I built a Russian-language AI portal in 6 days using Claude Opus — here's what it cost and what I learned

MediAi — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 22:45:34 +0000

The idea was simple: there's no decent Russian-language resource
about AI models. There are translated press releases, Telegram
channels with news, occasional articles on Habr. But a catalog
where you can check current prices, compare models, and read an
honest review in Russian? Doesn't exist. So I built one.

Stack

Next.js, PostgreSQL, Tailwind. Self-hosted VPS. Nothing exotic —
a standard setup that lets you iterate fast. Custom admin panel
for content management because no CMS handled the model catalog
structure well enough.

*How I actually built it
*
Almost everything was written with Claude Opus 4.6. Not "asked
it to build a website" — more like: every component, every
complex logic piece, every bug I couldn't catch after three hours
— solved through conversation with the model.

This is a different way of working. You're the architect,
Opus is the executor. Fast, but it requires you to actually
understand what you're doing. Otherwise you get code that
works but for unknown reasons.

6 days from idea to first publish. Not counting the weekends
when I just couldn't stop.

*What it cost
*
Claude Opus API during development: ~$40-50. That's a lot of
context, a lot of iterations, a lot of "explain what's wrong here."

VPS: $15/month. Domain. Total launch cost: roughly $80-90.

What's on the site now

200+ models with current prices and specs
Articles and practical guides
Free tools: prompt generator and terminal error translator

The hardest part — it's not the code

Pricing. Providers change token prices quietly and suddenly.
Sometimes three times in a month. Manual tracking doesn't scale,
automating it via each provider's API is a mess because everyone
does it differently.

SEO reality check

Target traffic is organic search. People search "Claude Opus
review", "GPT vs Claude comparison", "Gemini API pricing" —
I want them to find us. Currently at 200-300 unique visitors
per day, growing slowly.

SEO is not a sprint. It's a marathon you start running when
you're already tired from the sprint.

Content is written manually, no pure AI generation — only as
a rough draft that gets completely rewritten. Otherwise it's
just noise.

Honest expectations

I thought it would be faster. Both traffic and content.
Six months to get to real numbers is realistic but
psychologically brutal when you put a week of your life
into something and watch 50 visitors a day for the first
two weeks.

If you've built something similar — curious how you solved
the data freshness problem and where you got first traffic from.

Site: https://shtruzel.ru

DEV Community: MediAi

I built a Russian-language AI portal in 6 days using Claude Opus — here's what it cost and what I learned