4 ms·

One of the main reasons for me for sticking with Claude Code (also for non-coding tasks, I think the name is a misnomer) is the fixed price plan. Pretty much an

by divan 11mo ago

One of the main reasons for me for sticking with Claude Code (also for non-coding tasks, I think the name is a misnomer) is the fixed price plan. Pretty much any other open-source alternative requires API key, which means that as soon as I start using it _for real_, I'll start overpaying and/or hitting limits too fast. At least that was my initial experience with API from OpenAI/Claude/Gemini. Am I biased/wrong here?

segmenta 11mo ago
Yep, this is a fair take. Token usage shoots up fast when you do agentic stuff for coding. I too end up doing the same thing. But for most background automations your might actually run, the token usage is way lower and probably an order of magnitude cheaper than agentic coding. And a lot of these tasks run well on cheaper models or even open-source ones. So I don't think you are wrong at all. It is just that I believe the expensive token pattern mostly comes from coding-style workloads.
- kej 11mo ago
  I don't doubt you, but it would be interesting to see some token usage measurements for various tasks like you describe.
  - segmenta 11mo ago
    For example, the NotebookLM-style podcast generator workflow in our demo uses around 3k tokens end to end. Using Claude Sonnet 4.5’s blended rate (about $4.5 per million tokens for typical input/output mix), you can run this every day for roughly eight months for a bit over three dollars. Most non-coding automations end up in this same low range.
giancarlostoro 11mo ago
You're not wrong, though I suspect the AI "bubble burst" begins to happen when companies like Anthropic stop giving us so much compute for 'free' the only hope is that as things get better their cheaper models get as good as their best models today and so it costs drastically less to use them.
- segmenta 11mo ago
  Yeah, I think when they made the bet it genuinely made sense. But in coding workflows, once models got cheaper, people did not spend less. They just started packing way more LLM calls into a single turn to handle complex agentic coding steps. That is probably where the math started to break down.
- aitchnyu 11mo ago
  Sonnet is 3$ per million tokens, Grok Code Fast is 0.2$. IME the latter is better for me. Wish everybody treats AI as a pay-as-you-go commodity instead of getting dependant on rugpulls. My stack is Openrouter (model marketplace) and Aider (Kilocode and Cline for user friendly alternatives).
  - segmenta 11mo ago
    Will check out Grok Code Fast - thanks for the pointer. In my experience, coding agents can swing a lot in quality depending on the model’s reasoning power. When the model starts making small but avoidable mistakes, the overhead tends to cancel out the benefit. Curious to see how Grok performs on multi-step coding tasks.
    - aitchnyu 11mo ago
      True. Im working with Python CRUD apps, which every model is fluent in. And I'm personally generating 100-line changes, not letting it run while I'm AFK.
      - giancarlostoro 11mo ago
        That's what I love most about Claude. I love Django and I love React (the richness of building UIs with React is insane) and sure enough Claude Code (and other models I'm sure) is insanely good at both.
      - segmenta 11mo ago
        Ah, that makes sense. I’ve had similar luck with UI refactoring on cheaper models, mainly because you can quickly verify whether the output is right.
jonathanleane 11mo ago
What non coding tasks do you use Claude Code for? Genuinely curious.
- world2vec 11mo ago
  It can also take notes, write down plans and TODO lists, update on gym records, etc, etc.
  - Tusharmagar 11mo ago
    Curious how you're handling notes and TODO lists. Do you give Claude Code access to a local markdown file, or is it working some other way?
    - world2vec 11mo ago
      Pretty much yeah, just a folder with .md files
- brianjking 11mo ago
  LOTS! Sometimes for quick file system organization, creating Claude skills, deep document analysis. Anthropic published a doc or two about this too, here's one of them: https://www-cdn.anthropic.com/58284b19e702b49db9302d5b6f135ad8871e7658.pdf#:~:text=The%20team%20uses%20Claude%20Code%20as%20their,codebase%20and%20gathering%20context%20before%20starting%20work. https://www-cdn.anthropic.com/58284b19e702b49db9302d5b6f135a...
  - segmenta 11mo ago
    Ah, that’s interesting. Are there any parts of Claude Code that you feel could work differently or get in your way for these kinds of tasks?
- ntnsndr 11mo ago
  I use CC regularly for editing large text files (especially turning interview transcripts into something readable) and have found it works much better than web chat interfaces because of filesystem access and ability to work with large files.

