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Even without hacks, Copilot is still a cheap way to use Claude models: - $10/month - Copilot CLI for Claude Code type CLI, VS Code for GUI - 300 requests (pr

Even without hacks, Copilot is still a cheap way to use Claude models: - $10/month - Copilot CLI for Claude Code type CLI, VS Code for GUI - 300 requests (prompts) on Sonnet 4.5, 100 on Opus 4.6 (3x) - One prompt only ever consumes one request, regardless of tokens used - Agents auto plan tasks and create PRs - "New Agent" in VS Code runs agent locally - "New Cloud Agent" runs agent in the cloud (https://github.com/copilot/agents https://github.com/copilot/agents) - Additional requests cost $0.04 each

piker 8mo ago
+1. I see all these posts about tokens, and I'm like "who's paying by the token?"
- Hrun0 8mo ago
  > +1. I see all these posts about tokens, and I'm like "who's paying by the token?" When you use the API
  - smallerize 8mo ago
    Yes. That is the question.
- paulddraper 8mo ago
  Most LLM usage? There’s some exceptions eg Claude Max
  - piker 8mo ago
    yes, and VS code as mentioned above. That's kind of the joke.
- handoflixue 8mo ago
  Anthropic pushes you to use the API for anything "third party", such as running OpenClaw
- Incipient 8mo ago
  And I keep thinking who can AFFORD to pay per token? I did a simple test - three small files and a prompt was nearly 10k tokens. Compared to my actual code base, where I use 5.2/sonnet to parse huge chunks of my code...I'd be burning hundreds of dollars per day if i was doing it per token rather than copilot - let alone the huge agent sessions where I use Opus and it has 50+ back and forward attempts. Please note I do actually read every line of code these reckless hacks generate haha.
andrewmcwatters 8mo ago
It seems like it's the cheapest way to access Claude Sonnet 4.5, but the model distribution is clearly throttled compared to Claude Sonnet 4.5 on claude.ai. That being said, I don't know why anyone would want to pay for LLM access anywhere else. ChatGPT and claude.ai (free) and GitHub Copilot Pro ($100/yr) seem to be the best combination to me at the moment.
indigodaddy 8mo ago
So 100 Opus requests a month? That's not a lot.
- likium 8mo ago
  For $10 flat per request up to 128k tokens they’re losing money. 100 * 100k is 10m tokens. At current api pricing that’s $50 input tokens, not even accounting for output!
  - indigodaddy 8mo ago
    I mean aren't they losing money on everything even the API? This isn't going to end well with how expensive it all really is.
    - port11 8mo ago
      It might be a gym-type situation, where the average of all users just ends up being profitable. Of course it could be bait-and-switch to get people committed to their platform.
    - whynotmaybe 8mo ago
      Having worked some time in huge businesses, I can assure that there are many corporate copilot subscribers that never use it, that's where they earn money. In the past we had to buy an expensive license of some niche software, used by a small team, for a VP "in case he wanted to look". Worse in many gov agencies, whenever they buy software, if it's relatively cheap, everyone gets it.
  - everfrustrated 8mo ago
    You didn't account for cached input tokens - some % of input tokens will be follow-on prompts which are billed at the cheaper cached token rate.
  - brushfoot 8mo ago
    And a request can consume more than 128k tokens. A cloud agent works iteratively on your requests, making multiple commits. I put large features into my requests and the agent has no problem making hundreds of changes.
pluralmonad 8mo ago
I've had single prompt to Opus consume as many as 13 premium messages. The Copilot harness is so gimped so they can abstract tokens from messages. Every person that started with Copilot that I know that tried CC were amazed at the power difference. Stepping out of a golf cart and into <your favorite fast car>.
- brushfoot 8mo ago
  It hasn't done that to me. It's worked according to their docs: > Copilot Chat uses one premium request per user prompt, multiplied by the model's rate. > Each prompt to Copilot CLI uses one premium request with the default model. For other models, this is multiplied by the model's rate. > Copilot coding agent uses one premium request per session, multiplied by the model's rate. A session begins when you ask Copilot to create a pull request or make one or more changes to an existing pull request. https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/concepts/billing/copilot-requests https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/concepts/billing/copilot-...
  - pluralmonad 8mo ago
    Sorry, I should have specified this was with GHC CLI. I suppose that might not behave similarly to the GUI extension. But it definitely happened on Thursday. One prompt, ctrl-c out and it said 13 premium messages used. It was reading a couple of large files and Opus doesn't seem to let the harness restrict it from reading entire files... just a couple hundred lines at a time. and now I see your comment mentions that explicitly. The output was quite unambiguous. :shrug:
    - ryanhecht 8mo ago
      Hey! I'm a PM on the Copilot CLI team. This sounds like a bug, we should follow the same premium request scheme as the VSCode extension! If you still have the session logs kicking around, can you email them to me? It's my hn username @github.com

piker 8mo ago

+1. I see all these posts about tokens, and I'm like "who's paying by the token?"

