Try before you buy

20 prompts to test any AI subscription

Copy these into the free tier of any AI before you pay. If a subscription handles your real work here, it will earn its monthly fee — if it struggles, you just saved yourself a renewal.

The prompts

Run these on your own files & tasks

Mix in your real documents. Watch for invented facts, broken sources, math slips and refusals.

1Summarise this 30-page PDF in 10 bullet points, then list anything that needs human verification.
2Analyse this spreadsheet: top 3 trends, any anomalies, and a chart suggestion.
3Turn this report into a 10-slide deck outline with titles and 3 bullets each.
4Write a polite German business email (Sie-form) declining a meeting and proposing two alternatives.
5Answer this research question with up-to-date, clickable sources and flag uncertainty.
6Extract every invoice number and total from this scanned PDF into a table.
7Here is a failing function and the error — find the bug, explain it, return a working fix.
8Rewrite this email to be precise and legally careful; mark where a lawyer should review.
9Compare how two different models answer this question and tell me which is stronger and why.
10Translate this document to French, preserving formatting and tone.
11Draft a 6-email marketing sequence for this product, with subject lines.
12Critique my argument and steel-man the opposing view.
13Convert these messy notes into a structured project plan with milestones.
14Explain this contract clause in plain language and list the risks.
15Generate 20 SEO title ideas for this page and rank them.
16Build a week-long study plan for this syllabus with daily tasks.
17Refactor this code for readability and add tests.
18Fact-check these five claims and cite sources.
19Create a budget table from this list of expenses and total by category.
20Summarise this long email thread and list the decisions and open questions.

Score each on accuracy, whether it needed human fixing, and speed. Then compare your shortlist in the matrix and check the pricing archive.