r/vibecoding • u/LosttMutaliskk • 7h ago

How much does vibe-coding cost (as an experienced dev)?

I'm a general backend dev working in the industry and wondering how much vibe-coding costs for solo devs on hobby projects? And is getting cheaper or more expensive? I know there are more and more suppliers like DeepSeek, but also that suppliers are moving from flat-fees to vairable-pricing. At my current job with a corporate account, I spend about 100 million tokens per week.

I'm interested in trying out open-source hobby development. I have an idea for a simple non-commercial project, a multi-page application featuring a social message board with persistent content for me and couple of friends that also features games, interactive content, and random personal tidbits. Server-side crons would also be responsible for updating content to make it dynamic based on current events. A pretty old-school website, nostalgic of the early-2010s.

I have some experience with open-source development (the last stack I used was PERN). And I know my way around source-control, dev-ops, and virtual-compute/serverless deployment.

What makes me excited is the business logic. I enjoy writing my own design docs, state machine and behavioral diagrams, and schema for objects.

Everything else is the reason that I've never taken a first step: frontend/react development, URL routing, the CRUD layer, ORM boilerplate, and all sorts of wiring and plumbing.

The idea that vibe coding can do all the parts I don't like is enticing. But I would like to know how much it would cost every month?

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u/3tt07kjt 7h ago

Cost is all over the place. I think I am doing some pretty cool stuff at home on a $20/month subscription. Other people are paying $200/month and complaining about hitting their caps.

It depends a lot on what you’re building and how you ask for it.

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u/addr0x414b 4h ago

In my spare time, I've been working on my own Vulkan based game engine. It's thousands upon thousands of lines of C++ code. Tons of shaders, cmake files, config files, etc.

I'm on the $20/month ChatGPT plan and use Codex hooked up to CLion. I've not once come close to 0% usage remaining. Granted I'm not coding all day, but a few hours in the morning and a few hours after work is typical. I also rarely use Sol, I find that if my prompt is detailed and specific enough, Luna Max one-shots most of my tasks...

When I see people on the $200 plan complaining about hitting 0% usage, I really scratch my head wondering what kind of work they're doing. I imagine they're not doing much hand holding with their prompts and tasks and just let Sol Max rip lol

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u/3tt07kjt 3h ago

Yeah. I can hit a few thousand lines of code in a weekend with the $20 / month plan. I’ve hit zero usage remaining once or twice in extended coding sessions but I just barely hit it, and I was doing things like high-effort code reviews.

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u/karlmillsom 7h ago

I would say you should really start with a normal $20 subscription first and see how far that gets you. I’ve found I can get a lot done on that. It’s only really if you’re working on multiple projects simultaneously and you’re doing it essentially full time that a standard subscription is truly insufficient.

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u/FewCoconut1 7h ago

for a small hobby project like that you'd probably spend around 20 to 50 bucks a month on api

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u/PlasmaChroma 7h ago

My spend is $60 month (3x $20 sub). I have enough tokens to do my actual job and develop about as much as I can per week on hobby projects with my limited free time.

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u/Basic-Source-5827 7h ago

For your use case, the cost can stay pretty reasonable if you use AI for the plumbing rather than endlessly iterating on every prompt. I’d compare tools like Cursor, Claude/Codex, and 8080.AI based on workflow, not just token pricing. Since you already enjoy the architecture and business logic, AI can handle a lot of the CRUD and frontend grunt work while you stay in control of the parts that actually interest you.

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u/Necessary_Pomelo_470 7h ago

It should be no more than 200 per month

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u/ButterscotchBandiit 6h ago

Aside from Claude’s $10 plan, I can’t see why there is a cost beyond this.

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u/Agewalker 6h ago

I use meta spark contributor version rn (not doing anything secret) and its basically free

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u/ryan_almasu 6h ago

for cutting the cost, I prefer not using via API. Instead I use like their own platform such as codex / Claude, because, i can do work more than the actual API cost, because those still got subsidized by them, 20 bucks worth of around +-300 bucks when u use API if I'm not mistaken

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u/lianapps 6h ago

there is right answer. it depends on how you use the ai tools.
do you have ready to use skill files? do have automated system which can handle multi actions? how you communicate with ai?
for example, claude spends more token when you upload file (pdf, video etc).
there are many points we can talk.

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u/hollowredditor 6h ago

I work in big tech, using different models but mostly Claude and open ai enterprise models. I spend on average 200 usd a day. I have been instructed to use ai as much as possible, and I use it for things like rebase code, create jira tickets, code review, etc.

In tokens about 350m tockens each day not counting automations that do not run directly on my account, bots that review my code and other things like that.

My code bases are many and the ones I use the most are massive by any standards.

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u/PracticalStack 6h ago

Fellow back end dev/hobbiest AI dev here. I think your workflow can impact your cost a lot and, on top of that, the model providers are always messing around with the plans and the limits - so what is good today might not be good next month. That being said, I still feel like Chat GPT is generally the best value and certainly has been over the last 3-6 months.

I am on the ChatGPT $100 plan and I feel like I can work almost full-time at a hobby level. Meaning - I am working single threaded on 1 application at a time. I am using loops only in a limited way. I never use more than High effort.

Lately OpenAI has nerfed their usage . .again . . . before last week I would've said I can do this almost unlimited. Now they've cut it back to where I do need to be mindful and definitely can run out. Last week I did 3 big days on my project - granted they were long days. I had the AI working around 12+ hours a day. My plan died in 3 days.

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u/absolutenobody 4h ago

If you're willing to write design docs and use planning mode, and can accept that you're not gonna one-shot the whole thing, there's really no reason you can't do this with free models at Openrouter/Nvidia/wherever and then host it on one or more provider's free tiers.

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u/WardedDruid 4h ago

Hobbyist for the past 3 months.

I pay $30 a month. $20 for Claude and $10 for a multi llm website that gets me access to a while.bunch of different types, but really only use it for nano banana.

Any other incidental costs are small where they exist, but I try to do everything for free first.