One Reddit user cancelled five paid tools in a row and recovered around $120 a month. The replacement for each one was a single prompt. The post landed on r/PromptEngineering this week, and u/Professional-Rest138 laid out every prompt in full. The creator isn’t selling a system or pitching a course. Just sharing what actually works week to week. Here’s the full breakdown.
Replacing Grammarly ($30/month)
The writing fix prompt is the one most people will use right away:
“Read this and fix it.
Not just grammar. Fix it if it sounds
like it was written by a committee,
if the point is buried, or if any
sentence could be cut without losing
anything. Tell me what you changed and why
before showing me the rewrite. Text: [paste here]”
What makes this different from pasting text into any AI editor: it asks for the reasoning before the rewrite. You see the diagnosis, not just a cleaned-up draft. That feedback loop is something Grammarly never gave you. You’d get a green squiggle. You’d never know why.
Replacing content scheduling software ($49/month)
“Plan my content week. My niche: [one line]
My audience: [describe]
This week I want to be known for: [one thing] 5 post angles worth writing.
For each: first line only, the argument
underneath it, platform it suits best. Replace anything that sounds like
something anyone in my niche could write.”
That last line is doing the real work. It’s a built-in quality filter. Most scheduling tools don’t have one. They’ll happily fill your calendar with content that sounds exactly like everyone else.
Replacing the Monday planning session
“Here’s everything in my head:
[dump tasks, worries, unfinished things,
deadlines , all of it] 1. What actually needs to happen this week
2. What I’m avoiding and why
3. The one thing that makes everything else easier if done first
4. Monday in three actions. Not a list. Just three things.”
Question two is the one most planning tools skip: what you’re avoiding and why. That’s not a task management question. That’s a thinking question. Having to answer it in writing changes the answer.
Replacing proposal software ($39/month)
“Turn these call notes into a formatted
proposal I can paste into Word and send. Notes: [dump everything as-is]
Client: [name]
Investment: [price] Executive summary, problem, solution,
scope, timeline, next steps.
Formatted. Sounds human. Ready to send.”
“Sounds human. Ready to send.” That’s the brief, and it’s the right one. Most proposal software outputs something that reads like it was assembled by a legal team in 2009. This prompt is written to avoid exactly that.
Replacing the weekly review
“Here’s what happened this week:
[rough notes, wins, problems,
anything relevant] What actually moved forward.
What stalled and why.
What I’m overcomplicating.
One thing to drop.
One thing to double down on.”
Five questions. No padding. The third one, “What I’m overcomplicating,” is the kind of question a good coach asks in week three when they’ve figured out your patterns. The AI asks it every single week.
What makes these prompts actually work
Three things run through all five:
- They front-load enough context so the AI knows what “good” looks like in this specific situation
- They ask for structure and specifics, not open-ended output
- They’re built to be used on a schedule, not tried once and forgotten
The original poster says it plainly: “None of these are perfect. All of them are good enough that I stopped paying for the alternative.” That’s the bar worth aiming for. Not perfect. Good enough to cancel the subscription.
📋 Who these work best for
These prompts are most useful if you:
- Run a solo operation and handle your own writing, planning, and client work
- Send proposals more than a few times a month
- Manage your own content calendar
- Spend Monday mornings unclear on what the week actually needs
The Monday planning and weekly review prompts work especially well as a pair. Use one to open the week and the other to close it. That loop alone replaces a lot of time spent spinning.
Prompt of the Day
Start with the Grammarly replacement. Paste in something you’ve been putting off sending. Read the explanation before the rewrite. That part, knowing what changed and why, is what no $30/month tool was ever giving you.
Where to find the rest
The original poster mentioned ten more automations covering client emails, meeting notes, and weekly resets. The full discussion is worth reading over on r/PromptEngineering if you want the complete set.
I replaced five things I was paying for with five Claude/ChatGPT prompts. Here’s exactly what I cut and what replaced each one.
by u/Professional-Rest138 in PromptEngineering