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brian austin
brian austin

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I built a $2/month Claude API — here's the curl command

#api #ai #claudeai #webdev

I built a $2/month Claude API — here's the curl command

Everyone's building AI coding agents right now. The problem? The API costs are brutal.

Claude API is expensive at scale. OpenAI is expensive at scale. Most developers are spending $50-$200/month just to experiment.

I built SimplyLouie — an AI assistant that runs on Claude Sonnet — and then I opened up the API layer to developers.

Here's the deal: $2/month gets you full API access.

The curl command 

curl -X POST https://simplylouie.com/api/chat \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY' \
  -d '{
    "message": "Explain async/await in JavaScript in 2 sentences",
    "model": "claude-sonnet"
  }'
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That's it. You get a response like:

{
  "response": "Async/await is syntactic sugar over Promises that lets you write asynchronous code that reads like synchronous code. The async keyword marks a function as returning a Promise, and await pauses execution until that Promise resolves.",
  "model": "claude-sonnet-4-5",
  "usage": { "input_tokens": 18, "output_tokens": 44 }
}
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Why $2/month instead of pay-per-token?

Because most developers in my target market — Nigeria, Indonesia, Philippines, Kenya, India — can't justify $20/month experiments.

$2/month is the price of a data bundle top-up. It's a rounding error in a project budget. It's the difference between "I'll try this" and "maybe next month".

Pay-per-token is great if you have budget. Most of the world doesn't.

What you can build with it

  • Code review bot: pipe your git diff to the API, get a Claude review
  • Documentation generator: pass a function, get JSDoc
  • CLI chatbot: 20 lines of Python, full Claude access
  • Slack bot: responds to @louie mentions in your workspace
  • VS Code extension: inline AI suggestions

None of these need expensive infrastructure. They just need an HTTP endpoint.

The 5-minute Python example 

import requests

def ask_louie(question, api_key):
    response = requests.post(
        'https://simplylouie.com/api/chat',
        headers={
            'Content-Type': 'application/json',
            'Authorization': f'Bearer {api_key}'
        },
        json={'message': question}
    )
    return response.json()['response']

# Usage
api_key = 'your_key_here'
print(ask_louie('What is a monad in 1 sentence?', api_key))
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Run it. Get a Claude response. Done.

The 5-minute Node.js example 

async function askLouie(question, apiKey) {
  const res = await fetch('https://simplylouie.com/api/chat', {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: {
      'Content-Type': 'application/json',
      'Authorization': `Bearer ${apiKey}`
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({ message: question })
  });
  const data = await res.json();
  return data.response;
}

// Usage
const answer = await askLouie('Explain React hooks in 2 sentences', 'your_key_here');
console.log(answer);
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Rate limits

Fair use limits apply at $2/month. This is for developers building tools, not for processing 10,000 documents per day. For high-volume use, contact me — we can talk.

For 95% of developer use cases (bots, assistants, scripts, prototypes), the limits are more than enough.

How to get your API key

  1. Sign up at simplylouie.com/developers
  2. 7-day free trial, no card required to start
  3. $2/month after that
  4. Get your API key from your dashboard

The math

You're paying $2/month for access to Claude Sonnet. Anthropic charges ~$3 per million input tokens and ~$15 per million output tokens for the same model.

If you're using it for code review, documentation, small bots — you're getting 10-50x better value than direct API access.

Why does this exist?

SimplyLouie started as an AI assistant. 50% of revenue goes to animal rescue. The $2/month price point is intentional — it exists to make AI accessible to developers worldwide who can't afford enterprise pricing.

The API is a side effect of building something real.

Get your API key: simplylouie.com/developers

Claude API. $2/month. Worldwide.

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