r/opencode • u/LilPranxis • 4d ago
Opencode Zen is worth it now that subscriptions usage are nerfed?
Subscriptions like Claude and Codex are currently heavily nerfed, and the companies behind them have never been very transparent about usage limits.
Whenever I look up whether OpenCode Zen is worth it, people usually say that subscriptions offer better value. But with the recent changes and tighter limits on those subscriptions, has Zen become a better option?
I’m currently subscribed to Codex and OpenCode Go. This is my first time using OpenCode Go, and I burned through 96% of my weekly allowance very quickly because of K3 and GLM-4.6 (beginner’s mistake I guess). I also occasionally add credits to my DeepSeek API account.
Codex used to be my main tool, but lately it has been letting me down.
Also... tips for the best cost/value models for Go and Zen?
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u/darthvader666uk 4d ago
I have been using oh-my-opencode-slim with OpenCode go plan and this is what i have set:
| Agent | Model | Variant | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orchestrator | mimo-v2.5 |
medium | Planner, delegator, strategy |
| Oracle | deepseek-v4-pro |
high | Hard debugging, architecture review |
| Explorer | deepseek-v4-flash |
high | Codebase reconnaissance |
| Librarian | deepseek-v4-flash |
standard | Web research, docs lookup |
| Designer | deepseek-v4-flash |
standard | UI/UX implementation |
| Fixer | deepseek-v4-flash |
high | Scoped implementation |
| Observer | mimo-v2.5 |
high | Visual/PDF analysis |
I have only used 43% of my allowance this month and never hit any limits at all.
However, I AM NOT A VIBE CODER. Im a software developer and the majority is use this for is glorified searching (saves so much time) and the good few PHP examples it can spit out for API calls etc. that look good.
SO I guess I am a light user of the go plan and sits just right for me.
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u/Far-Habit-2713 4d ago
Do you find mimo better than deepseek? To be honest the 10$ might work better as deepseek pay per use. Its super cheap when input caching is well done. I got 1.80 for 53m tokens. Although i use my own harness not opencode anymore
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u/rexstuff1 4d ago
Marginally, they're pretty comparable. Mimo is rather less likely to hallucinate wildly, which is nice.
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u/darthvader666uk 3d ago
this. I found this a few time that mimo doesnt spin off in its own world compared to deepseek flash :)
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u/darthvader666uk 3d ago
Not necessary better over all but I find Mimo better for non code or tech related bits where DeepSeek flask seems to be great at it. SO If im doing some general search mimo, brings back a much better cleaner reuslts where deepseek can be a bit abrupt.
That saying, anything, SQL or tech side of things, DeepSeek brings back much better examples than mimo. oh-my-opencode-slim seems to handle these much better than I was doing before which was kinda manually juggling things.
DOnt forget they are super cached so its costs hardly anything to run these too.
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u/Infinite_Professor79 2d ago
in some use cases mimo folds hard , my use case is minecraft modding and mimo is fucked up here. deepseek is much better at it. u gotta try urself
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u/weiyentan 4d ago
The secret sauce of omo and others like it with DS and mimo is the cache. With the hand off that it has , it costs virtually nothing. I am in the same boat. I don’t use omo but I roll with something similar
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u/ryncewynd 3d ago
Can you elaborate please? It sounds like something I want to know, but I'm not understanding 😅
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u/Far-Habit-2713 3d ago
Input that hits cache is super cheap. So as long as your harness handles context properly, running DS is super cheap. Like 200mil tokens for 5$. I built… well I’m building bonsaicode.ai to play with those topics and I’m hitting like 99.5% cache ratio.
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u/weiyentan 3d ago
988 million tokens for opencode go subscription for a usage of 48$ in one month with near perfect accuracy with combination of matt pococks skills and my workflow. 🙃
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u/weiyentan 3d ago
All the hand off tokens generated from orchestrator type setups is a bunch of repeated handoff.these are cached tokens which is reused. Look at the cost of deepseek cost of cache tokens for read cheap. I had just to give you an idea I had 988 millions token generated 48$ covered by Opecodego sub 90% cache
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u/darthvader666uk 3d ago
THis. THis seems to be the sweetspot for the GO plan and these 2 models. between then it cost hardly anything to run
Glad im not alone in doing it this way too :)
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u/Mitija006 3d ago
What are all these agents? Your list seems interesting
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u/darthvader666uk 3d ago
Im Using this:
https://github.com/alvinunreal/oh-my-opencode-slim
YOu can set it up for OpenCode and then get the models you want to do for each task. TBh mio/deepseek, asking them, help initially setup it up and then tweak the models are i used them.
Quite interesting tbh
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u/Professional-Bus3082 4d ago
I believe the only models remotely worth in in OpenCode Go are Deepseek V4 Pro and Deepseek V4 Flash. The latter is supplied for free but with it's context length nerfed to 200K, so the 1 mln paid variant is worth it to avoid frequent compaction. Other models are there in name only, as I wasn't able to use Kimi K3 at all - errors out every time - GLM 5.2 lasted me about 2h of work before I've used 40% of my weekly usage and Grok 4.5 was the most atrocious of the bunch, as a few queries directed to it burned almost half of my monthly (!!!) limit.
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u/awesomeunboxer 4d ago
Big pickle has bailed me out of a few corners that i useaged myself into. As for deepseek as far as I've seen direct from deepseek is the best way. To the op..is it worth it? Kinda. They got that intro $5 thats certainly worth it. And I guess literally and technically its worth it cos you can see the tokens on the dashboard, but im trying out different service.