Hrun0 8mo ago
> +1. I see all these posts about tokens, and I'm like "who's paying by the token?" When you use the API
- smallerize 8mo ago
  Yes. That is the question.
paulddraper 8mo ago
Most LLM usage? There’s some exceptions eg Claude Max
- piker 8mo ago
  yes, and VS code as mentioned above. That's kind of the joke.
handoflixue 8mo ago
Anthropic pushes you to use the API for anything "third party", such as running OpenClaw
Incipient 8mo ago
And I keep thinking who can AFFORD to pay per token? I did a simple test - three small files and a prompt was nearly 10k tokens. Compared to my actual code base, where I use 5.2/sonnet to parse huge chunks of my code...I'd be burning hundreds of dollars per day if i was doing it per token rather than copilot - let alone the huge agent sessions where I use Opus and it has 50+ back and forward attempts. Please note I do actually read every line of code these reckless hacks generate haha.

andrewmcwatters 8mo ago

It seems like it's the cheapest way to access Claude Sonnet 4.5, but the model distribution is clearly throttled compared to Claude Sonnet 4.5 on claude.ai. That being said, I don't know why anyone would want to pay for LLM access anywhere else. ChatGPT and claude.ai (free) and GitHub Copilot Pro ($100/yr) seem to be the best combination to me at the moment.

indigodaddy 8mo ago

So 100 Opus requests a month? That's not a lot.

likium 8mo ago
For $10 flat per request up to 128k tokens they’re losing money. 100 * 100k is 10m tokens. At current api pricing that’s $50 input tokens, not even accounting for output!
- indigodaddy 8mo ago
  I mean aren't they losing money on everything even the API? This isn't going to end well with how expensive it all really is.
  - port11 8mo ago
    It might be a gym-type situation, where the average of all users just ends up being profitable. Of course it could be bait-and-switch to get people committed to their platform.
  - whynotmaybe 8mo ago
    Having worked some time in huge businesses, I can assure that there are many corporate copilot subscribers that never use it, that's where they earn money. In the past we had to buy an expensive license of some niche software, used by a small team, for a VP "in case he wanted to look". Worse in many gov agencies, whenever they buy software, if it's relatively cheap, everyone gets it.
- everfrustrated 8mo ago
  You didn't account for cached input tokens - some % of input tokens will be follow-on prompts which are billed at the cheaper cached token rate.
- brushfoot 8mo ago
  And a request can consume more than 128k tokens. A cloud agent works iteratively on your requests, making multiple commits. I put large features into my requests and the agent has no problem making hundreds of changes.

pluralmonad 8mo ago

I've had single prompt to Opus consume as many as 13 premium messages. The Copilot harness is so gimped so they can abstract tokens from messages. Every person that started with Copilot that I know that tried CC were amazed at the power difference. Stepping out of a golf cart and into <your favorite fast car>.

brushfoot 8mo ago
It hasn't done that to me. It's worked according to their docs: > Copilot Chat uses one premium request per user prompt, multiplied by the model's rate. > Each prompt to Copilot CLI uses one premium request with the default model. For other models, this is multiplied by the model's rate. > Copilot coding agent uses one premium request per session, multiplied by the model's rate. A session begins when you ask Copilot to create a pull request or make one or more changes to an existing pull request. https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/concepts/billing/copilot-requests https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/concepts/billing/copilot-...
- pluralmonad 8mo ago
  Sorry, I should have specified this was with GHC CLI. I suppose that might not behave similarly to the GUI extension. But it definitely happened on Thursday. One prompt, ctrl-c out and it said 13 premium messages used. It was reading a couple of large files and Opus doesn't seem to let the harness restrict it from reading entire files... just a couple hundred lines at a time. and now I see your comment mentions that explicitly. The output was quite unambiguous. :shrug:
  - ryanhecht 8mo ago
    Hey! I'm a PM on the Copilot CLI team. This sounds like a bug, we should follow the same premium request scheme as the VSCode extension! If you still have the session logs kicking around, can you email them to me? It's my hn username @github.com