by divan 11mo ago

segmenta 11mo ago

Yep, this is a fair take. Token usage shoots up fast when you do agentic stuff for coding. I too end up doing the same thing. But for most background automations your might actually run, the token usage is way lower and probably an order of magnitude cheaper than agentic coding. And a lot of these tasks run well on cheaper models or even open-source ones. So I don't think you are wrong at all. It is just that I believe the expensive token pattern mostly comes from coding-style workloads.

kej 11mo ago
I don't doubt you, but it would be interesting to see some token usage measurements for various tasks like you describe.
- segmenta 11mo ago
  For example, the NotebookLM-style podcast generator workflow in our demo uses around 3k tokens end to end. Using Claude Sonnet 4.5’s blended rate (about $4.5 per million tokens for typical input/output mix), you can run this every day for roughly eight months for a bit over three dollars. Most non-coding automations end up in this same low range.

giancarlostoro 11mo ago

You're not wrong, though I suspect the AI "bubble burst" begins to happen when companies like Anthropic stop giving us so much compute for 'free' the only hope is that as things get better their cheaper models get as good as their best models today and so it costs drastically less to use them.

segmenta 11mo ago
Yeah, I think when they made the bet it genuinely made sense. But in coding workflows, once models got cheaper, people did not spend less. They just started packing way more LLM calls into a single turn to handle complex agentic coding steps. That is probably where the math started to break down.
aitchnyu 11mo ago
Sonnet is 3$ per million tokens, Grok Code Fast is 0.2$. IME the latter is better for me. Wish everybody treats AI as a pay-as-you-go commodity instead of getting dependant on rugpulls. My stack is Openrouter (model marketplace) and Aider (Kilocode and Cline for user friendly alternatives).
- segmenta 11mo ago
  Will check out Grok Code Fast - thanks for the pointer. In my experience, coding agents can swing a lot in quality depending on the model’s reasoning power. When the model starts making small but avoidable mistakes, the overhead tends to cancel out the benefit. Curious to see how Grok performs on multi-step coding tasks.
  - aitchnyu 11mo ago
    True. Im working with Python CRUD apps, which every model is fluent in. And I'm personally generating 100-line changes, not letting it run while I'm AFK.
    - giancarlostoro 11mo ago
      That's what I love most about Claude. I love Django and I love React (the richness of building UIs with React is insane) and sure enough Claude Code (and other models I'm sure) is insanely good at both.
    - segmenta 11mo ago
      Ah, that makes sense. I’ve had similar luck with UI refactoring on cheaper models, mainly because you can quickly verify whether the output is right.

jonathanleane 11mo ago

What non coding tasks do you use Claude Code for? Genuinely curious.

world2vec 11mo ago
It can also take notes, write down plans and TODO lists, update on gym records, etc, etc.
- Tusharmagar 11mo ago
  Curious how you're handling notes and TODO lists. Do you give Claude Code access to a local markdown file, or is it working some other way?
  - world2vec 11mo ago
    Pretty much yeah, just a folder with .md files
brianjking 11mo ago
LOTS! Sometimes for quick file system organization, creating Claude skills, deep document analysis. Anthropic published a doc or two about this too, here's one of them: https://www-cdn.anthropic.com/58284b19e702b49db9302d5b6f135ad8871e7658.pdf#:~:text=The%20team%20uses%20Claude%20Code%20as%20their,codebase%20and%20gathering%20context%20before%20starting%20work. https://www-cdn.anthropic.com/58284b19e702b49db9302d5b6f135a...
- segmenta 11mo ago
  Ah, that’s interesting. Are there any parts of Claude Code that you feel could work differently or get in your way for these kinds of tasks?
ntnsndr 11mo ago
I use CC regularly for editing large text files (especially turning interview transcripts into something readable) and have found it works much better than web chat interfaces because of filesystem access and ability to work with large files.