Topic
Cost Control
22 posts on cost control — guides and lab notes from real runs on hardware we own. New posts land here automatically. Start anywhere, or grab the copy-paste prompts that ship with them.
- 4 min read
April 2026: Every AI Subscription Plan Broke for Builders
April 2026 made one thing clear: chat subscriptions are best-effort tools. Builders need API-level budgets, rate limits, and kill switches when the work matters.
- 4 min read
Computer Use Is 45x More Expensive Than APIs. Here's When To Use Each.
Reflex.dev measured a 45x token cost gap between computer-use agents and structured APIs for the same task. Here's why, and the decision rule that keeps your bill sane.
- 7 min read
Uber Burned Its 2026 AI Budget on Claude Code by April
No metering, no per-team caps, no dashboards. Uber spent its entire 2026 AI budget on Claude Code in just 4 months. The 5-step pattern behind every runaway AI bill — and the fix that stops it.
- 4 min read
OpenAI's guardrails don't control costs. Here's the gap.
OpenAI shipped guardrails in the Agents SDK last month. They validate behavior. They do not enforce spend. Here is the gap and how to close it.
- 5 min read
Meta Burned 60T Tokens: Cap Your AI Agent Budget in 3 Steps
Your AI agent bill is climbing and nobody set a cap. Meta burned 60T tokens across 85K staff in 30 days. Here are the 3 budget controls they skipped — and guardrails that catch overruns early. (2026)
- 8 min read
AI Agent Cost in 2026: $500 DIY to $150K Enterprise [Breakdown]
Vendor quotes for AI agents run 3-5x reality. We surveyed 40+ builds — from $500 DIY weekends to $150K enterprise rollouts. Here's the real 2026 cost breakdown by complexity tier.
- 6 min read
Aymo AI Review 2026: Is $39/mo Worth It? (Free vs Paid)
Is Aymo AI worth $39/mo? We ran every tier for 30 days. The free plan's 50-call cap hits fast — see when paid beats ChatGPT Plus and Claude Pro, and when it doesn't. (2026)
- 6 min read
How a 9-Person Startup Replaced Its Dev Team With AI
JustPaid ran 7 AI agents 24/7 with OpenClaw, shipped 10 features in a month for $4K/week. Here is the real cost breakdown and what it means for you.
- 8 min read
Stop Runaway LLM Spend: AI Agent Cost Control (Python)
One bad loop and an AI agent burned $200 in minutes. AgentGuard is a Python SDK that enforces hard cost limits at runtime — here is how to ship it.
- 10 min read
AI Agent Pricing 2026: Real Cost from $500 DIY to $150K [Guide]
What does an AI agent actually cost? We surveyed 40+ real builds — API spend, dev hours, infra, and the hidden costs that blow budgets. Tier-by-tier, $500 to $150K. (2026)
The AI agent build notes
Real costs, real tools, no fluff. M-F when I ship, publish, or learn something worth sending.