Five good AI tools with Black Friday discounts

Archive note: this article was published on 27 November 2024. All recommendations, prices, discounts, availability and deadlines below belong to that historical Black Friday selection; they are not current offers or purchasing advice.

Once again, we have reached the shopping and sales season par excellence: Black Friday. This week, we have prepared a special article recommending a wide variety of AI tools with particularly substantial discounts at this time of year. Unfortunately, many of the most interesting services — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Midjourney, HeyGen, Gamma, Perplexity and others — do not offer discounts at this time. But there is also an enormous range of AI tools to choose from, and you are very likely to find something of interest in the following paragraphs.

Before we continue, two points. No tool pays us — at least for now — to review or recommend it, so every suggestion reflects our own appreciation after having used it at some point. The second consideration concerns the newsletter's schedule: this issue will be published on Wednesday 27 November, with Black Friday on the 29th and Cyber Monday, which also tends to bring special digital offers, on 2 December. Most companies have brought their discounts and deals forward, some even to the end of last week, but further interesting offers may appear after this issue of estrategIA is published.

Recommended tools with discounts¶

1. Pictory AI¶

Our first suggestion is Pictory AI. Although it lacks some of the advanced capabilities offered by tools such as HeyGen or Synthesia, it provides a wide range of options for working with video. Institución Educativa ALEPH has used it quite intensively for political training simulations, with very satisfactory results. It is now offering 50% off all annual plans.

Accessible record of the original English screenshot. Banner: “BLACK FRIDAY SALE! 50% OFF!” and “What video will you create today?” The selected “Yearly Billing” option separately says “Save up to 58%”. Prices below are displayed per month under that annual-billing selection.

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Visible additional features: Starter — no watermark and basic AI tools. Professional includes Starter's features plus advanced AI tools and video summaries of long videos. Team includes Professional's features plus a team workspace for sharing assets and collaborating on projects. Enterprise includes Team's features plus a dedicated success manager, video consulting and priority support. The screenshot ends within this feature area; content below its edge is not reconstructed. Starter, Professional and Team show purchase and free-trial buttons; Enterprise shows “Let's talk”.

2. Kling AI¶

Staying with video, Kling AI, one of the most impressive generative AIs for video creation, which we discussed in issue 44 of estrategIA, is also offering major Black Friday discounts.

Accessible record of the original English screenshot. Billing options: yearly, −34%; monthly, −12% and selected; or one month.

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All three paid offers say “Cancel anytime” and “Discount only for first-time subscription”; each displays a countdown of 23:58:46 in this archived screenshot. All include daily log-in credits, exclusive accelerating access, Professional mode videos, watermark removal, Master shot & Video Extension, and image upscale. Pro and Premier also list priority access to new features. Basic says users can obtain credits and try members-only features monthly by logging in.

3. Mimic PC¶

Here we have something other than a tool: relatively inexpensive virtual servers on which to run freely available AI tools with computing power that our personal machines do not normally have, along with all the advantages of privacy and control. Since some readers may want to know more about running models locally, we refer you to the video in the original newsletter's “recommendation of the week” section, which addresses that subject.

I regularly run workflows on Mimic PC, especially with Flux AI, but there are many options that are relatively straightforward to run. A word of caution, though: this gives us much more control but requires more learning than simply opening a web service and doing something. Here, you have to choose a tool, launch a server and usually create or customise a workflow.

This image shows some of the main tools that can be used relatively easily on Mimic PC.

Accessible record of the original English screenshot. The application list reads: Auto1111 WebUI; Fooocus; RVC; Ollama-Webui; Chatbot-Ollama; FaceFusion; ComfyUI; Whisper-WebUI; ChatTTS; StoryDiffusion; “Auto1111 WebUI Fo…” (truncated); AI-Toolkit; SwarmUI; Roop-Unleashed; Omnigen; InvokeAI; F5-TTS; OpenVoice; Kohya_ss. The three visible cards contain the following descriptions.

Chatbot-Ollama — Easy; latest

Chatbot Ollama is an open source chat UI for Ollama. It is a flexible and scalable chatbot framework built with Python. Ollama Chatbot utilizes Flask, a lightweight Web services framework that provides developers with an easy-to-use API interface to receive and respond to chat requests. This design allows Ollama to seamlessly integrate into any application that supports HTTP requests, including Web and mobile applications. Extensibility To meet different needs, Ollama Chatbot supports a plug-in system. Developers can create custom plug-ins to add new features, such as integrating third-party apis, implementing specific NLP models, and more.

