> Claude sub has a 60x subsidy, so a $20 sub gives you $1200 in API.

This is only true if you max out the plan, which requires working around awkward 5-hour and weekly limits. For side projects, sure, you can use a Ralph loop or whatever and just continue when the window resets. For work, I can't afford to simply stop working when I hit my limit. And using Claude at API prices is prohibitively expensive.

Personally, I have a $20/month OpenAI subscription that I supplement with DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (currently using CoralBricks as the provider since it's fast and I'm grandfathered into their $0 cache read pricing). It's working out rather well so far. Even when I use DS all day as my primary model, I only pay about $1/day, which is roughly equivalent to what I pay for the sub anyway (but with no limits).

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viraptor an hour ago | parent | next [-]

You could also go with mimo-2.6-pro for cheaper and often better results.

	▲	RussianCow an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I tried it but it's way too slow for me. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is an order of magnitude faster, and the modest difference in intelligence isn't worth it to me for most use cases.

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himata4113 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I am sorry, but if you're given $1200 in api for free I wouldn't consider that as working around flakey limits especially when you only need to max out the 5 hour limit 5 times a week.

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RussianCow 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't understand what you're saying. If I hit my 5-hour limit in 2 hours, I still need to get work done for the other 3. I'm not going to sit there and wait for my limit to reset.

	▲	himata4113 3 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		you get more than $20 worth of usage within 1 5 hour window at which point it pays for itself.