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> I just can't figure how _how_ to burn that much money a month responsibly.

Same but in regards to quotas. I'm on the 200 EUR ChatGPT plan, so presumable have the highest quota, using the "most expensive" models, on highest reasoning, in fast-mode (1.5x quota usage) and after a full day of almost exclusively doing programming with agents, I still get nowhere close to hitting my quota.

In fact, since I started using agents for coding, the only time I even got close, was when I was doing cross-platform development with the same as above, but on three computers at the same time, then I almost hit my weekly quota. But normally, I get down to ~20% of the quota but almost never below that. I don't see how I could either, I'm already doing lots of prompts and queries "for fun" basically.

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Codex quota is suspiciously high right now. Either way, the subscription plans are not sustainable, and perhaps less relevant to any discussion about corporate API use. The prosumer developer plans are an insane deal. It is a golden age right now and it will end. If you tried to use the APIs to achieve the same thing, you would be spending thousands upon thousands of dollars a month. My completely unfounded conjecture is that OpenAI is trying to grab developers back from Claude by burning $$$$.

> If you tried to use the APIs to achieve the same thing, you would be spending thousands upon thousands of dollars a month.

Yeah, obviously, not sure why anyone would be using APIs at this point, seems bananas to spend more than 10 EUR per day when these "almost-endless" subscriptions exists.

> My completely unfounded conjecture is that OpenAI is trying to grab developers back from Claude by burning $$$$.

Unlikely, since codex TUI was launched OpenAI pretty much had every developers pocket already as the agent is miles and leagues ahead of Claude Code, pretty much from inception. No other provider comes close to ChatGPT's Pro Mode either, I don't even think it's a quota/pricing thing, have the best models and people will flock by themselves.

> miles and leagues ahead of Claude Code, pretty much from inception.

Can codex run background tasks yet? CC's ability to run a process in the background and monitor its output for errors while another process access that first process, is probably what got cc so popular for web development over codex to start with.

Yes, codex has had this ability for a while.

Codex is pretty awesome rn IMO.

Codex quota is/was 2x its normal amount for some promotion or something. I thought it ran out today but can't check right now

Every time I read about codex it's someone saying the extra limits ended that day. I'm not saying you're wrong in this instance

I don’t think anyone has to sell inference below cost. If Anthropic is GPU-constrained, then it makes sense for them to charge much much more on API users and push subscribers towards extra billing, because that’s the only knob they can turn. OpenAI has much more capacity based on news reports.

I have to churn to get to my ChatGPT Plus $20 plan limits with gpt-5.5 xhigh. Starts to feel like I'm doing something wrong.

I am running a bunch of autoresearch loops that optimize various compilers and its pretty easy to burn through as much money as you want if you have a measurable goal and good tests.

> have a measurable goal and good tests

I have both of those, yet seemingly I guess I'm not setting my goal in such a way that it supports "endless inference" like that. My goals have eventually ends, and that's when I move on. Optimization sure sounds like something you can throw away a good amount of tokens/quotas on, so yeah.

> if you have a measurable goal and good tests.

you can burn through the money even easier if you don’t have them

There are tools that let you extract out what the API price would be for a subscription plan use. I typically have monthly runs that are on the order of $2k - $4k at API prices, despite paying a mere $200/mo to Anthropic.

Edit: Just checked with ccusage and I've been doing about $450/day for the last week. A bit more than usual, but I still haven't come close to weekly limits and never hit the 5hr rate limit.

> Same but in regards to quotas. I'm on the 200 EUR ChatGPT plan,

The API rates and monthly plan rates are not the same.

If you're using enough to justify the 200EUR plan (instead of the 100EUR plan), your use might actually be as high as some of the API bills discussed above.

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