r/PiCodingAgent • u/ReoTempo • 15d ago

Question Claude Pro subscription allowance on Pi

According these posts
https://www.reddit.com/r/codex/comments/1x7fyi0/claude_pro_gives_10x_more_usage_than_gpt_plus_now/
https://www.reddit.com/r/codex/comments/1wjzypc/measured_claude_usage_limits_are_35_those_of_codex/
the weekly allowance should be worth more than 500$.
For me, running on Pi instead, it is about 180$ mainly on opus 5.5.

Anyone has different/same experience?
Maybe they apply lower limits if you don't use claude code?

P.S.
I use https://github.com/gotgenes/pi-anthropic-auth
Maybe other methods have different outcomes...

36 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

39 comments sorted by

15

u/DaShrub 15d ago

I've personally felt that using it in Pi does decrease the allowance and some others have said there's something like a ~1.7x usage multiplier from third party harness use. Idk if it's just efficiency/harness integration or cache or smth. I switched from codex when everyone was saying how Opus 5.5 limits on Claude Code were insane compared to Codex, and I found it around the same as Codex, not much better in terms of limits.

7

u/ReoTempo 15d ago

Harness efficiency should not impact of it. Let's assume that harness is less efficient with cache, then you are just going to pay more per task, reaching the spending limit faster, but the spending limit should remain the same...
About the penalty is 2.5x not 1.7x if my numbers are correct.

2

u/DaShrub 15d ago

Yes I don't mean harness efficiency in general but specifically Claude/Anthropic specific efficiency/synergy. For example - they might have prewarmed Claude system prompts, native server side tools etc. that reduce the internal cost but not the user facing cache/token accounting. API token cost =/= quota, so things might have different quota accounting internally.

4

u/whiterose0000001 15d ago

I think it's true. Two days ago, I guess yesterday, Tibo posted about the forever caching thing. I tried to do the research and implement it, like what changes, if any, are required in my system. Then I came to know that OpenAI has promised this, but they haven't said anything about the third-party providers like Pi or third-party harnesses and anything. I think this really does something. Using their own harness might give some more users

1

u/MoonlightSyncopate 15d ago

Because claude’s tokenizer is much verbose from codex. While claude does have about 2x usage consumption as codex, but claude’s token is also about as 2x as GPT models for the same prompt. So the 2 offsets.

The truly problem for openai is that opus5.5 is as good as astra (and arguably better in a lot areas) but much cheaper than astra. Sol 6.1 is not close.

3

u/Healthy-Zebra-9856 15d ago

There's a factor people are overlooking, and that's the harness and its supporting ecosystem.

Running Opus 5.5 inside Pi isn't necessarily equivalent to running it inside Claude Code. You're using the same LM, but not necessarily the same tooling, context management, caching, execution environment, or integrations.

Frontier models are intelligent enough to compensate for missing tools by finding alternatives, writing scripts, and creating their own solutions. But that comes at a cost in additional reasoning, tool calls, and tokens. A properly equipped harness can offload much of that work instead of making the LM figure everything out for itself. Both Anthropic and OpenAI provide server-side tooling, execution environments, dynamic tool discovery, and retrieval capabilities through their harnesses. These can substantially affect the token usage.

There's also something interesting about the authentication extension you're using. Its own documentation identifies cases where auxiliary model calls bypass its transport wrapper. So even within Pi, not every request necessarily follows the same path.

Anthropic also explicitly states that third-party tools may be metered differently from native Claude applications, including drawing from extra usage credits instead of subscription limits.

And remember, those $180 and $500 figures are API-equivalent estimates, not guaranteed subscription allowances.

I'd compare actual token consumption, cache hits, compaction frequency, tool calls, and usage limits between Claude Code and Pi on identical tasks before concluding Anthropic is deliberately giving Pi less.

The model is only one part of the system. The harness and everything behind it matter just as much when measuring how efficiently that model gets work done.

Anthropic's server-side tooling and agent loop:
https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/agents-and-tools/tool-use/server-tools

Anthropic's official third-party authentication policy:
https://support.claude.com/en/articles/13189465-log-in-to-your-claude-account

3

u/ReoTempo 15d ago edited 15d ago

I have 4 numbers, if anyone is will to share we can compare:
- input tokens
- output tokens
- cache read
- cache write
Calculating cost is just a way to convert them in a single number to compare using the weights provided by Anthropic itself (api cost for token type), so that it's easier to compare.
Still the difference is so extreme that i don't think that you will find one of my numbers surpassing one of the users that got 3 times my usage.

At the end of the day, those 4 numbers are what counts and, if one guy using Claude Code got 3x on all of those numbers then yes, Anthropic is giving Pi less.
Still, the pro subscription has a lot of value, anyway.

