The $149 device that costs $653

You compare two smart cameras. One is $149.99, the other $179.99. You buy the cheaper one, and the decision feels finished.

It is not finished. The recorded-history feature you assumed was included needs $9.99 a month. The filters are chipped, so third-party replacements will not seat. Three years later the hardware is roughly 23% of what you actually paid — the rest was committed on the day you stopped comparing.

This is not a purchasing-discipline problem. It is a research problem. The recurring costs are real and published, but scattered across a spec sheet, a pricing page, and a terms-of-service document nobody reads in a store aisle. Below are two prompts that pull them into one place. Both run in any free chat tool — no plugin, no paid tier, no setup.

Prompt 1 — before you buy the hardware

Use this for the categories where the sticker price is the smallest number in the transaction: smart-home devices, printers, coffee machines, fitness trackers, anything with a companion app.

I am evaluating [Product Name/Model]. Analyze the total cost of ownership
(TCO) and long-term lock-in risks for this product:

1. Hardware vs. Paywalled Features: Which advertised features require an
   ongoing paid subscription?
2. Consumable Lock-In: Does this device require proprietary consumables
   (e.g., proprietary ink cartridges, branded filters, specialized pods)
   or can standard third-party generic alternatives be used?
3. Estimated Year 1 and Year 3 Recurring Costs: Calculate total ownership
   cost assuming standard household usage.
4. Offline / No-Subscription Viability: What functionality remains if I
   refuse to pay any monthly fee or lose internet connectivity?

Present the findings in a structured bulleted summary followed by a TCO
breakdown table.

Expected output. Write this down before you send, so you can tell "wrong" from "merely different". You want a bulleted summary naming the paywalled features and the consumable lock-in, then a table like this:

Those figures are an illustrative model, not a quote for any specific product. The point is the ratio — and the ratio is why question 4 matters most: what still works if you never pay the monthly fee.

One-line tweak, held in reserve:

"Compare this directly against a local-storage or open-source alternative model that has zero monthly fees."

Prompt 2 — before you enter card details

The first prompt handles hardware. This one handles the subscription itself, and it is the one people skip, because the terms-of-service link sits next to a button that is much easier to click.

I am pasting the Terms of Service and Cancellation Policy for a
subscription service. Review the text and provide a concise consumer audit:

1. Billing & Renewal Mechanics: Exact billing cycle, auto-renewal trigger
   date, notice requirements, and price change notification policies.
2. Cancellation Protocol: Exact step-by-step procedure required to cancel
   (e.g., online button vs. phone call during business hours vs. certified
   mail) and deadline to prevent renewal.
3. Refund & Proration Policy: Are refunds provided upon cancellation, or
   does access simply terminate at the end of the billing period?
4. Data & Privacy Rights: How user data is handled, shared with third-party
   advertisers, or used for AI model training.
5. Legal Restrictions: Mandatory binding arbitration clauses, class-action
   waivers, or liability limitation caps.

Conclude with a 'Subscription Safety Rating' (Low, Medium, or High Risk)
with a 2-sentence rationale.

Here is the terms text:
[Paste terms of service text here]

Section 2 is the whole reason to run this. A typical answer surfaces something like: cancellation cannot be done in the mobile app, requires a desktop browser and a three-step confirmation survey, and must be submitted at least 48 hours before the renewal date. None of that is hidden. It is simply in paragraph 31 of a document you were never going to read.

Copy those two facts — the method and the deadline — into a calendar entry on the day you subscribe. That single habit is worth more than the rest of the audit combined.

One-line tweak, held in reserve:

"Summarize only the cancellation steps into a 3-bullet checklist that I can follow in under 60 seconds."

The detail that decides whether prompt 2 works

Free tiers truncate long inputs quietly. A 25-page service agreement pasted in one go may be half-received, and a summary of a document the model only half-read still looks complete and confident. For service agreements, paste the Billing & Renewal and Termination sections rather than the whole file.

Do not tidy the text first. Leave the broken bullets and the stray page numbers. Cleaning up your input by hand is the manual work you were trying to delegate.

What neither prompt can do

Being specific about this is not a disclaimer. It changes how you use the output.

• Prices and plan tiers are the weakest output. A model will state a subscription price with total confidence and be a year out of date. Treat every figure as a lead to verify on the vendor's own pricing page, not as a finding.
• The safety rating is a judgment call, not a fact. It is useful as a prompt for your own decision. It is not a review, and it does not know your risk tolerance.
• A missed cross-reference stays missed. If clause 14 defers to an appendix you did not paste, the summary will not tell you something is absent. Paste the appendix.
• This is general information, not legal or financial advice. Where the stakes are medical, legal, or financial, the output is a briefing that helps you ask better questions of a qualified professional.

The honest boundary is the same for both prompts: they control the quality of your research, not the outcome of your decision.

Related free reading

• The one-page AI prompt checklist — the four-part structure these prompts use
• Why everyday AI prompts fail — the five failure modes
• Stop Typing, Start Asking — full contents and sample pages
• All Avalon Store products