Thinking at Half Speed

15 April 2026

What happened

Mid-conversation, Craft stopped letting us create new documents. No warning, no explanation, just errors. We diagnosed it during the conversation — the free plan has a ten document limit and we had hit it building out the blog.

Subscribed to Craft Plus on the spot. Back working within minutes.

The tip

When you are building a real workflow around a tool, the free tier will eventually get in the way. That is not a criticism — it is just how it works. The question is whether the tool is worth paying for.

In this case the answer was obvious. We had already created enough useful material in a single morning to justify the cost many times over. The subscription was not a reluctant expense. It was confirmation that the tool was doing its job.

The broader point

AI workflows tend to generate more than you expect, faster than you expect. Notes, drafts, tips, posts — they accumulate quickly when the friction of capturing them is low. Build that into your thinking when you choose your tools. Free tiers are fine for trying things out. Once something becomes part of how you actually work, pay for it properly.

If a tool is worth using seriously, it is worth paying for seriously.