[kyoji]

This was a great post, one of the best I've seen on this topic at HN.

But why is the cost never discussed or disclosed in these conversations? I feel like I'm going crazy, there is so much written extolling the virtues of these tools but with no mention of what it costs to run them now. It will surely only get more expensive from here!

[wtetzner]

> But why is the cost never discussed or disclosed in these conversations?

And not just the monetary cost of accessing the tools, but the amount of time it takes to actually get good results out. I strongly suspect that even though it feels more productive, in many cases things just take longer than they would if done manually.

I think there are really good uses for LLMs, but I also think that people are likely using them in ways that feel useful, but end up being more costly than not.

[quarkz14]

Indeed, most of us are probably limited with what our companies let us use and also not to mention not everyone can afford to use AI tooling in their own time without thinking about the cost assuming you want to build something your company doesn't claim as their own IP.

[lysace]

The current realistic lower bound for actual work is the $100/€90/month Claude Max ("5x") plan. It allows roughly enough usage for a typical working month (4.25 x 40-50h). "Single-threaded", interactive usage with normal human breaks, sort of.

There are two usage quota windows to be aware of: 5h and 7d. I use https://github.com/richhickson/claudecodeusage (Mac) to keep track of the status. It shows green/yellow/red and a percentage in the menu bar.

[mi_lk]

is there a guidance on when an API v.s. a subscription is a better deal?

[fusslo]

the first time I did work as the article suggests I used my monthly allowance in a day.

Apparently out of 3-5k people with access to our AI tools, there's fewer than a handful of us REALLY using it. Most are asking questions in the chatbot style.

Anyway, I had to ask my manager, the AI architect, and the Tooling Manager for approval to increase my quota.

I asked everyone in the chain how much equivalent dollars I am allocated, and how much the increase was and no one could tell me.

[mbesto]

Honestly, the costs are so minimal and vary wildly relative to the cost of a developer that it's frankly not worth the discussion...yet. The reality is the standard deviation of cost is going to oscillate until there is a common agreed upon way to use these tools.

[lysace]

Yes, but the lack of clear pricing probably makes people think it's more expensive than it actually is. (It did so to me.)

There is nothing quantifiable here: https://claude.com/pricing

Pro: "Everything in Free, plus: More usage"

Max: "Choose 5x or 20x more usage than Pro"

Wow, 5x or 20x more of "more". That's some masterful communication right there.

[bsder]

> Honestly, the costs are so minimal and vary wildly relative to the cost of a developer that it's frankly not worth the discussion...yet

Is it? Sure, the chatbot style maxes at $200/month. I consider that ... not unreasonable ... for a professional tool. It doesn't make me happy, but it's not horrific.

The article, however, explicitly pans the chatbot style and is extolling the API style being accessed constantly by agents, and that has no upper bound. Roughly $10-ish per Megatokens. $10-ish per 1K web searches. etc.

This doesn't sound "minimal" to me. This sounds like every single "task" I kick off is $10. And it can kick those tasks and costs off very quickly in an automated fashion. It doesn't take many of those tasks before I'm paying more than an actual full developer.

Ref: https://claude.com/pricing#api