I compared what 11 AI tools actually give you for free. Three of them give you nothing you can legally publish.
A survey of free tiers, taken from each vendor's own pages. Every figure below is checkable against the source URLs published on CreatorStack.
Why the free tier is the wrong thing to compare
"Free tier" is the most-searched phrase in this category and the least comparable one. Two tools can both say "free" while one gives you a working allowance every month and the other gives you a one-time test that carries no rights to what you make.
So I read eleven vendors' own pages and split their free tiers by the question that actually matters to a creator: if I make something on the free plan, can I publish it?
The answers fall into three groups, and the group a tool sits in matters far more than the size of its allowance.
Group 1 — free output you cannot publish (3 tools)
These are the ones worth knowing about before you spend a weekend on them.
Suno
| Source | What it says |
|---|---|
suno.com/pricing |
Free: no monthly song downloads, no commercial rights, no stems |
| Suno's help articles and Terms | Only permitted Downloads carry commercial rights |
Suno's terms also state that free-plan songs are owned by Suno, and — this is the part people miss — that upgrading later does not retroactively license songs made on free. Suno says retroactive rights are not guaranteed. So a track you made in month one stays non-commercial even after you start paying in month two.
Suno separately warns that copyright may not vest in 100% AI music at all, and that remixes are non-commercial on every tier.
HeyGen
| Source | What it says |
|---|---|
| HeyGen's Terms | Free output is limited to personal, non-commercial evaluation |
| HeyGen's own FAQ | Suggests free-tier output may be used commercially |
The FAQ and the Terms disagree. The Terms are the contract, and they restrict free output to evaluation. A creator who reads only the FAQ and then publishes a free-tier video has a licensing problem they did not know about.
CapCut
| Source | What it says |
|---|---|
| CapCut help centre | Many templates and library sounds are licensed for personal, non-commercial use only |
This one is per-asset rather than per-plan, which makes it worse: the licence depends on which template and which sound you picked, and the mark is not always prominent. Free video length is also capped at one minute, and the monthly video count is disputed between CapCut's own pricing page and its help centre.
Group 2 — free output you can publish, within limits
Canva
Free is $0 with 1.6M+ templates, 5GB of storage and up to 20 Standard or Premium AI uses a month. The AI Product Terms (26 June 2026) say you own your AI output and may use it for any lawful purpose.
The exception is output built on Canva library content — you do not own AI edits of library photos. And the Content License limits Pro content to a single design, bars redistribution on its own, and bars use in a trademark or business name.
Runway
Free is 125 one-time credits that never refill, with a watermark on every video. Ownership and commercial rights start at Standard. Runway also takes a perpetual licence to train on your inputs and outputs, and its Usage Policy bans content in the style of a known living artist.
Runway's own pricing page turns credits into seconds, which is unusually honest: Standard's 625 credits equal 52 seconds of Gen-4.5, and Aleph 2.0 costs 140 credits per 5 seconds.
Ideogram
Free is $0, but PNG downloads require a paid plan and output is public by default. Commercial use needs a paid licence. Note also that monthly credits do not roll over and one-time purchases expire after 365 days.
Descript
A free tier exists and paid plans start at $24/mo. The limits are on hours rather than on features, so what breaks first is a long recording rather than a specific tool.
ElevenLabs
A free tier exists and paid plans start at $5/mo. Character credits are the constraint and they disappear fast on long-form scripts. Commercial licensing terms should be read before monetising.
Group 3 — free tiers with no output restriction worth mentioning
Perplexity (free tier; Pro $20/mo), Notion (free tier; paid from $10/seat/mo) and Opus Clip (free tier; paid from $9/mo) all have usable free tiers. Their limits are about volume, seats or watermarking rather than about what you are allowed to do with the result.
Opus Clip's practical constraint is the watermark, which matters the moment you publish. Notion's is that the AI add-on is a separate paid product and is not included in the free workspace.
The pattern
Ranked by what actually blocks a creator, the free-tier differences are:
- Rights — whether you may publish at all, and whether upgrading later fixes it retroactively (Suno: it does not)
- Output marks — watermarks you cannot remove without paying (Runway, Opus Clip)
- Per-asset licences — the licence depends on which template or sound you chose (CapCut, Canva)
- Allowance size — how much you get before it stops (everyone)
Most "best free AI tools" lists rank by the fourth item. The first three are why people end up re-doing work.
Two things worth doing before you commit a weekend
- Read the Terms, not the FAQ. For Suno and HeyGen the FAQ was the more permissive document and the Terms were the binding one.
- Check whether "free" means "free to make" or "free to publish." Those are different products sold under the same word.
Full entries, each with its sourced facts, its gaps list and the date it was last checked: creatorstack-3yf.pages.dev. No tool listed there has been tested hands-on, which is why none of them carries a rating.