Why I stopped paying $20/month for AI and what I use instead

Last year I was paying $20/month for ChatGPT Plus. Before that, I tried Claude Pro at $20/month. Before that, GitHub Copilot at $19/month.

At some point I looked at my subscriptions and realized I was paying $40-60/month just for AI tools — tools I was using heavily, sure, but the math didn't add up for most of what I actually needed.

Here's what I figured out.

What I actually use AI for

I did an honest audit of my AI usage over two weeks:

• Code review: Explaining what a function does, spotting bugs
• Writing: Drafting emails, docs, README files
• Research: Summarizing articles, comparing approaches
• Debugging: "Why is this failing?" type questions
• Prototyping: "Write me a quick script that does X"

None of this requires frontier model capabilities at $20/month. Most of it works fine with Claude Haiku or Claude 3.5 Sonnet accessed through a flat-rate API proxy.

The math that changed my mind

Anthropics official Claude API pricing:

• Input: $3 per million tokens
• Output: $15 per million tokens

For my actual usage pattern (maybe 500k tokens/month across all my projects), that's roughly $1.50-3/month at direct API rates.

So why was I paying $20/month? Mostly for the convenience of the chat interface, and partly because I hadn't done the math.

What I switched to

I switched to SimplyLouie — a flat $2/month Claude API proxy. It gives me:

• The same Claude models (Sonnet, Haiku)
• An API key I can use in my scripts, Claude Code, and other tools
• No per-token anxiety
• No monthly limit surprises

For $2/month I get enough API access to cover my actual usage. If I'm doing something especially heavy (training data generation, batch processing), I'll pay for direct API access for that specific task. But 95% of my daily use is covered.

The workflow shift

Stopping the ChatGPT subscription also changed how I interact with AI:

Before: Open ChatGPT tab, type question, read answer in UI

After: Call the API directly from my scripts, use Claude Code for coding sessions, pipe output to my tools

This is actually better. I'm not copying-and-pasting from a chat interface anymore. My AI usage became part of my actual workflow instead of a parallel conversation.

What I gave up

To be honest:

• Web browsing: ChatGPT Plus had real-time web search. I miss this occasionally, but I've replaced it with just... searching the web myself and pasting relevant content.
• DALL-E image generation: Rarely needed it. When I do, I use free tiers.
• The ChatGPT app: Nice UX. But I don't need it for what I actually do.

Who this doesn't work for

If you're using AI for:

• Heavy creative work that benefits from GPT-4o's specific capabilities
• Frequent image generation
• Real-time web research built into your workflow
• Teams that need shared workspaces and admin controls

...then a $20/month subscription probably makes sense for you.

But if you're a developer who mostly uses AI as a coding assistant and occasional writing tool, you're probably overpaying.

The bottom line

I'm at $2/month now. Same Claude, same quality for my actual use cases, $18 saved every month.

For developers in markets where $20/month is genuinely expensive — India, Nigeria, Philippines, Indonesia — this isn't just a lifestyle optimization. It's the difference between being able to afford AI tools or not.

SimplyLouie has local pricing too: ₹165/month in India, ₦3,200/month in Nigeria, ₱112/month in the Philippines.

If you want to try it: simplylouie.com — 7-day free trial, $2/month after.

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What are you paying for AI tools right now? And is it actually worth it for your use case?