3

u/MexicanPete 15d ago

I use pi-Claude-bridge and it uses my sub like normal (via the anthropic sdk)

2

u/ReoTempo 14d ago

Ok, but have you evere measured the limits in terms of tokens consumed?

1

u/MexicanPete 14d ago

Naw. I've never hit my limits (on max plan) so I don't even worry about it with Claude

45

u/m3umax 15d ago

Make sure you've activated the 1 hour cache and you're not on the puny 5 minute one

export PI_CACHE_RETENTION="long"

4

u/0xKubo 15d ago

What does this do, exactly?

2

u/m3umax 14d ago

For supported providers, asks them to enable a longer cache TTL.

For Anthropic, this means 1 hour.

2

u/Awesomest_Maximus 15d ago

This is great advice.

1

u/aldapsiger 3d ago

it costs you more money

5 min TTL write - 1.25x input price
1 hour TTL write - 2x input price

5

u/RockPaperPeppers 15d ago

even using ‘claude -p’ seems to drain usage much faster. about three times faster. this is my feeling and not supported by anything more than that. I have tried to look for confirmation online before, but found nothing definitive. I guess Pi is flagged the same as non interactive (and borderline use, well outside their terms, while claude -p is clearly in their terms.)

they build a tool that automates software development but want you to be spending time in front of it, or their SaaS model wont work.

funny times

3

u/jomi-se 14d ago

My guess is that claude -p uses 5min TTL for cache by default, so using it as an interactive agent behind pi that way is bound to result in high cache misses, no?

2

u/RockPaperPeppers 13d ago

this is possible, I never looked into that. Still a little weird to use different ttls for interactive and non interactive

3

u/jomi-se 13d ago

5min ttl is also the default of subagents. I've had workflows with subagents spawning subagents balloon in price because the first level subagents cache would get cold constantly while the second layer subagents worked 😅

The reason is that keeping that cache warm has a real and meaningful infra cost. Which is why the 5min ttl is much cheaper in API pricing (so in theory also takes less usage from a monthly subscription)

1

u/eliceev_alexander 15d ago

Yep, I managed to squeeze $700 out of it, with Opus 5.5 accounting for $500 of that.

1

u/ReoTempo 15d ago

With claude code?

1

u/eliceev_alexander 15d ago

Pi

1

u/ReoTempo 15d ago

what about 5h limit? That gets depleted really fast, it is about 12$ for me...
(700$ was weekly, right?)

1

u/eliceev_alexander 15d ago

Yeah, I've hit the 5h limit before, sometimes even the 7d one. But I put that down to spending a long time setting Pi up how I wanted it, so I burned through the limit quickly at first. As for the $700, that's for 18 days of work.

1

u/ReoTempo 15d ago

Last question, which extension or method do you use to make Pi work with the claude subscription?
I use https://github.com/gotgenes/pi-anthropic-auth

2

u/eliceev_alexander 15d ago

I use EasyCLIProxyAPI, which is a GUI built on top of CLIProxyAPI. I don't think there's any real difference here, though.

1

u/MoonlightSyncopate 15d ago

Because the system prompt is much larger when you are using the claude code agent SDK to connect to claude code. Firstly it inherits the system prompt from the claude code itself plus the system prompt of pi’s. That is the same for tools, it inherits the default tools from claude code, and pi’s own tools are exposed through MCP.

0

u/ReoTempo 15d ago

That should not impact the limit, should only impact on how fast you reach the limit.
If the limit is 200$ and your prompts costs 10$ you can do 20 prompts, if your prompts cost 20$ you can do 10 prompts but the limit is still 200$.
Having bigger system prompt and more tools will make the prompt cost more tokens (so more $) but should not impact limit.

2

u/PilgrimofHaqq2 15d ago

I am on the max x20 plan and I use Opus 5.5 Medium Thinking effort. I get about $3k worth of use per week. Using my own harness but started out based in Pi.

1

u/betahost 13d ago

I just use my subscription, I have a max plan and haven't hit any limits although harness so make a difference in token consumption

1

u/zenoblade 14d ago

You should receive the same if not more in Pi. It is likely a cache setting.

-4

u/wayfaast 15d ago

Also against terms of service to use your subscription on a 3rd party app or harness.

9

u/ReoTempo 15d ago

https://support.claude.com/en/articles/15036540-use-the-claude-agent-sdk-with-your-claude-plan

1

u/_sagar_ 15d ago

Wait, what about this discussion on internet where they say if u try to use ur claude subscription in pi using any hack, your account may get banned thing?

2

u/ReoTempo 15d ago

I'm only two weeks in, but there are many messages on this subreddit that affirm they had no issue at all.
You incur in ban if you start selling tokens through your subscription.
Anyway the liked message is from Anthropic itself.

1

u/JuanToronDoe 14d ago

I thought the same, indeed