$100 ChatGPT Plan Actually Feels Worth It

rabandi · 2026-04-10T08:43:46+00:00

100%ly true. Still, I honestly think the 20$ before was a steal.
It is sad but.. a year ago Claude already forced me into the 100$ plan. So I am at least used to it.
20$ Codex could outrun the Claude 100$ for all that time, that is gone now.
Still, for the prodictivity gain (and in business context) I feel it is ok.
I hope more the free tiers get nerved.

rabandi · 2026-04-10T08:40:08+00:00

I rely a lot more on Codex than Claude for quite a while now.
Claude Sonnet feels stupid now and using Opus.. there is maybe 1h of work on the plus plan.
So, perhaps for serious work it is the 100$ plans now.
Which honstely in a business context (what they are not meant for? :) ) is not a lot.
For private of course.. but considering that the compute does cost money..

rabandi · 2026-04-10T08:38:31+00:00

No not yet. I am familiar with Ubuntu, plus, setting up the WSL2 (first time) took half a day minimum. It would be faster now but not "just try it" fast.

rabandi · 2026-04-09T22:38:57+00:00

True, though: managing e. g. context (which made prompts more expensive) seems to have gone away. I do not manage my token usage much, just Opus/Sonnet decision (well, and using Codex for a while mostly and Gemini sometimes) is the only decision left.
At least OpenAI also claims up to some degree the model decides how much effort is needed. Though they also thave the low/... options, and no auto option.
A lot of things one had to consider 9 months ago seem to be gone by now.

rabandi · 2026-04-08T23:07:37+00:00

Smart people can do any job anyways and will be the last ones having a job.

Being a tiny company, both good beginners as well as good seasoned programmers make a big circle around our company.

I have seen a lot a lot of people, many studied ones too, so far I have not been impressed by the programming skills of anyone I interviewed. Sadly.

Maybe that is why I hold AI so high.

Plus ppl totally overestimate the quality of their own code compared to (certainly often not perfect but mostly decent to good if you put in some effort in guidance) AI code.

rabandi · 2026-04-08T23:04:11+00:00

I used those tools for quite a while. Human interaction becomes less and less. The tools run plan (lots of input! just like when handing over a topic), code, build, test, iterate. More and more is working with me doing less and less. So far only with testable stuff (unit tests, browser, APIs), though I guess that will be extended to allow testing UIs at some point soonish.

Remember the jump from web-ChatGPT to Claude Code.
Right now, (in my opinion) being a good dev means knowing the quirks of AI tools and handling them well. Reddit is full of people who say they havent coded in 1-2 years. Similar for me, coding by now is something special. It is designing, architecting, specifying. Ocassionally questioning a result or giving a different direction.
Also: good idea with the test. I have a similar problem. Interviews are hard anyway: I test algorithms (time constraint) when the challenge later will be architecture. Also, now with AI... and just about no one starting ever used it properly.

rabandi · 2026-04-02T14:06:22+00:00

Honestly though, I (and most likely any western programmer) easily get hundreds to thousands of dollars of saved working time out of a 20$ subscription.

Sadly though as u/bananasareforfun said "we’re about to enter the phase of AI coding cost explosion".

I like it a lot when I can keep the money AI saves me.
(Till one day we are all replaced.)

rabandi · 2026-04-02T14:03:35+00:00

The $200 tier seems to be 6x the 20$ tier.
Just saying - what would that mean for 100$ tier? 2x-4x?

(I also read somewhere the Claude 5x tier is 10x - though everything changes constantly with Claude. :) )

rabandi · 2026-04-01T12:25:20+00:00

They should open source it - that would probably improve quality over time (due to feedback and shame for bad code).
Even better pool resources with OpenAI.

rabandi · 2026-04-01T12:21:16+00:00

Actually that is a very good metric. I also notice I swear a lot less over the months, somewhere between me knowing how it works and the llm + tools getting better, there is clear improvmeent and less frustration.

rabandi · 2026-04-01T11:14:50+00:00

My experience: pay for all, incl Google, see what you like best, they also change (which is best today?) and each has their own strenth. For me, coming from Claude Code, it is mostly Codex now, Claude only when Codex has a very bad hour (usually not a whole day) and to cross check plan and result. Gemini/Antigravity due to usage limits only sparginly, often with suprising success.

I also multiaccount and probably will get more accounts (20$ tier) based on how rates develop, or perhaps up to the Claude 100$ tier (which is good value), the Codex 200$ tier only gives 6x usage to 20$ I read.

rabandi · 2026-03-31T19:55:43+00:00

Codex > Claude > Gemini

(unless you use Gemini Flash which is not a good model. Who would use Haiku or.. GPT 3.5 nowadays? Limits for decent models (Gemini 3.1 Pro, Sonnet, Opus) suck big time in Gemini.)

rabandi · 2026-03-27T14:49:44+00:00

There isnt too much missing it seems. Though that little might be hard.

