Even the Alibaba $6/month plan supplies a reasonable amount of API use, and Qwen 3.8 Max is a killer model for long time frame agentic use.

Literally everything I do is Open Source software and Open Content writing so I am fine with the lack of privacy using direct Chinese APIs. And, for a little more spend, just use US companies like Fireworks.ai or Ollama Cloud for more privacy, or run on-premise locally and get the best grade of privacy.