Did you use Fable, set Opus 5.5 to xhigh, or use 'ultracode' / workflows? That's the only way this will happen.

In my experience a single 5 hour allowance in the 20eur Claude plan equals about $5-10 in Deepseek 4.1 Flash API usage. DS is a lot more token hungry and takes 3x-4x longer. The subscription is way cheaper, probably around $200/month worth of DS, just stick to Opus low and Sonnet for most tasks.

do you use their proprietary platform API?

and how are costs like for your usual workflows/etc.?

There is a $30/mo Claude subscription?

DS 4.1 is basically endless, even if you paid for APIs you will hardly touch some prices.

But it's slow.

I don't think I can any longer appreciate any major difference in "intelligence" between models for most tasks but Opus is consistently much faster than competitors at finishing tasks and keeping me in the loop.

Of course excluding ultra code, the you will wait 50 minutes for a minor refactor.