Most people pay for an AI subscription because they want access to features that help them get work done. But when those same features start trickling down to free users, you start to doubt if paying the monthly subscription is worth it. A handful of tools that were once paywalled are now free, and collectively they make Claude a much more serious competitor to ChatGPT than it was even a few months ago.

Claude just unlocked File Creation for free users

Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDFs are all on the table now

Free users can now create Excel, Word, PDFs, and PowerPoint presentations directly from a conversation. Make sure to tell it the topic, the format, and how long you want it to be to get the best possible results. You can also upload an existing file and tell Claude what to change, whether you need it edited, reformatted, or converted to a different file type.

I asked Claude to create a monthly plan for a project I’m working on, with different options for managing the hours I dedicate to it. It came back with four intensity levels, each color-coded with emojis, and included columns tracking how much time I’d spent and how much was left, depending on the intensity I chose. And it took less than a minute to put together. After that, I opened it in Excel to save it. Something that would have taken me a good chunk of the afternoon to build myself was done before I finished my coffee.

Connectors let Claude work inside the apps you already use

Use Slack, Canva, and Box without leaving the conversation

Connectors let Claude work directly within the apps you use daily, such as Box, Canva, Slack, and Outlook. You don’t have to open the supported apps anymore, since Claude can go into them and do the job for you. The idea is that your workflow stays in one place instead of bouncing between tabs and windows. You get started by going to the connectors menu -> pick the app you want -> link your account. And if you ever want to disconnect an app, you just go to:

• Manage Connectors
• Find the app
• Choose Remove or Disconnect.

I tested it with Canva to make a get-well card for someone. I told Claude what I wanted, and I could tell it was pulling from Canva because the app icon showed up while it was still thinking. It came back with four options in different layouts, colors, and styles. I picked one, downloaded it, and that was it. It also gave me the option to go to my Canva account to make more edits. Every other supported app works the same way. You may not find every app you use, but the list covers a long list of options.

Custom skills let you teach Claude how you work

Set it up once, and Claude follows your rules every time

If you’ve used ChatGPT’s custom instructions, this is the same idea. You tell Claude how you want it to behave, and it remembers that every time you chat. The difference? Claude lets you create skills and toggle them on or off depending on what you’re working on. For example, if you need custom instructions for a personal project and another for work.

If you want to add one, go to Settings -> Capabilities -> Skills -> Add. That same path is where you go to manage them later, and if you add many of them, you can use the search tool to find them when you need to edit, delete, download, replace, or try them in chat.

I’m currently learning Python from scratch, so I created a skill just for that. Now, every time I ask a Python question, Claude automatically searches for the latest information, breaks answers into beginner-friendly steps, and uses easy-to-understand comparisons.

Claude’s free tier is giving ChatGPT a run for its money

I have to admit that after using ChatGPT for a while, I wasn’t really looking for another AI model to try. But curiosity got the best of me, so I gave it a shot. After trying it out for some time, the new features that were once behind a paywall made it an easy choice. If you’ve been wondering whether a paid AI subscription is still worth it, Claude’s free tier is making that a much harder question to answer. I’m still going to keep ChatGPT around to see if it catches up, but it’s starting to look more like a second option for me. If you haven't tried Claude yet, the free tier is worth your time. You might find yourself in the same position I did.