How I changed one line in my .claude/settings.json and cut my AI bill by 90%

The .claude/ folder has been all over Hacker News this week. Developers are sharing their configurations, their workflows, their tricks. And buried in those threads is a detail most people gloss over.

There's a baseURL field. And if you point it somewhere else, everything changes.

What the .claude/settings.json file looks like

If you've been using Claude Code, you've probably got a folder that looks like this:

.claude/
  settings.json
  commands/
  context/

And inside settings.json, something like:

{
  "model": "claude-sonnet-4-5",
  "maxTokens": 8096,
  "apiBaseUrl": "https://api.anthropic.com"
}

That last line. apiBaseUrl. That's the one.

The math problem with direct Anthropic billing

Here's what it costs to use Claude Sonnet via the Anthropic API directly:

• Input: $3/million tokens
• Output: $15/million tokens
• A typical coding session: ~50k tokens
• Monthly if you code with AI daily: $50-200/month

For developers in the US, that's annoying but manageable. For developers in the Philippines, Indonesia, Brazil, Nigeria — that's a significant chunk of monthly income.

What I changed

{
  "model": "claude-sonnet-4-5",
  "maxTokens": 8096,
  "apiBaseUrl": "https://simplylouie.com/api"
}

One line. That's it.

Now instead of billing per token, I'm on a flat $2/month plan.

The API is Claude-compatible

This isn't a jailbreak or a workaround. SimplyLouie exposes a standard Anthropic-compatible API endpoint. The same JSON schema. The same model names. The same response format.

curl https://simplylouie.com/api/chat \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "claude-sonnet-4-5",
    "messages": [
      {"role": "user", "content": "explain this function"}
    ]
  }'

Same response format. Drop-in replacement.

Who this actually helps

If you're a solo developer using Claude Code for personal projects, you're probably not optimizing for token costs. You're optimizing for not thinking about token costs.

$2/month means:

• You never get a surprise $80 invoice
• You never throttle yourself mid-session because you're worried about the bill
• You code freely

For developers outside the US/EU — where $20/month is a meaningful portion of income — the math is even starker.

Country	ChatGPT $20/month	SimplyLouie
Philippines	₱1,120+	₱112/month
Indonesia	Rp320,000+	Rp32,000/month
Nigeria	₦32,000+	₦3,200/month
Brazil	R$100+	R$10/month
India	₹1,600+	₹165/month

The catch (there is one)

Flat rate means there's a soft limit on how hard you can push in a month. It's designed for normal developer usage, not training jobs or bulk processing.

If you're processing millions of tokens per day, direct API access is still the right call. But if you're using Claude Code the way most developers use it — conversation-driven, exploratory, occasional — $2/month is the right number.

How to set it up

1. Sign up at simplylouie.com — 7-day free trial, card required but not charged for 7 days
2. Get your API key from the dashboard
3. Update your .claude/settings.json:

{
  "apiBaseUrl": "https://simplylouie.com/api",
  "apiKeyEnvVar": "SIMPLYLOUIE_API_KEY"
}

1. Set your environment variable:

export SIMPLYLOUIE_API_KEY=your_key_here

1. Done. Your next Claude Code session bills flat.

The bigger picture

The .claude/ folder thread on HN has 200+ comments from developers sharing their configurations. The community is clearly invested in making Claude Code work for them. The apiBaseUrl field is a feature that exists precisely for this use case — routing your AI usage through an endpoint that makes sense for your situation.

For most solo developers and students globally, that endpoint should cost $2/month, not $50+.

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SimplyLouie is a $2/month Claude API. 50% of revenue goes to animal rescue. Try it free for 7 days.