How are people using Claude Code day to day without spending a lot? I tried it on a moderately complex task and it chewed through tokens at an alarming rate. I quickly spent $2 and hadn’t even arrived at an adequate solution yet. I’ve heard other people say they’ve spent $10-20 in a coding session. I don’t see how that’s sustainable for me, so I’ve stuck with my $20/month Cursor subscription.
Pro isn't a static plan. Pro subs can access Claude Code but are paying via API metering. I have it setup at home and, while I haven't used it much, it can quickly add up.
What I did do, because my personal projects aren't too complex, is moved the model from Opus to Sonnet which is about 1/5 the cost.
For day-to-day stuff I have ProxyAI (on IntelliJ, continue.dev works for this too) pointed at Mistral's Codestra for auto-complete and to Claude 4 for chat.
Claude Code is just for giving the bot tasks to do without me being deeply involved in the work.
Normally to make a new smallish feature it costs me about $0.40.
The core suggestion is to point specifically at the files you want it to read and use as a reference, otherwise it might go read some huge file for no reason. Also the tokens used depend on the size of the project.
Generally, if I'm doing something I can box, I'd use chatgpt and copy it in myself. If I want something matching the style, I'd use a guided Roo Code.
