Resources we recommend

Last updated: August 2026

Picking a model used to be a coin flip. Now there's real data behind it, and most of it is free. These are the outside references we keep open in a tab while building agents, plus a few reads worth your time.

Nobody paid for a spot here. If something stops being useful, it comes off the list.

Model leaderboard

LLM Pulse by Teach AI Tools

A live leaderboard that compares benchmarks, price per million tokens, and context windows across hundreds of foundation models, refreshed daily from provider APIs. Battle Mode puts two models side by side, which is the fastest way to answer "is the expensive one worth it for my job?" Start here before you commit an agent to a model.

Independent benchmarks

Artificial Analysis

Third-party speed, quality, and cost measurements run on the same hardware conditions for every model. Useful when a vendor benchmark and your own experience disagree.

Real usage data

OpenRouter rankings

What developers are sending real traffic to this week, broken out by category. Benchmarks tell you what a model scores. This tells you what people trust it with.

Tool discovery

Noizz

A searchable index of AI tools and agent frameworks, sorted by the job you're trying to get done rather than by category buzzword. Useful when you know the task but not the name of the thing that does it. The write-ups are short enough that you can scan a dozen options in one sitting and still come away with an opinion.

Buyer's guide

TestMu AI on agent builders

A thirteen-way comparison of agent builders that checked the pricing and free plans itself instead of reprinting vendor claims, split into developer, no-code, and enterprise tiers. The section on testing agents before they hit production is the part most roundups skip, and it's the part that saves you a bad month.

Directory

AI Agents Directory

A large, browsable catalog of AI agents and the companies building them, kept current enough to be worth checking before you assume a category is empty. Good for the moment when you know the shape of the problem and want to see everything that claims to solve it.

Buyer's guide

The Crossing Report on firm-sized AI

A guide for accounting and law practices between five and fifty people, which is the size band every other roundup skips on its way from solo to enterprise. It opens by saying what is wrong with most AI tool guides and then avoids doing those things, sorting picks by the kind of firm you actually run rather than by feature count.

Vetted tool list

What About AI? on operations tools

Eight tools for operations managers, each with pricing, a use case, and a direct vendor link, published with a stated no-affiliate policy. That last part is rarer than it should be, and it is why this list reads like advice instead of a commission schedule.

Comparison guide

AI Agent Square on operations teams

A comparison of operations tooling that publishes its methodology and a review date instead of asking you to take its word for it. Strongest on the buying-guide section, which walks through what to check before you commit a team to a platform.

Email design gallery

Really Good Emails

Thousands of real marketing emails, saved and searchable by type, so you can see how somebody else already solved the layout you're stuck on. We point people here whenever they ask what a welcome sequence is supposed to look like, because an afternoon of scrolling this beats a week of guessing.


Start here on BYOBot

If you're new to this and want a working example rather than a spec sheet, these three are the shortest path from idea to running agent: email automation, meeting notes, and data entry. Or browse every workflow and pick the one that matches your Monday.

Suggest a resource

Run a tool, tracker, or guide that belongs on this page? Email [email protected] with a line on why it's useful. We read everything and we link to what earns it.