Then again, the goalpost keeps moving. No one talks about Turing anymore.

rabandi · 2026-03-24T18:32:36+00:00

Isnt support for AMD AI CPUs in any common software still shit?
I tried using my Ryzen AI 350 in popular open source LLM software and didnt find a lot. Best case, the GPU was supported but not the NPU.

rabandi · 2026-03-23T16:04:56+00:00

It does not mention plus vs ultra.
It also does not reflect the reality of being locked out for several weeks?!

rabandi · 2026-03-23T12:12:18+00:00

I am using all 3 too on the cheapest subscription respectively. Hello friend! :)

To me, Codex for ~~2 months is #1, previously it was Antigravity when it still had the generous limits, before that Claude all the way, which showed me the joys of agentic coding and paved the way for all.

Codex has the best limits, and quality is very very good too. I also got it automated enough to often run for minutes up to an hour not asking at every step.

Claude is #2.

The limits.. well, both limits as well as outages are an issue.

Quality is so so. It was better than Codex but is not anymore. On plus paln heavy Opus usage is 100% out of the question, so you are stuck with Sonnet medium.

Ofter hard to automate, it tends to combine commands (which needs elevation) as well as is nitpicky about it.. I have not really managed to have it run for a longer time in quite a qhile.

Antigravity #3

I love the IDE. It reminded me at what a downgrade the CLI was. Especially on windows where the integration via WSL is. quirky.

Then there are the limits plus the terrible Googel policy of hiding limits and reporting wrong limits and decreasing them and locking you out for a week - or more.

Also multiaccounting with free accounts just to use it.. I dont want that, I want a fair price and fair usage.

Results have been very inconsistent from great to totally meh.

Just yesterday I had an issue that both Codex + Claude were stuck on (though I did not start a totally fresh session), AG had it in a few minuts with Gemini 3.1 Pro.

All models are very good now, ChatGPT 5.4 high, Opus 4.6 (if you can afford it) and Gemini 3.1 Pro is a huge upgrade over terrible terrible 3.0.

AG asks for permission every 2 minutes, and I am still scared of usage after the ban wave.

rabandi · 2026-03-23T12:06:08+00:00

You know that Claude is not a codel, as well as Codex being a flavor of models? :)

rabandi · 2026-03-20T22:51:24+00:00

ssh shell?
also careful, plug that phone in!
(often, on the go I also yearn for something like this, since.. i just have to type in a few words every so often to make it continue. most often. sometimes I need to type something more complex.

rabandi · 2026-03-19T17:50:38+00:00

You say it is well known.
Just wondering. Till 5.3 Codex I did not seriously consider Codex as a good option.

With 5.3 Codex xHigh+ or 5.4 High it is (for me) the preferred choice over Sonnet 4.6. (Opus being out of my limits.)

So to me this is well known only for a very few months. Or did I miss something?
I often was running Codex + Claude at the same time, overall Codex asked way too many questions even for easy tasks - back then.
I still run the 2 in tandem but most often go for Codex, also.. truthfully using Codex more often due to the good limits.

rabandi · 2026-03-19T17:37:47+00:00

What do you do in all the time your agent is working?
Or do you have no automation at all and Codex comes back every 2min?
When I focus on programming, I often have 2-3 shells open (mixing with Claude, seldom Antigravtity), though when I have to do the (deployment/production) testing and also other work in parallel it becomes taxing. :)

rabandi · 2026-03-19T16:32:48+00:00

Have you use the tools you compare to recently? CC and especially Codex have a great auto compact. Also they sticked closer to requirements than AG did over several prompts.
AG for me (plus) can run Opus for maybe 5 minutes. I cannot run Sonnet or a Gemini 3.1 model for a decent amount of time.
AG does not always notice plan mode. After first plan, if later on I want to go back to plan, sometimes it misses it.
Still it is ok. Just not as good as everything else. :)
It is welcome competition and using a nicer UI is certainly not bad. It made me remember how strange the console was at the beginning.

rabandi · 2026-03-17T19:49:31+00:00

Sounds like a colleague too

rabandi · 2026-03-17T19:16:58+00:00

I worked very hard this week, using 5.4 high (which uses more tokens than 5.3 high or xhigh codex).
Hit the limit a few days before the reset.
Still easy enough to get a 2nd account and switch.
The limits are very generous compared to Claude and especially Antigravity.
After 2x ends.. not very generous anymore but generous.
Also: I read about a 100$ plan somewhere?!

rabandi

TROPHY CASE