Field guide · Claude Code subscription vs API credits
Claude is an AI that can build games, websites and apps for you. There are two ways to pay for it: a flat monthly plan, or paying each time it’s used. Here’s which one you need, in plain words, with my real numbers.
Almost always
Claude helps you build a game, a website or an app.
A monthly plan covers it
$20 to $200 a month. The price stays the same no matter how much you build, up to the plan’s limit. Past the limit, Claude stops until it resets, unless you upgrade or pay per use for more.
Only sometimes
The finished game or app has Claude inside it, like a character that talks back to players.
You pay per use
This is called the API. You pay a small amount every time your app uses Claude.
Before you start
You don’t need to know anything about coding or AI to read this. Here are the words that come up, in plain English. Come back here any time one stops making sense.
Level 1
What I noticed. People online have said that asking Claude to build a website cost them hundreds of dollars. I didn’t note exact amounts.
The question. I build games and websites with Claude Code on a monthly plan. Does building on a plan cost anything like that?
How I checked. Claude Code keeps a running count of what each session would cost if it were paid per use. I took one real build that lasted 4 days and compared that count with how much of my plan it used.
Level 2
Both ways give you the same Claude. They’re just built for different jobs.
Way 1
Claude Code is included in every plan. You pay the same price whether you build for one hour this month or forty.
The bigger plans let you do more before you reach your usage limit. I’m on the $200 Max plan.
Feels like a phone plan with a data cap. One price each month. If you use it all up, you can’t use Claude again until the limit resets, unless you upgrade or pay per use for more.
Way 2
This is how a finished app talks to Claude on its own, with no person typing. You’re charged for everything Claude reads and everything it writes. Bigger versions of Claude cost more.
You only need this if your finished app has Claude inside it.
Feels like a taxi meter. Every trip costs a little, and it all adds up.
A million tokens is about 750,000 words, so those prices sound tiny.
But while Claude builds, it rereads your whole project and conversation again and again to keep track of what it’s doing. That adds up fast. In my real 4 days of building, rereading was 61% of the cost.
Level 3
In October I spent 4 days building levels for my rhythm game with Claude Code.
Claude Code keeps a running count of what that work would have cost at pay-per-use prices. It came to $536. I didn’t pay that. I’m on the $200-a-month plan, and these 4 days didn’t add anything to my bill.
Below, the $536 price is split into the four things Claude was doing. As you scroll, the left meter adds up the pay-per-use price. The right meter shows what I actually paid.
Claude doesn't remember the way you do. Before every step, it reads the whole conversation again from the start so it doesn't lose track.
Mine grew to about 440,000 tokens, about four novels long, and Claude reread it thousands of times. Each reread is cheap, but thousands of them made this the biggest part of the bill.
about $327 if paid per useNo extra charge on my plan
The conversation is kept ready so rereading it costs less. Every time something new was added, like a message from me or a file Claude opened, adding it cost a little more than rereading it.
about $91 if paid per useNo extra charge on my plan
Before Claude writes anything, it thinks the problem through, like working out a math problem on scrap paper. You never see this thinking, but it is paid for. About two thirds of everything Claude produced was thinking.
about $78 if paid per useNo extra charge on my plan
This is the part you actually see: the code that makes the game work, and the messages Claude wrote back to me. It was the smallest part of the bill.
about $40 if paid per useNo extra charge on my plan
That’s the full $536 pay-per-use price. Only about $40 of it was Claude writing the code. Here’s the price check it came from.
How 15% of my plan equals about $7
The 15% comes from the usage meter in my Claude settings. It’s approximate, because it also counts other work I did that week. The percentages on the meter above split that 15% by each cost’s share of the $536 price.
4 days of building levels for my rhythm game. For part of it, 10 helper agents (extra copies of Claude) worked at the same time. At the end, Claude reviewed my website.
The $7 share is worked out in the box above.
A $536 price, covered by about $7 of my plan.
Paying per use would have cost about 75 times more. What it means: a $200 monthly plan covered work that would have cost $536 if paid per use.
To be clear: I never paid $536. I paid my usual $200 for the month, and nothing extra. The $7 is the part of that $200 these 4 days used up.
The catch: plans have usage limits. If you hit the weekly limit, you can’t use Claude again until it resets, unless you upgrade or pay per use for more. More on that at the end.
Level 4
Other people have shared what building with AI cost them. Sometimes it was hundreds of dollars, sometimes thousands.
They put their real numbers in public, and that’s how the rest of us learn. Here are five numbers people have shared, and what each one shows.
Average costAnthropic, the company that makes Claude
$13 a day
Anthropic says that for companies paying per use, one programmer using Claude Code costs about $13 for each day they use it, or $150 to $250 a month. Nine out of ten stay under $30 a day.
What it showsAnthropic says the big bills usually come from conversations that kept growing and were never restarted, or from always using the biggest, most expensive version of Claude.
Source: Claude Code help pages: Manage costs effectivelyIf paid per useA programmer who writes online as ksred
$15,000+
They used a free tracking tool to add up eight months of their Claude Code use. Paid per use, it would have cost over $15,000. They were on a monthly plan instead and paid about $800 in total.
