Thanks for the detailed breakdown — this is exactly the kind of sophisticated cost optimization I’m seeing from experienced developers. You’re absolutely right that $20/month for Perplexity + a cheap IDE can get you 90% of the way there.

What I’m finding interesting are the friction points in these workflows: • Copy-paste between Perplexity and your IDE • Manually deciding which model to use for each task • Context switching between different interfaces • No learning/optimization over time

The feedback is making me reconsider Maurice’s positioning. Rather than “90% cheaper,” maybe the real value is “eliminate the manual orchestration you’re already doing.”

A few questions for you (and others doing similar optimization): 1. How much time do you spend on the copy-paste workflow daily? 2. Do you find yourself wishing for automatic model selection based on task complexity? 3. Would seamless context preservation across providers be valuable?

This is exactly why I posted — assumptions about “cheaper” vs “more automated” need real validation. Appreciate the reality check.