🤯 Create Motion Graphics Without Touching After Effects

#106 NTSOT | Find out the best tools of the week! AI brand monitoring, animated videos from text, and a personal knowledge base.

Author

LucaG
May 11, 2026

Hey friends!

A Michigan farm town voted down a giant OpenAI-Oracle data center this spring. Construction started weeks later anyway.

The same week, the U.S. Treasury said it needs to borrow over $166 billion every month this year to keep functioning. AI labs closed billion-dollar fundraises on the same news cycle.

The gap between trillion-dollar infrastructure plays and the people who build small businesses keeps widening.

That gap is why I built ShortPen. Branded links, QR codes, link tracking, and post-click analytics, without paying what Bitly charges.

The five tools below sit in the same camp. Indie-built and aimed at operators who ship daily.

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What Will You Find Today?

  • 5 Tools of the Week

  • Some Lifetime Deals I found this week (pay once and keep forever)

1. ClayHog - See What AI Says About Your Brand

ClayHog tracks how your brand shows up inside ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews.

You set Scouts to monitor prompts, watch citations, compare sentiment against competitors, and see which sources AI engines pull from.

Crawler logs, GEO audits, and content suggestions tell you exactly what to publish to get mentioned in AI answers more often.

🎯 Who is it ideal for?

SEO specialists, brand marketers, founders.

💰 How much does it cost?

Free plan: ❌

Paid plans: from $29/month

🌐 Website

2. Recall - Your AI Knowledge Base

Recall saves anything you read, watch, or listen to and turns it into a personal AI knowledge base.

You clip articles, YouTube videos, podcasts, PDFs, and TikToks in one click, get instant summaries, and chat with your saved content using GPT, Claude, or Gemini.

Smart tags connect every idea, and spaced-repetition quizzes lock the important parts into long-term memory.

🎯 Who is it ideal for?

Founders, researchers, students.

💰 How much does it cost?

Free plan: ✅ 

Paid plans: from $7/month

🌐 Website

Carousels Generator writes copy and designs slides for your LinkedIn and Instagram carousels in under 2 minutes.

You type a topic or paste a URL, the AI pulls fresh info from the web, applies your brand kit, and ships a polished carousel.

Publish natively to LinkedIn, X, Threads, and Instagram, or remix community templates to skip the blank page.

🎯 Who is it ideal for?

Solopreneurs, personal brand creators, content marketers.

💰 How much does it cost?

Free plan: ✅ 

Paid plans: from $15/month

🌐 Website

4. Recordly - Open-source app for screen recordings

Recordly records your screen on Mac, Windows, and Linux, then adds auto-zoom, smooth cursor animations, motion blur, webcam bubbles, and styled backgrounds without manual editing.

You drag and drop on a timeline to control speed, annotations, and audio, export to MP4 or GIF, and save projects to keep iterating.

Open-source, MIT-licensed, with a community extension marketplace.

🎯 Who is it ideal for?

Indie hackers, product marketers, developer advocates.

💰 How much does it cost?

Free.

🌐 Website

5. AI Motion Graphics & Video Generator - Motionvid

MotionVid turns text prompts into editable motion graphics, animated explainers, charts, maps, logos, and cinematic clips in seconds.

You upload an idea or two frames, the AI builds the animation, and you fine-tune the result without touching After Effects.

The platform stacks every video model in one workspace, so you ship polished video content fast instead of stitching tools together.

🎯 Who is it ideal for?

YouTubers, content creators, indie filmmakers.

💰 How much does it cost?

Free plan: ✅ 

Paid plans: from $29/month

🌐 Website

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🤯 Lifetime Deals of the Week

Exclusive offers that get you a lifetime subscription to the tools. Pay once and keep forever.

  • Depositphotos ($49) - Access millions of royalty-free stock assets using this content library and generative AI tool.

  • AI Dictation ($49) - Transform your plain-spoken voice notes into clean, formatted text with this AI transcription tool for Mac.

  • Fouita ($89) - Use smart widgets to generate leads, engage visitors, and drive sales on autopilot.

Setapp - My Favourite Tool

Drowning in apps? Setapp offers a Netflix-style subscription for Mac & iPhone apps. Over 240 productivity, creativity, and utility tools for only $9.99/mo.

Check it out at Setapp.com (30-day extended free trial)

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Would you like to give me feedback or recommend other tools?

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I’m Luca, and when I’m not curating transformative tools for NTSOT, I’m sharing real-time insights and personal reflections that could be the spark for your next big idea.

Follow me [@the_lucag] on X, for an insider's look at productivity hacks, marketing trends, and the occasional thought-provoking conversation.

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