What it showsMore than 90% of their usage was Claude rereading earlier work. That is the same pattern as my own measurement.
Source: ksred.com: Claude Code Pricing GuideIf paid per useOne person on the $200 plan
Tens of thousands of dollars
In July 2025, Anthropic said one person on the $200 plan had used tens of thousands of dollars worth of Claude, mostly by leaving it running day and night.
What it showsThis is part of why plans now have weekly limits. A flat price works because most of us don't run Claude around the clock.
Source: Anthropic on X (formerly Twitter), July 28, 2025Real billSomeone on the $200 plan
$1,800 in 2 days
They had set up small programs to run Claude automatically, over and over. An old API key (a kind of password that tells Anthropic to bill you per use) was still saved on their computer, so the charges went to a pay-per-use account instead of their plan.
What it showsCheck which account is paying. In Claude Code you can type /status and press Enter to see it.
Source: GitHub (a site where people report software problems), March 2026Expected billJason Lemkin, founder of the business community SaaStr
$8,000 a month
Lemkin wrote that they expected to spend about $8,000 in one month building an app with Replit, a different AI building tool that charges per use.
What it showsLemkin felt it was still far cheaper than hiring a team to build the same app. Paying per use can be worth it when the work is worth it.
Source: SaaStr: Why I'll Likely Spend $8,000 on Replit This Month AloneMost of these stories, and my measurement, have the same causes. Most of the cost is Claude rereading a long conversation. The rest comes from helper agents, from leaving Claude running, and from using the biggest version of Claude.
The difference is who pays for it. When you pay per use, every reread is a charge. On a monthly plan, it comes out of a weekly allowance you’ve already paid for. Work priced at $536 per use took about $7 of my $200 plan.
Paying per use is the right choice for plenty of people, like companies and anyone who needs more than a plan allows. Nobody here did anything wrong. Sharing their numbers is what makes a comparison like this possible.
Level 5
For most of what I build, no. Here is the rule:
If Claude is helping you make the thing, your monthly plan covers it.
If the finished thing needs Claude inside it, talking to other people, you pay per use.
Most games don’t need Claude once they’re finished. Use the two buttons below to see the difference.
Who pays: your monthly plan, one flat price
This is most games. Claude helped you make it, and your plan paid for that. Once it's out, players are only playing a game. Nothing they do calls Claude.
Your plan pays to build it. Nothing to pay per use.
These are paid per use.
Almost every game I’ve built is in the “Works on its own” list.
A monthly plan is for one person, you, using Claude yourself. It isn’t meant to power an app that thousands of other people use.
So when your app asks Claude something for someone else, you pay per use. It can be a great feature. Just choose it on purpose, because it’s the one part of a project that costs more as more people use it.
Anthropic’s rules say the same thing. In their words, developers may not route requests through Free, Pro, or Max plan credentials on behalf of their users.
In plain words: don’t let other people use Claude through your personal plan, including the free version. Building something you sell, or a website for a client, on your plan is fine.
I read Anthropic’s rules in October 2026. This isn’t legal advice.
Level 6
Here are eight situations. For each one, pick who pays: your monthly plan, or paying per use (the API). You’ll see a score at the end, but it’s only for you. We’re learning this together.
Card 1 of 8
Claude writes your game
| What’s happening | Who pays |
|---|---|
| Claude writes your game | Your plan |
| Claude fixes a bug in your game | Your plan |
| Claude builds your website | Your plan |
| Claude builds an app you plan to sell | Your plan |
| Claude helps you update and tidy your project | Your plan |
| Your finished app asks Claude a question by itself, with nobody typing | Pay per use |
| Players chat with a character in your game, and Claude writes its replies live | Pay per use |
| Claude writes all the dialogue for your game's characters while you build | Your plan |
Level 7
Now try my real numbers on a month of your own. Move the two sliders to pick how many days you’d build. Together they go up to 30 days, one month.
The calculator shows what that month would cost if you paid per use, next to the three monthly plan prices. It’s a feel for the size of things, not a price quote.
$940is what that month of building would cost if you paid per use, based on my real numbers.
Spread over the month, that's about $217 of building a week. On my $200 Max plan, that's about 6% of the weekly limit.
All of them come from my one price check in Level 3, which covered 4 days and $536.
These are one person’s numbers from one project. A small game will cost less. A long project with lots of helpers will cost more.
Your plan’s usage resets on a schedule, including a weekly limit. If you hit the limit, you can’t use Claude until it resets, unless you move to a bigger plan or pay per use for more. The price of your plan never jumps on you.
Some plans let you turn on extra usage, which charges per use once you pass your limit. It’s a setting you choose, so it won’t surprise you.
Your monthly plan is for you, building. If customers need Claude inside your app, that part is paid per use.
In Claude Code, type /status and press Enter. It shows whether you’re using your plan or paying per use.
Keep learning
I write up what I learn while building with Claude, in plain words like this page. No hype. Just learning together.
Learn with meI’ll update this page if Anthropic changes its plans or prices, or if I run a new measurement.
Next level
I write up what I learn as I build. Want the next one?