the time. $20 here for ChatGPT Plus. $20 there for Claude Pro. Cursor was $20 more. GitHub Copilot, which I kept telling myself I was "evaluating," was another $10. And then there were the smaller ones — a $12 tool I used twice, a $9 thing that I couldn't even remember signing up for. So I started tracking. What I was actually paying When I put everything into a spreadsheet in January, this is roughly what I had: ChatGPT Plus — $20/mo Claude Pro — $20/mo Cursor Pro — $20/mo GitHub Copilot — $10/mo Perplexity Pro — $20/mo (forgot I had this one) A few smaller tools — another $20-25 scattered around Total: somewhere around $110-115 per month. Annualized, that's close to $1,4