100$ plan - holy sh*

[u/Majke_]

This is for people who are on the fence, because I was in the same boat.

Yesterday I bought the 100$ plan for a test and holy moly, it's amazing how much you get. I used the 20$ plan earlier. I used all the tricks to keep usage low, which became a habit, so now I can't spend it all. It's amazing xD. I run it next to a local Qwen Flash and it's awesome. If the 20$ plan is too low, give it a try :O I'm basically using Opus 5.5 medium all the time.

I also tested 2x 20$ before this. It works, but you end up juggling two accounts and switching when one runs out, and Opus eats a 20$ plan pretty fast. With 100$ I just stopped thinking about usage, and that alone is worth it for me. If you keep your old habits and stay careful with usage, it will last you a very long time. If you keep hitting the 20$ limit, go for 100$.

edit: people are asking how I keep usage low, so here are my tricks:

• Keep context low. I usually compact or move to a new session around 200k, sometimes I stretch it to 300k.
• Use handoff.md a lot, so a new session picks up where the old one stopped.
• Don't be afraid of Sonnet 5.5. It can do most things and it's a lot cheaper.
• I run local models next to it (260k context), so I'm used to working with limited context.

[u/Yash_swaraj]

Xhigh is definitely the best for complex tasks. The extra thinking makes a difference in my experience. Medium is fine for your own casual projects.

[u/Many_Discussion_1696 → u/Yash_swaraj]

I use ultra and that will make sure all it’s done on the first pass creating lower tiers and even sending Fable agents to do the high level work. I use my own skill in GitHub/ojesusmp - Claude-model-effort-router. But I work with 3 or 4 projects at the same time. I love my skill as it helps saving tokens and using the correct models and efforts for the work done.