VisualAIBuilder
— Stack

Tools I actually use, and pay for.

The full stack that runs VisualAIBuilder, The Colophon, and the rest of the publications I operate. Updated as the stack changes. Affiliate links are flagged.

— Writing & publishing

What runs The Colophon and the publication infrastructure.

  • BeehiivEssentialaffiliate

    Newsletter platform — what The Colophon runs on.

    Free up to 2,500 subs, custom domain on the free tier, real subscriber analytics, native referral program. Switched from Resend (which is great but not built for publishing).

    Cost
    Free up to 2,500 subscribers
  • Cloudflare PagesEssential

    Static site hosting + CDN.

    Free tier covers anything not at enterprise scale. The 13 sites I run cost $0/mo to host. No real alternative.

    Cost
    Free
  • WordPress (self-hosted)Useful

    Headless CMS for blog content.

    Boring, reliable, has every plugin, has the best content REST API. Decoupled from the Next.js frontend so the front can be redesigned without touching content.

    Cost
    Hosting ~$5/mo on a small VPS
— AI / language models

What writes, edits, and reasons.

  • Claude (Anthropic)Essential

    The model I do all serious thinking and writing with.

    Best-in-class for long-context reasoning and editorial work. Claude Code (the CLI) is the highest-leverage developer tool I've used in years.

    Cost
    $20/mo Pro, more for API
  • Gemini 2.5 Flash (Google AI Studio)Free tier

    Bulk content generation and classification.

    Free tier is genuinely usable (250 requests/day). Powers all the openclaw-seo content pipeline now that I migrated off OpenRouter.

    Cost
    Free tier: 250 reqs/day
— Automation

What replaces hiring.

  • Make.comUseful

    Visual workflow automation (Zapier alternative).

    More powerful than Zapier per dollar. Better debugger. Better error handling. Free tier covers small shops.

    Cost
    Free up to 1,000 ops/mo
  • n8n (self-hosted)Useful

    Open-source workflow automation.

    Self-host on a $5 VPS, no per-execution cost, full control over data. The pick if you have any technical comfort.

    Cost
    Free if self-hosted
— Email & comms

How mail, alerts, and forms get handled.

  • ResendUseful

    Transactional email API.

    Best dev experience of any transactional email service. Cleaner than SendGrid, simpler than Postmark. Used for form submissions across the portfolio.

    Cost
    Free up to 3,000 emails/mo
  • Cloudflare Email RoutingFree tier

    Free email forwarding for any domain on Cloudflare.

    Set up `[email protected]` → forward to inbox in 30 seconds. Replaces $6/mo email forwarding services.

    Cost
    Free

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