Why $2/month AI makes more sense than $20/month

I've been using AI coding assistants for over a year. At some point, I stopped and asked: am I actually getting $20/month of value from this?

The answer, for most of my use cases, was no.

The $20/month assumption

ChatGPT and Claude's consumer plans assume you're a power user running multi-hour sessions every day. If you're not — if you use AI for specific tasks rather than continuous conversation — you're overpaying.

The math is simple:

• ChatGPT Plus: $20/month = $240/year
• Claude Pro: $20/month = $240/year
• What you actually use: maybe 30-40 meaningful queries per day

For most developers, you're paying for infrastructure you don't use.

The global pricing problem

This gets worse when you factor in where you live.

Country	ChatGPT cost	SimplyLouie cost	Ratio
India	₹1,600+/month	₹165/month	10x cheaper
Nigeria	₦32,000+/month	₦3,200/month	10x cheaper
Philippines	₱1,120+/month	₱112/month	10x cheaper
Kenya	KSh2,600+/month	KSh260/month	10x cheaper
Ghana	GH₵250+/month	GH₵25/month	10x cheaper
Indonesia	Rp320,000+/month	Rp32,000/month	10x cheaper
Brazil	R$100+/month	R$10/month	10x cheaper
Mexico	MX$350+/month	MX$35/month	10x cheaper

In Nigeria, $20 USD is roughly 3 days of salary for many developers. In the Philippines, it's nearly a week of groceries. The flat $20/month USD price wasn't designed with global developers in mind.

What I use instead

I switched to SimplyLouie — a $2/month Claude API proxy. It's not trying to replace ChatGPT for power users. It's trying to make AI accessible for everyone else.

What you get:

• Full Claude API access (claude-3-5-sonnet, claude-3-haiku)
• REST API with your own API key
• Works with any HTTP client — curl, Python requests, JavaScript fetch
• No rate limit panic, no quota exhaustion

What it costs:

• $2/month globally
• 7-day free trial
• 50% of revenue goes to animal rescue

The curl command

curl -X POST https://simplylouie.com/api/chat \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"message": "Explain async/await in JavaScript"}'

That's it. Works from any terminal, any language, any CI/CD pipeline.

Why this pricing makes sense

For occasional users, $2/month is the right price. You're not subsidizing unused compute time. You're paying for access to a capable model when you need it.

For developers in emerging markets, it's the difference between being able to use AI tools at all versus being priced out of the ecosystem.

Try it

• Global: simplylouie.com
• India: simplylouie.com/in/
• Nigeria: simplylouie.com/ng/
• Philippines: simplylouie.com/ph/
• Kenya: simplylouie.com/ke/
• Brazil: simplylouie.com/br/
• Indonesia: simplylouie.com/id/

7-day free trial. No commitment. Cancel anytime.