Hacker News Reader

Comment by ipsum2 | Hacker News Reader

Maybe I'm holding it wrong, but I can easily spend $20+ using Claude Code for 2 hours. I've stopped using it because it was too expensive for my personal projects.

View on HN

I briefly commented on how I approach cost control before, if useful.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43737060

But that doesn't really explain things. You're making an active effort to reduce your costs. Anthropic engineers get unlimited API usage for free.

I was listening to this podcast yesterday and I also did a double take when I heard the $6 per day number.

Great advice, thanks.

Claude max plan has Claude code bundled into the price. $100/month isn't cheap, but the RoI is there for me personally.

Thanks, this is helpful. I tried Claude Code, and thought it had a lot of potential, but I was on track to spend at least $20/day.

For a tool that radically increases productivity (say 2x), I think it could still make sense for a VC funded startup or an established company (even $100/day or $36k/year is still a lot less than hiring another developer). But for a side project or bootstrap effort, $36k/year obviously significantly increases cash expenses. $100/month does not, however.

So, I'm going to go back and upgrade to Max and try it again. If that keeps my costs to $100/month, thats a really different value proposition.

Can you clarify what you mean here? Are you saying I can use Claude Code for a flat rate of $100/month? What are the limits? What if I use more than $100 worth of Code in a month? Their website doesn't seem to make it clear.

Edit:

Found the answer to my own questions

> Send approximately 50-200 prompts with Claude Code every 5 hours[1]

Damn. That's a really good deal

[1] https://support.anthropic.com/en/articles/11145838-using-cla...

Really tempted to go for this as well. Only wish I could access flat rate Claude through VS Code Cline (or an extension like it) as well - that would be the complete package. $100 / month + ~$$ / day in API credits is gonna get pricey.

I have been using Claude Code a lot since the Max plan change and I've never hit the limits myself.

Thanks, I was just commenting on "- anthropic employees, with unlimited claude, average to $6/day of usage".

Maybe engineers at Anthropic use it less because they fully understand the limitations and drawbacks

Why not use Claude Max Plan? Starts at $100.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com