This, I happily used the opus 4.6 fast mode to the tune of 5k for a project. The delivery of the project justified the 5k, if I only spent 500 but delivered the project 1 month later - I would have been in the dog house.
Your project cost $5k in tokens? How does that work? over what time? My understanding is that most developers are given pro max plans at $200/m and are expected to max that out.
I've been getting by on the $200/year plan by smoothing usage continuously over time.
The pay per use is for the API so does it mean you're using the API in a custom setup?
thanks, yeah i thought how'd it have to be time constrained, maxed out the monthly allotment. that makes sense.
also using the latest model will burn those tokens. I've been so psychologically frugal with my token usage that's why i'm very curious about it all. it's a different paradigm, as an engineer, to go from "software should be free" to watching a meter tick at every turn.
The economics of tokens are still favorable for reasonably well defined tasks at the top tier. I can build out a detailed design and then spend a few k turning it into reality. Compared to spreading such work across multiple engineers the economics are simple.
The more nuanced question is what are the economics for tasks with ambiguous roi. I spent 100 dollars optimizing a build/ci system on Friday because it made me “feel” more productive. The result of about 24 hours of gpt5.5 in codex was a build time reduction of 75%.
I've been getting by on the $200/year plan by smoothing usage continuously over time.
The pay per use is for the API so does it mean you're using the API in a custom setup?