The problem with Big Tech AI pricing
Let me show you something that bothers me every time I look at it.
ChatGPT costs $20/month. Claude Pro costs $20/month. Gemini Advanced costs $20/month.
For a developer in San Francisco earning $150k/year, that's 0.016% of monthly income. Basically free.
For a developer in Lagos earning ₦800,000/month, that's 4% of monthly income — a real expense.
Same product. Same price. 250x different impact.
The salary percentage problem
Here's the data that stops me cold:
| Country | Avg Dev Salary | ChatGPT $20/month | % of Monthly Income |
|---|---|---|---|
| USA | $9,000/month | $20 | 0.22% |
| UK | $5,500/month | $20 | 0.36% |
| India | ₹45,000/month | ₹1,600+ | 3.5% |
| Nigeria | ₦800,000/month | ₦32,000+ | 4.0% |
| Philippines | ₱45,000/month | ₱1,120+ | 2.5% |
| Kenya | KSh80,000/month | KSh2,600+ | 3.3% |
| Indonesia | Rp8,000,000/month | Rp320,000+ | 4.0% |
| Brazil | R$5,500/month | R$100+ | 1.8% |
The same tool costs 10-20x more in terms of real economic impact depending on where you were born.
This isn't a complaint about Big Tech. It's just math. And it means millions of developers are either skipping AI entirely or using free tiers that severely limit what they can build.
What developers are doing about it
I've been running SimplyLouie — a Claude API service — at $2/month globally, with local pricing in 8 countries:
- 🇮🇳 India: Rs165/month (vs Rs1,600+ for ChatGPT) → simplylouie.com/in/
- 🇳🇬 Nigeria: ₦3,200/month (vs ₦32,000+ for ChatGPT) → simplylouie.com/ng/
- 🇵🇭 Philippines: ₱112/month (vs ₱1,120+ for ChatGPT) → simplylouie.com/ph/
- 🇰🇪 Kenya: KSh260/month (vs KSh2,600+ for ChatGPT) → simplylouie.com/ke/
- 🇬🇭 Ghana: GH₵25/month (vs GH₵250+ for ChatGPT) → simplylouie.com/gh/
- 🇮🇩 Indonesia: Rp32,000/month (vs Rp320,000+ for ChatGPT) → simplylouie.com/id/
- 🇧🇷 Brazil: R$10/month (vs R$100+ for ChatGPT) → simplylouie.com/br/
- 🇲🇽 Mexico: MX$35/month (vs MX$350+ for ChatGPT) → simplylouie.com/mx/
The math works because I'm not trying to build a $100B company. I'm trying to make the best AI model accessible to developers who can't pay SF prices.
The developer API angle
For developers who want to build on top of this — use it in their own apps, automate workflows, integrate with their tools — there's a REST API:
curl -X POST https://simplylouie.com/api/chat \
-H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"message": "Explain this code: function fibonacci(n) { return n <= 1 ? n : fibonacci(n-1) + fibonacci(n-2); }",
"model": "claude-3-haiku"
}'
Same Claude model. $2/month. No per-token billing on the developer tier.
Full docs at simplylouie.com/developers
Why this matters beyond the price
AI isn't just a productivity tool for developers who can already afford it. It's a capability amplifier — it makes individual developers more productive, enables smaller teams to compete with larger ones, and lowers the barrier to building things that weren't possible before.
When AI is priced at $20/month in a world where that represents 4% of someone's monthly income, we're not democratizing AI — we're reinforcing existing economic divides.
The developers who need AI leverage the most are often the ones who can least afford it at current Big Tech prices.
The technical quality question
I know what you're thinking: is the $2/month version actually any good?
Here's the honest answer: I'm serving Claude 3 Haiku via Anthropic's API. It's the same model you'd get from Anthropic directly — not a smaller distilled version, not a fine-tuned variant. Just Claude, at a price point that works for global developers.
For most development tasks — code review, debugging, documentation, explaining complex systems, writing tests — Haiku is excellent. The quality difference between Haiku and Opus matters for very complex reasoning tasks, but for the 90% case, Haiku handles it well.
The bigger picture
We're at a moment where AI tools are becoming infrastructure. The developers who learn to use AI effectively right now will have a significant productivity advantage over those who don't.
I don't want that advantage to be gatekept by geography and purchasing power.
If you're a developer in India, Nigeria, the Philippines, Kenya, Ghana, Indonesia, Brazil, or Mexico — try it for 7 days free. No credit card needed for the trial. Then decide if Rs165/month (or your local equivalent) is worth it.
If you're a developer anywhere else — same offer, $2/month after trial.
The AI advantage shouldn't depend on where you were born.
50% of revenue goes to animal rescue. Because if we're building a more equitable world, might as well include the ones who can't advocate for themselves.
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