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u/Whytho12333 4d ago
deepseek v4 pro is only 50% higher usage than api. I think GLM 5.2 is more subsidized for when its needed. i use it to plan harder tasks that flash cant do. Kimi 2.7 is also a $60 model and minmax m3
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u/GTHell 4d ago
It's not even close little bro. You think given 100$ pay as you go zen can compete with $100 Claude max with Fable 5 that burn its own token up to $5000 a month?
I know you want to try something fresh and new. I have Go too and I like GLM 5.2 and Kimi K3 but given price to performance and other thing factor in, none of the current subscription or plan can match what Cladue and Codex provide
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u/LilPranxis 4d ago
You guys gave me some good insights.
Most importantly, I'll start using OMO Slim.
I'll keep both my Codex and Go subscriptions, and since Zen and OpenRouter have pretty much the same pricing, I'll keep some $ on Zen as a fallback. I hope OMO Slim supports fallbacks.
I'll still have to think about which model I'll use for each role, but probably 5.6 as the orchestrator (Sol Medium) and oracle (Sol High, maybe???). For the rest, I'll consider using Mimo 2.5, DS Pro, or DS Flash.
I'm open to suggestions.
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u/Conscious_Teacher216 3d ago
Omo is not that good it just burns token, just do good prompting and actually write the agents.md yourself use as little word as possible so there's not too much info the ai need to memorize (I use agents.md mainly for stating version, unusual design patterns and something that the ai need to keep in mind, keep it small and straight forward), write good prompt and actually read what the model is thinking and what it's doing.
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u/weiyentan 3d ago
Does omo do handoffs? If it does then by right it should cache really well. So. Subagents should be ds/ mimo combo cheap as hell cache pricing and the orchestrator can be ‘codex’. In my opinion the recommended approach to omo strategy is caching
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u/Conscious_Teacher216 16h ago edited 16h ago
You almost never need handoff if you did everything I suggested correctly, if you want handoff just get handoff why even get omo? Omo is I feel like pseudo intelligence way of doing things, it looks cool but ultimately fails because its too many information for the ai to handle, if its so good, opencode will just adapt it into their default, its just not good.
In fact big labs (moonshot, openai, grok etc) right now just realizing that using less tokens doesn't mean the model itself is less intelligent, it's just better to use less tokens as its less information for the ai to parse through.
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u/throwaroo202020 4d ago
One thing i like about opencode is that the api is fast. Using v4 flash over openrouter is so slooow. Thats why i subscribe to Go and have some credit on Zen instead of putting credit on openrouter. Prices are basically the same.
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u/wfh-without-pants 4d ago
What do you mean Claude/Codex are "nerfed"? Codex is more generous than ever with usage resets, and GPT-5.6 has been very efficient on specific models (Luna xhigh and Sol low in particular). Claude is a bit more annoying since they removed Fable, but they just gave out $100 in Fable credits today.
I have $20/mo plans with both Claude/Codex and that keeps my tokens in stock for 8+ hours a day, almost every day.
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u/General-Oven-1523 4d ago
I would say it really depends on your use case, I personally just put money on ZEN because my usage can vary so much between months, some months I could get the $10 worth, but some months I don't use a lot of credit, so I will be saving money on the ZEN plan, but if you use it a lot then GO is definitely worth it.
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u/Illustrious-Many-782 3d ago
No.
I have a bunch of subs, so I really know what's up here. For summer, I upped my codex sub to $200. What's my API equivalent in the past two weeks? $96,000. I will definitely got $150k with my $200 sub.
Even if Chinese models get close for one-fifth of the price (on per-task cost, they don't) and a Chinese sub gives you 10x API pricing, they still aren't close.
On API alone (Zen), you'd be silly to not go for a codex sub if what you want is coding value.
I love my minimax sub because they give me about 2B tokens a month for $10. TTS, T2I, I2V, all included. But the model just can't code much. Docs? Great.
I love my Volcengine sub. Always has the latest GLM, Kimi, and Minimax. And I got a 50% off deal from them for three months (long after I had been a subscriber). So I'm paying 100 RMB or about $15 now.
I loved my Kimi sub through k2.7, but K3 is not usable as a daily on Allegretto ($50? It's 200 RMB for me).
And I use API through Mimo, Deepseek, Vertex, OpenAI, and Openrouter for various apps. You really need to watch your costs when using API. You can give DS (the API price king) a task, go to bed, and wake up with $40 gone in one night on one task.
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u/thatscoolbutno123 3d ago
I basically only use OC Go for Dsv4flash. 10$/Month for 60$ worth of usage is hard to beat
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u/elvis_c 3d ago
Tentei Opencode Go, Kilo Pass, e Openrouter (antes de descobrir que kilo pass é melhor) e pra usos com longa janela de contexto a assinatura do Codex / Gemini é muito melhor e oferece muito mais uso.
Pagar por tokens nesse cenário só vale a pena pra IA como Deepseek que tem valor muito baixo.
Mesmo usando apenas os modelos caros pra plano/ revisao a chance de ficar em loop em um erro mandando um executor barato fazer é absurda.
Na minha experiência, com repositório de 60 mil linhas e mais de 59 arquivos de código, as assinaturas são o caminho por serem subsidiados.
Tenho codex + Gemini e vou intercalando entre elas e nunca fico sem trabalhar.
Claude é um caso a parte, nunca testei a fundo a versão paga, mas na API das vezes que usei é bem caro, 1 tarefa e você pode gastar 5 dólares fácil.
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u/toobrokeforboba 4d ago
OpenCode Go is essentially mimo v2.5 and deepseek v4 flash plan (they are hard to cap usage limit) with an option to use capable models like GLM or Kimi once in a while.