Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of conversations comparing the monthly cost of vibe coding stacks.
Things like:
“I only pay $20 for ChatGPT”
“My VPS is $10–$40”
“I can build complex apps for $60/month”
And they’re not wrong.
But these conversations usually mix two very different problems into one bucket — and that’s where confusion starts.
Cheap stacks are not bad stacks
Let’s get this out of the way first.
If you’re:
building websites
shipping MVPs
validating ideas
doing client work
experimenting quickly
Then yes — lightweight stacks, hosted platforms, and pay-as-you-go APIs are fantastic.
You should optimize for:
speed
low friction
minimal cost
fast iteration
There’s nothing wrong with that.
But the cost curve changes when you stop building “apps”
Where things diverge is when you’re no longer building:
a single product
a single frontend
a disposable MVP
And you start building:
systems
infrastructure
ecosystems
long-lived AI products
local + hybrid deployments
offline-capable software
multi-agent architectures
sovereign data layers
At that point, the question is no longer:
“What’s the cheapest way to ship this?”
It becomes:
“What do I own, control, and depend on — five years from now?”
Platform convenience has a ceiling
Most hosted AI platforms are optimized for:
demos
rapid output
short feedback loops
They are not optimized for:
long-term autonomy
architectural flexibility
cost predictability at scale
offline or edge use
regulatory resilience
deep customization
removing token ceilings
You don’t notice this at $20/month.
You notice it when:
usage grows
models change
pricing shifts
APIs get throttled
features get gated
platforms sunset capabilities
That’s when “cheap” becomes fragile.
Why some builders spend more (on purpose)
Some of us choose to spend more upfront in order to:
own our deployment
control our data
run models locally when needed
mix local + cloud inference
avoid vendor lock-in
design for longevity instead of speed alone
That can mean:
multiple tools
custom infrastructure
higher early costs
slower initial velocity
But it also means:
no surprise ceilings
no forced migrations
no platform dependency panic
no existential pricing risk later
It’s not better or worse — it’s a different optimization target.
Two builders, two valid paths
Builder A:
ships fast
pays very little
builds many MVPs
uses hosted tools
accepts platform dependency
Builder B:
moves slower at first
pays more early
builds systems, not demos
prioritizes ownership
designs for the long game
Both are rational.
They just aren’t solving the same problem.
The mistake is comparing them directly
When someone says:
“I don’t understand why anyone would pay more than $60/month”
The honest answer is:
“Because they’re building something different.”
Not bigger. Not better. Just different in scope and intent.
Once you cross that line, the cost curve stops being flat — and pretending otherwise leads to bad architectural decisions.
Final thought
If your stack is cheap and does everything you need — congratulations, you’re doing it right.
But if you’re feeling friction, ceilings, or dependency anxiety creeping in…
that’s not a failure of your tools.
It’s a sign you’ve outgrown the problem they were designed to solve.
Top comments (1)
this is what I told to my client, but they expect BUILDER B result with BUILDER A step