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brian austin
brian austin

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ChatGPT costs MX$350/month in Mexico — here's the MX$35 alternative Mexican developers are using

#ai #mexico #programming #productivity

ChatGPT costs MX$350/month in Mexico — here's the MX$35 alternative Mexican developers are using

Let's talk about what $20 USD actually means in Mexico.

At the current exchange rate, ChatGPT Plus costs around MX$350/month. That's not an abstract number — that's roughly the cost of a full comida corrida lunch for 5 days at a decent fondita in CDMX. For a junior developer in Guadalajara or Monterrey, that's a significant slice of daily income.

And yet the AI itself doesn't cost OpenAI MX$350 to serve. The model runs in data centers in the US. The pricing is in USD. The local purchasing power of Mexican developers simply doesn't factor in.

The math doesn't work for Mexican developers

Here's what the numbers look like:

  • ChatGPT Plus: ~MX$350/month (USD $20)
  • SimplyLouie: MX$35/month (USD $2)
  • Difference: 10x

Same Claude AI underneath. Same quality responses. 10x cheaper.

If you're a freelance developer on Workana or Nubelo, or working at a startup in the Guadalajara tech corridor, MX$350/month is a real cost that adds up. MX$35/month is nothing.

What SimplyLouie actually is

It's a Claude-powered AI assistant at $2/month. That's it.

You get:

  • Full Claude AI (same model powering many enterprise products)
  • 7-day free trial, no tricks
  • Cancel anytime
  • 50% of revenue goes to animal rescue organizations

For developers: there's also an API.

curl https://simplylouie.com/api/chat \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"message": "Write a function to validate a Mexican CURP number"}'
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Why does this exist?

Because the assumption that every developer in the world earns Silicon Valley salaries is wrong. Mexico has over 700,000 software developers. Most of them are not billing in USD. Most of them feel the currency gap every time they look at a US SaaS product priced in dollars.

Some comparisons:

  • A taco al pastor from a good taquería in CDMX: ~MX$20
  • SimplyLouie for a full month: MX$35
  • ChatGPT Plus: MX$350 (17 tacos)

One of these prices makes sense for the Mexican market. The other doesn't.

The Silicon Valley pricing problem

US tech companies price globally in USD because that's where their investors are and where their costs are denominated. It's not malicious — it's just that Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, and India aren't really part of the mental model when the pricing spreadsheet gets made.

SimplyLouie tries to fix this by pricing at the floor of what makes the business sustainable: $2/month globally. In Mexico, that's MX$35. In Brazil, it's R$10. In Nigeria, it's ₦3,200. Still 10x cheaper than ChatGPT in every market.

Try it

If you're a Mexican developer tired of paying Silicon Valley prices for AI tools:

👉 simplylouie.com/mx/ — MX$35/month, 7-day free trial

No tricks. No MX$350 surprise charges. Just AI at a price that makes sense where you live.

Built by developers who believe good tools shouldn't require a USD salary. 50% of every subscription goes to animal rescue.

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