You use it "all day every day", so it makes sense that you would prefer the plan. It's perfectly economical to use it without a plan, if your usage patterns are different. Here's a tool someone else wrote that can help you decide: https://github.com/ryoppippi/ccusage

Sure, but if your usage pattern is such that you can’t justify the plan, then Cursor is a better option :)

> It’s impossible to use it on the API

What does this mean?

Not OP but probably just cost.

This.

You can EASILY burn $20 a day doing little, and surely could top $50 a day.

It works fine, but the $100 I put in to test it out did not last very long even on Sonnet.

You can definitely use Claude Code via the API

I think he means it's not economically sound to use it via API

A well-known iOS dev used Claude Code to build an iOS app and wrote a custom checking tool for how many tokens it consumed on the plan to compare with API pricing.

He uses two max plans ($200/mo + $200/mo) and his API estimate was north of $10,000/mo

I think it is available on Claude Pro now, so just $20.

It is but very limited. I use API only, since this is the only plan, without usage limits and on demand pricing:

5x Pro usage ($100/month) 20x Pro usage ($200/month)

Source: https://support.anthropic.com/en/articles/11145838-using-cla...

One thing that I am not liking about the LLM world is that it seems to be tilting several things back in favor of BigCorps.

The open source world is one where antirez, working on his own off in Sicily, could create a project like Redis and then watch it snowball as people all over got involved.

Needing a subscription to something only a large company can provide makes me unhappy.

We'll see if "can be run locally" models for more specific tasks like coding will become a thing, I guess.

I share this concern - given the trajectory of improvements I do hope that we'll have something close to this level that can run locally within 18 months or so. And of course the closed source stuff will likely be better by then, but I genuinely believe I would choose an open source version of this right now if I had the choice.

The open source alternatives I've used aren't there yet on my 4090. Fingers crossed we'll get there.

This is some nightmare fuel vendor lock-in where the codebase isn't understood by anyone and companies have to fork over more and more otherwise their business couldn't grow, adapt, etc

Yikes, you've just perfectly articulated a trajectory that I've been using subconsciously as one of the primary reasons why I want to keep my coding craft sharp.

Visionary, well done. Then comes the claim that AGI can unwind the spaghetti, and then the reality check.

I, for one, welcome our new LLM overlords.