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> Reallocating $100/Month Claude Code Spend

The new gimped claude code limits means my claude code spend the last month is $131. It cost me $20. I did an additional spend $5 on extra usage which cost me $5.

While VC's are setting fire to money I am going to warm my hands.

by andai3 hours ago|

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You mean you were getting more than $130 per $20 before?

85% discount is actually a bit lower than I remember. I think it used to be closer to 90-95%. They're getting stingy ;)

by blitzar1 hours ago|

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I think it was around $400-$500 last year ($20 a day was fairly common) before they added the 7 day limits (and have since slashed the 4 hour limits).

No parallel running; I would very consistently get tokens for over 3 hours then take a walk around the block and come back and be ready to go again.

by 54245810 hours ago|

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I think it is worth noting that “what they charge for api access” != “marginal cost of inference”. So I don’t think getting i.e. $40 of api usage for $20 would be insane. $131 for $20 does probably mean somebody is losing money though.

by vanillameow10 hours ago|

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I ran this just now and for a small web-app I built I used over $50 in a single day. This was using superpowers plugin and almost exclusively coordinating through Opus. Could I get by with 100$ a month without the subscription? Maybe, but I pay for the convenience of just being able to throw Opus with lavish plugins at it (with 5h limits that are, in my opinion, pretty reasonable). I don't really WANT to have to think about when Haiku or Sonnet are enough.

If anything I would consider switching to OpenAI subscription (if I didn't despise them even more than Anthropic as a company), but converting to API use seems completely infeasible to me. I'd have to severely cut back on my use for not much benefit, other than having maybe an agent thats a little less jank than CC.

by blitzar10 hours ago|

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Depending on your workflow, in the spirit of reallocating $100/Month subscription, it may be worth dropping to the $20/Month plan (or equivalent at other providers) and then pay as you go on the (rare) occasions you "build a small web-app I built and used over $50 in a single day".

But at that point we are just min/maxing the details, and all I can say is if you are on a $100/$200 a month subscription to any of these services and not using them regularly then you shouldn't be on a $200 subscription any more than you should be on a $700 a month gym membership when you go every 3 months for 15 minutes.

by vanillameow7 hours ago|

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Nah I get you, but for me personally, I do use CC a ton. It's building me so many useful internal tools right now, and deep research is also bootstrapping me into some new hobbies etc. I think I'm kind of in a rare-ish (maybe not so much on HN, but for the general population) spot where I'm not really trying to make some SaaS get quick rich scheme, but just directing CC to make apps that would take me a few days to make in a few hours, smoke test them, and solve a problem I had before. (e.g. photo tagging automation, MCP connections for personal services for documentation of chats or setting up todos, ansible playbooks for VMs, setting up data pipelines from external APIs for home automation...)

I deffo get more perceived value out of it than the 100$ I pay. Could I get MORE value with the same 100$? imo only through OpenAI (no harness lock in and more lenient limits), but I deeply dislike the way their company is evolving. Admittedly, recent launches from Anthropic like managed agents and Mythos Preview don't make me very hopeful the individual developer pricing is here to stay, but I'll use what I can get while I can get it.

Could I get my required value with less than 100$? Mayyybe I could get by with like, three Anthropic 20$ plans? or 2x20$ and an OAI 20$? but this is so min-maxy that I just don't really want to bother. Pay by token would kill my workflow instantly. I'd have to add so many steps for model selection alone. I'll cross that bridge when Anthropic cuts me off.

I agree though most people on the $200 plans are either just not using them or in some deep AI psychosis. I'd like to exclude myself from these groups, but the pipeline to AI psychosis seems very wishy washy to begin with (the thread the other day about iTunes charts being AI dominated had a surprising amount of people defending AI music, imo).