💡 You can create professional AI content for $30/month by using a reliable language model, simple automation tools, and basic templates.
💡 Building your own AI content system using N8n, an API access to an AI model, and basic templates can cut your costs by 96% compared to expensive AI tools.
💡 To get started, sign up for N8n, connect it to a free AI model, create an automation workflow, test with sample content, refine your prompts, and avoid common mistakes such as using generic prompts and skipping quality checks.
AI content tools are getting expensive. Really expensive. I just canceled my $800/month subscription to a popular AI writing platform, and now I create better content for $30/month.
The big AI companies want you to think you need their fancy tools. You don’t. I’ve spent the last year testing every major AI content platform. Then I built a simple system that works better for less money.
Let me show you how to create professional AI content without breaking the bank. You’ll learn my exact process, tools, and templates.
The Problem with Expensive AI Tools
| Tool | Description | Pricing |
|---|---|---|
| On-Page.ai | AI-driven SEO content optimization and generation tool. Offers features like keyword analysis, link relevancy, and auto-optimization. | Plans range from $49 to $499 per month depending on the number of AI articles (30 to 2000) and features included. |
| Journalist AI | Generates, publishes, and syndicates SEO-optimized articles automatically. Features include extensive formatting options and multi-language support. | Pricing not specified; offers a free trial with three articles. |
| Copy.ai | AI writing tool for generating marketing copy, blog posts, and social media content. | Free plan available; Pro plan at $49/month. |
| Writesonic | AI writer that creates marketing content, ads, blog posts, and more with SEO optimization. | Free trial available; paid plans start at $15/month. |
| Jasper.ai | AI writing assistant that helps create high-quality content quickly across various formats. | Plans start at $49/month after a 5-day free trial. |
Yes, it STARTS at $49 but if you’re churning out 100’s of posts this will easily add up to hundreds of dollars. I was there. I did that. Yes, it’ cheaper than human but I want to save every dollar!
Remember these platforms lock you into their ecosystem, once you’re in it’s really hard to move away. I tracked my content costs for 6 months using premium tools – the average monthly bill was $782.
Here’s what you actually need:
- A reliable language model (free options available)
- Use n8n or Make.com to automate the process
- Install baserow (database)
- Basic templates and prompts (I’ll share mine)
- Self host on your own Synology NAS, $0 on Google Cloud or Pikapods.
I cut my costs by 96% using this setup. The content quality improved too.
Last month, I generated 50 blog posts using my budget system. They averaged 2,000 words each and ranked well in Google. Total cost? $27.50.
Yes, it’s nice to do it for cheap but there’s a tradeoff. If you want free, you need to put in some effort to build the system. Host your own docker image, create your n8n workflow, etc. The beauty of the paid platforms is that they are simply 1 click. You put in a title and BOOM you get an article.
The hybrid approach
I have 5 different blogs. Some are full A.I. generated content, some are human generated content like this one. There’s pros and cons to each method. Human written content written professionally is always the best but that’s only if you can afford it. It’s expensive to get humans to write content.
However, 100% A.I. content is not a cure all. The quality is low and sometimes it doesn’t work at all. I’ve written about it in my article Is A.I. generated content bullshit? How A.I. increased my website traffic by 150%.
I think the hybrid approach is the best. A mix of human and A.I. generation.
Full Article Generation
Here’s my A.I. content workflow
I tried every tool out there and I’ll give you the highlevel framework on how they all do it.
- Generate title – use hooks to create a catchy title. This is 50% of the work!
- Research/human input – Add in some internet research if it helps your article. Even better, use the hybrid mode and put in some keypoints you want the A.I. to cover.
- Generate sections – Generate the headers for each section. Read over it, if it’s alright then generate the rest.
- Generate text – This is the final part. The A.I. generates text for each header instead of 1 giant piece, it generates better output if you split it into mini articles that add together.
That’s it! That’s how most of the off the shelf A.I. generators work.
Implementation Guide
Follow the 3 P’s when making A.I. content.
- Prompt. Prompt A.I. to write the article
- Preview. Review what the A.I. has written. Fix errors and add a human touch.
- Publish. Send it out to the world!
Conclusion
You can create professional AI content for $30/month. My system produces 30 articles monthly – that’s $1 per article.
Start with one article. Test the process. Adjust based on results. You’ll never go back to expensive AI tools.
Ready to build your system? I realised that it’s impossible to explain the whole process in 1 article half way through. Go to contact me and send me an email. I’ll share with you my workflows to do this.
