Where do I start with this story?
There are so many angles, but the one I'm going with is; do you pay for ChatGPT, or other AI service?
Most of them are free, to a limit, but then to get unlimited access and more features, you need to pay; and the prices I've seen tend be around £20 per month.*
That's £240 per year!
I don't use it enough to justify the expense, but I was intrigued by the offering from Raycast, when subscribing to their Pro version.
*ChatGPT and Perplexity
Raycast
I've been a Raycast user for quite a while. It's only available, currently, on MacOS, but it has really revolutionised the way I work.
They advertise themselves as "Your shortcut to everything". I simply re-programmed my ⌘+Space shortcut to launch Raycast and now I have so much at my fingertips.
Out of the gate, Raycast is free to use. And it's great.
The built in functionality is brilliant, for example:
- Clipboard history
- Creating and using Snippets (think TextExpander)
- Searching for an using emojis
- Calculator
- Set calendar events
- and more…
Raycast Extensions
On top of these, I have installed a number of extensions from their 'store' (again, all free) and now it's a simple click to create an entry in Apple Reminders, add a note to Bear, post directly to Mastodon or Bluesky and even control Teams meetings!
As I've mentioned, all of this is free, but Raycast Pro adds a cherry on the top.
- AI; there are a number of models to choose from. I use Perplexity, but OpenAI, Mistral, Meta and Anthropic are also offered
- Ask anything with a simple question
- Unlimited clipboard history
- Unlimited Raycast Notes (I love the floating notes feature)
- Quick translations on the fly
- Search for images
- Cloud Sync; so you can have the same Raycast settings on multiple machines (not a feature that I need)
- Custom themes
Raycast Notes
This is an update to a feature that's been in Raycast for a while, but recently they re-imagined it and now it's so much better.
Think of them like a sticky note on your desktop, where you can add formatting, and they can be exported to Apple Notes, Messages, Reminders, Email or Shortcuts, in a choice of Markdown, HTML or plain text.
On the free version you can only have 5 notes, but with the Pro subscription, then have as many as you like.
Raycast Notes just sit on top of your screen. I usually create a new one each morning, then add to it as I need to, during the day.
The Cost of Raycast
So, what is the cost for all this goodness?
Raycast Pro is $96 for the year. Approx £76.
For. The. Year.
Compared to the monthly cost of ChatGPT, you get so much more bang for your buck.
Even if you only wanted to use Raycast Pro for the AI elements, then it's worth it; but you'll find so much more useful when you dig in.
Have you used Raycast? Do you use something else?
Do you pay for ChatGPT or other AI service?
Thank you for reading
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