---
title: AI Coding Agent Subscription ROI
date: 2026-05-30T23:19:34+08:00
categories:
  - llms
  - coding
---

I ran [`npx -y ccusage monthly --compact`](https://github.com/ryoppippi/ccusage) to get the following break-up of my AI coding agent costs.


| Month   |    Codex |  Claude |
| ------- | -------: | ------: |
| 2025-09 |   $37.47 |   $2.29 |
| 2025-10 |  $106.79 |   $9.13 |
| 2025-11 |  $100.35 |  $14.24 |
| 2025-12 |  $240.69 |  $24.88 |
| 2026-01 |  $100.89 |  $20.28 |
| 2026-02 |  $323.21 |  $29.46 |
| 2026-03 | $1996.32 | $134.87 |
| 2026-04 |  $401.36 |  $47.07 |
| 2026-05 |  $378.20 |  $45.13 |

This shows the ROI of my $20 subscriptions to each. I get ~$35 worth of API calls for my $20 Claude Pro subscription and ~$400 of API calls for my $20 ChatGPT Plus subscription (on top of my ChatGPT chats.)

I end up using Codex a lot more - partly because it's a bit more diligent, but mostly because it's a lot cheaper.

Clearly, subscriptions are good deal for individuals. Codex, especially.

This may not be true for corporates. [Simon Willison](https://simonwillison.net/2026/May/27/product-market-fit/) says that Anthropic and OpenAI both changed _enterprise_ pricing to align with token prices. That means the cost of enterprise AI security is ~2-20 _times_ their token budget - which is growing rapidly.

---

BTW, my moment of [AI psychosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatbot_psychosis) was in March 2026. The coding agents had increased their limits and I was tokenmaxxing. I'm far from that limit today, but the symptoms linger.

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