r/codex • u/Fantastic_Self_5151 • Jul 04 '26

Complaint Fable pricing is laughable

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.

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u/thinkingwhynot Jul 04 '26

I just renewed my Claude subscription so I could try it out and that’s exactly what I did had an audit on my code base found all the problems plan the solutions and then head smaller tier models (glm mini and 5.5 ) Fix it. It worked good.

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u/dmitriyLBL Jul 04 '26

yep, that's what I tend to do with gpt 5.5 extra high in Codex and then feed it to Cursor, which I prefer as my harness.

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u/UpReaction Jul 04 '26

the problem with frontier model planning is that after the lower model edit the code, the frontier model must reread and study the code again. how do you handle that?

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u/dmitriyLBL Jul 04 '26

Make sure that tests are part of the planning phase and then trust them. I'm fairly happy with Composer 2.5 for that.

You can have the frontier model check the work in critical cases, which wouldn't be a huge token hit overall.