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Spending Too Much Money on a Coding Agent

(allenpike.com)
152 points GavinAnderegg | 5 comments | 01 Jul 25 12:26 UTC | HN request time: 0.752s | source
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jbentley1 ◴[03 Jul 25 17:02 UTC] No.44457091[source]▶
My Claude Code usage would have been $24k last month if I didn't have a max plan, at least according to Claude-Monitor.

I've been using a tool I developed (https://github.com/stravu/crystal) to run several sessions in parallel. Sometimes I will run the same prompt multiple times and pick the winner, or sometimes I'll be working on multiple features at once, reviewing and testing one while waiting on the others.

Basically, with the right tooling you can burn tokens incredibly fast while still receiving a ton of value from them.

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1. RobinL ◴[03 Jul 25 18:20 UTC] No.44457821[source]▶
This is why unlimited plans are always revoked eventually - a small fraction of users can be responsible for huge costs (Amazon's unlimited file backup service is another good example). Also whilst in general I don't think there's much to worry about with AI energy use, burning $24k of tokens must surely be responsible for a pretty large amount of energy
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2. spacecadet ◴[03 Jul 25 18:33 UTC] No.44457934[source]▶
70,000,000 just last week ;P

But based on my costs, yours sounds much much higher :)

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3. ◴[03 Jul 25 18:54 UTC] No.44458108[source]▶
4. grafmax ◴[04 Jul 25 02:52 UTC] No.44460763[source]▶
> I don't think there's much to worry about with AI energy use

AI is a large motivating factor in data center build outs, and data centers are projected to form an increasing portion of new energy usage. An individual query may not use much but the macro effect is quite serious, especially considering the climate crisis we are already failing to manage. It’s a bit like throwing plastic out your window on the highway and ignoring the garbage patch floating in the middle of the Pacific.

5. octo888 ◴[04 Jul 25 07:14 UTC] No.44461943[source]▶
It's possible they have 1,200 users paying $20/120 paying $200 barely even using it.