Here’s a thing I did that probably looks backwards.
The tools you’d use to make something cool — the motion graphics, the kinetic type, the little animated bits that make your video feel alive — those are free. Forever. The tools that run a paid gig — the teleprompter, the rundown that keeps a live show on the rails — those cost money.
I gave away the fun part and put a price on the boring part. Let me tell you why, because I think you’ve been lied to about what “free” means.
Free doesn’t mean crippled here
You’ve used the other kind of free. The kind where the watermark won’t come off until you pay. The kind where you can do three exports and then a wall slams down. That free is a trap dressed up as a gift. It’s a demo wearing the word “free” like a costume.
The creative tools aren’t that. They’re the actual tools. The same ones I’d reach for. No watermark waiting to ambush you. No locked button glowing at you from the corner. You make the thing, you export the thing, you keep the thing. Done.
I made them free because making stuff should be free. That’s not a marketing position. I genuinely believe the moment you want to create something is sacred and putting a paywall in front of it is a kind of theft. So I didn’t.
What I think you should pay for, and what you never should
Pay for the things that show up when you’re getting paid. When you’re standing on a show floor running a live event for a client, when a script has to scroll at the exact right speed while a host reads it on camera — that’s work. That’s a job with a budget. Charging for the tools that do that job is fair, and honestly it’s how I keep the lights on so the free stuff stays free.
Here’s the line I will never cross: accessibility is never behind a wall. The dyslexia-friendly fonts, the high-contrast modes, the readable type — all of it is free in every tool, paid tier or not. You don’t get charged extra for being able to see the thing. Ever. That’s not a feature decision. That’s just decency, and if you ever catch me breaking it, call me on it.
The part I’ll say out loud
I’m undervaluing this. I know I am. People who do this for a living have told me to charge more, and they’re right, and I’m charging anyway at a number that’s probably too low.
Why? Because shipping it is the point. I would rather have a real thing in your hands that costs me money than a perfect pricing strategy sitting in a doc forever. I’ve watched too many of my own ideas die in that doc. Not this one. This one’s out. If you want the longer version of why I build like that, it’s on the about page — the short version is I got tired of waiting until I felt ready.
If you’re broke right now
I see you. I was you. I was the kid who wanted to make things and looked at every tool with a price tag like it was a velvet rope I wasn’t allowed past. I thought everyone else had the money, the gear, the figured-out plan, and I had a folder of ideas and no way in.
So here’s what I want you to do. Use the free tools. All of them. Make the ugly first thing and the slightly-less-ugly second thing. Build your reel out of stuff that cost you nothing but your attention. You do not need the paid tools to be good. You need them when you start billing clients — and not one second before.
And when that day comes, when someone’s actually paying you to run their show, come back. The boring tools will be right here waiting. That’s the whole arc. Free while you’re finding it. Paid when you’re getting paid.
Go make something today. I mean it. The first one’s bad for everyone and the only way out is through it.