0.0 · What you need before you start
In 2 minutes
The handbook has you steering four tools. Before starting, three things to settle: what you need, what it costs, and where you begin.
The good news first: you can do a good half of this handbook without spending a penny. You only open each account at the moment it is useful.
What you need
- A computer (Mac or Windows) and an internet connection.
- A browser, the one you already use.
- A Claude account. Creating one is free, and the free plan is enough for all of Part 0.
- Something to take notes with: a notebook, a file, it does not matter. You will write three or four sentences in it as Part 0 goes on.
Later, and only when the time comes: a paid Claude plan (from Part I), and a Higgsfield account (Part II).
What it really costs
Let us say it straight away and in figures: the handbook is a one-off purchase, but the tools are paid for every month. Those subscriptions are not included in the handbook's price. Here are the three possible paths.
Prices recorded on 31 July 2026. They change, and plans change names. Check on claude.com/pricing and higgsfield.ai before paying anything at all. If the gap is significant, trust the website, not the handbook.
These amounts are not neutral. Twenty dollars a month is about 13,000 CFA, close to a quarter of the minimum wage in Benin. The handbook will say it only once, but it has to be said: the question is not “is this expensive”, it is “does it give me back more time than it costs me”. Do the sum on your most frequent chore before paying anything at all.
And there is a difficulty even before the price: these services bill in dollars, by international card. Many local cards are blocked for international payments. Appendix G describes the path that works, step by step.
Do not take out a subscription today. Start with the free Claude account. By the end of Part I you will know whether the tool serves you enough to justify $20 a month, and by the end of Part II whether you produce enough images to justify a paid Higgsfield plan. That is the only honest way to decide.
If your card is refused
Both services bill in dollars, by bank card. Depending on your country and your bank, the payment may be refused with no explanation. Three things to try, in this order:
- Check with your bank that international payments are allowed on your card. This is the most frequent case, and one phone call unblocks it.
- Try a virtual card: most banks offer one in their app, and it often goes through where the physical card fails.
- Check that the service is available in your country: the pricing page tells you at the moment of payment.
If nothing goes through, you can still follow the whole Discovery path. It is not half the handbook: it is the more useful half, the one that teaches you to ask well.
The words you will meet from today
Six words come back throughout the handbook. You do not have to memorise them now: come back here as soon as a term escapes you.
- Prompt: your written request to the AI. “Prompting well” = putting what you want well.
- MCP: the standard “remote control” that lets Claude steer an outside tool, such as Higgsfield, on your behalf. We will plug it in together at the start of Part II.
- Credit: Higgsfield's currency. Every image or video generated uses up a few.
- The terminal: an application already on your computer, where you type commands as text. That is where Claude Code lives. Mac: the “Terminal” app; Windows: the “PowerShell” app.
- A project folder: a plain folder holding a project's files. Claude Code always works INSIDE a folder.
- Iterate: generate, look, correct, generate again. The normal way of working with any AI.
Do not open the terminal now. You will not use it until Part IV, in a fortnight or so, and it will be guided line by line. If curiosity pushes you to open it today, close it again: an empty black screen teaches nobody anything.
Choose your path for the next two weeks, Discovery, Claude in full or Full workshop, and note it next to the sentence you will write in the next chapter.
It is not a commitment: you can change along the way, and many start on Discovery and switch when they reach Part III.
- You can say out loud how much you are going to spend per month, in figures.
- You know at which exact chapter the question of paying comes up (1.5 for Cowork, Part III for Design).
- You have not paid anything yet.
- Taking both subscriptions today, to get it over with. That is the best way to pay for two months for three hours of use. There is no rush.
- Taking the most expensive plan straight away. Higgsfield's most expensive plan is for producing in series. While you are learning, it brings you nothing more.
- A computer, a browser, a free Claude account: you have everything you need to start.
- The paid Claude plan becomes useful from Part I onwards (for Cowork) and necessary in Parts III and IV.
- Reckon on $0, about $20, or up to about $120 a month depending on the path you choose.
- Six words to know: prompt, MCP, credit, terminal, project folder, iterate.
The rest of the handbook covers Claude, Higgsfield, Claude Design and Claude Code, with 11 recipes and a 30-day programme.
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This handbook is not an expert's course: it is the roadmap of my own learning of these tools, written for the least technical among us.
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