Token is becoming another everyday “utility” after water, electricity, coal, and cloud computing.
So, since the start of this year, all the major cloud providers have been rolling out their own Token Plans, all pitching them as “cheap.”
Cheap? They look cheap — at least cheaper than each model’s per-token API pricing. And they also look cheaper than ChatGPT and Claude subscriptions.
But actually, once you’ve genuinely hammered ChatGPT and Claude subscriptions along with the various Token Plans, you’ll find it’s the other way around: it’s the ChatGPT and Claude subscriptions that end up cheaper. With nearly the same money every month, ChatGPT and Claude subscriptions usually get far more work done than the Token Plans of domestic cloud providers. ChatGPT in particular throws you a reset every now and then — if your usage isn’t too heavy, you can basically use it without restraint.
More importantly, many vendors’ Token Plans are really a black box. They don’t bill in tokens; they bill in credits and the like. As for the conversion ratio between credits and tokens — only they know it, and they can adjust it however they please.
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Notes on indie products, AI tools, growth, and engineering.
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