1. Easy to get started: Clear documentation and examples make it easy for beginners to get started.
2. Modularity: Components are loosely coupled for easy replacement or upgrade.
3. Customization: Free to adjust conversation policies according to business

The last sentence ends there in the screenshot.

FaceFusion — Easy; V2.6.0; v3.0.1

FaceFusion is the next generation face swapper and enhancer to create realistic and high-quality results. The technology is based on deep learning models to learn and understand facial features, as well as efficient real-time rendering technology. It can locate and track key points of the face accurately, such as the eyes, nose and mouth, which is the foundation for seamless facial fusion.

1. Integration with top face-enhancing algorithms.
2. Frame enhancer that improve the entire video's quality.
3. User-friendly interface tailored for both beginners and experts.

ComfyUI — Hard; latest; v0.3.4; v0.2.7

ComfyUI is an AI drawing tool that utilizes StableDiffusion, offering a sleek and versatile interface coupled with an efficient workflow. It supports a variety of plugins to enhance image generation efficiency and creative experience.

1. It is more lightweight than WebUI and has a simpler, more flexible interface.
2. A more efficient and flexible workflow, with less resource consumption and faster rendering speed.
3. ComfyUI breaks down the workflow into rearrangeable elements, allowing you to effortlessly create your own components.

Each card also has “Get started”, “How to use?”, “Learn more” and tutorial controls. Tutorial titles are truncated in the screenshot; no missing text or destinations have been reconstructed.

In this case, there is a substantial Black Friday offer of 60% off. However, a few months ago I bought a lifetime option on AppSumo, which is also quite interesting and remains available.

Original English banner: “BLACK FRIDAY SPECIAL — 60% OFF — 11.15–12.2 — UTC/GMT +0”; “BLACK FRIDAY 2024”; “Got questions? Join our Discord for more info and support!”; “Grab The Deal”. The dates refer to 15 November–2 December 2024.

4. Freepik¶

Founded in Málaga in 2010, Freepik is a leading graphics resource platform offering millions of images, vectors and PSD files. Recently, it has invested heavily in artificial intelligence; we discussed the interesting Pikaso tool in issue 10 of estrategIA. Its latest acquisition, Magnific.ai — our tool of the week in issue 16, which also has Black Friday offers — strengthens this strategy by adding technology for optimising and transforming images.

Accessible record of the original English screenshot: “Do the talking this Black Friday — 50% off Premium plans — Valid for annual plans until December 1”. Annual billing and one user are selected.

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5. Poe¶

Although we do not know whether this is strictly a Black Friday offer, Poe — our recommended AI tool in issue 2 of estrategIA — has just launched a new entry-level tier. It could be highly interesting for anyone wanting access to today's best AI models, for both text and image generation, without using them intensively. This is what Poe said about the offer in an email received this week by everyone who, at that point, had only a free account.

Transcription of the original English email:

Hi everyone,

We're excited to introduce a new, more affordable way to access Poe's premium bots. Starting today, you can unlock the full potential of Poe for just $10/month plus tax—half the price of our standard subscription.

With this new subscription option, you'll get access to premium text, image, video, and audio bots on Poe, including all models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI, Meta, Black Forest Labs, Playground, Ideogram, Recraft, Runway, and Pika Labs.

You'll also get 10,000 points daily for longer conversations, larger file uploads, or more media generation.

If you'd like to upgrade, simply click "Subscribe" in the sidebar (web), select your preferred plan, and complete the payment. Note: These new subscription options are only purchasable through web and mobile web.

We encourage you to continue sharing any feedback or questions you may have at feedback@poe.com. If you would like to stay informed on our latest updates and announcements, you can follow us on X or join our Discord server.

Thanks,
The Poe Team

Price shown in email is USD + tax. Local pricing maintains the similar half-price ratio.

The screenshot shows links on the email address, “follow us on X” and “Discord server”, but does not preserve their underlying destinations.

Bonus: more discounted AI applications¶

Of the offers we have seen and that have appeared so far, these five would be our principal recommendations for AIs with substantial discounts during Black Friday. However, we know that your needs and uses of AI may vary greatly, so here are two useful links containing dozens of additional AI tools with attractive prices at this time of year.

Black Friday AI Deals at lifetimo.com

The Black Friday collection on AppSumo

Fernando Nieto Lobato

Director of Digital Innovation, Institución Educativa ALEPH