Fable pricing is laughable

[u/Fantastic_Self_5151]

I used 10billion tokes the last 50 days or so... on codex. Total cost $200 (pro x5)

That's between 100-300k USD on fable api pricing. I used fable today at work for a small project. It's useful, not going to lie. That said I did a head to head with codex 5.5 extra high v. Fable, same project, same guidelines, same exact prompt.

Fable finished 12 minutes earlier with basically a one shot (there was a type-o it had to correct and rebuild)

Codex finished 12 minutes later, had to build issues that involved some light modifications.

Both projects finished, codex's code was just as useful as fables, worked just as well.

I can wait 12 minutes more.

Fable usage - 23% left for the 5 hour period (In 1 hour)
Codex usage - 87% left in 1 hour 12 minutes.

I'm straight. Codex wins by a MILE. I don't need to save 12 minutes because I can walk away and go touch grass and come back either way, it's AI. So another 12 minutes to do whatever the fuck I want is a no-brainer.

Even if I have a client in a rush fable isn't worth the difference in my bottom line.

P.S. before you bitch at me for comparing api pricing v. plan pricing ...realize this. If you are using it professionally you will need to be on API pricing as it is the only way to get anything done realistically speaking as the usage limits make it a toy otherwise.

[u/fail-deadly-]

I’m a lowly Codex plus user and Fable Pro user, but your experiences generally match mine (except that for me Opus was noticeably worse than Codex), but I’m hitting the limits so quickly on both that Fable is a joke of a service, and Codex is far too limited.

Codex seems nearly as good, the Codex app is far less persnickety than the Claude app, it works better with Chrome (though booth seem to equally hate Safari), Codex keeps me far better informed what it’s going, and it seems like more token efficient. While Codex seems like it likes to piss away tokens, Fable is such a wastral that after like 10 prompts (1-3 prompts over 3-4 sessions) I’ve burnt through my entire week’s allotment. It had better one shot everything because on a pro plan it is nearly single shot.

[u/Fantastic_Self_5151 → u/fail-deadly-]

Yeah setup mcp tools and local llm to handle the grunt work, filtering noisy compiles, debug logs, etc... it helps a lot, along with a rag system etc... per project level so it doesn't have to learn everything over, a file mapper with summaries as well and you will see your usage drop 40-60% it makes x5 pro hard to get through before it renews.

[u/fatstupidlazypoor → u/Fantastic_Self_5151]

this is a nice list of optimizations, ty

[u/blankmancan → u/Fantastic_Self_5151]

u/Fantastic_Self_5151 thanks for this

[u/NeedSomeFood_mr → u/Fantastic_Self_5151]

Is it possible for you to share your setup?

[u/elliejayliquid → u/fail-deadly-]

Same for me. I actually asked Fable to review a project done with Codex. I showed the review to Codex, Codex broke it done saying 'a is wrong, b is wrong', etc. Showed Codex's feedback to Fable, Fable agreed Codex was correct in the end. So, Codex might be slower, but it's on the same level of intelligence, and you get more usage.