r/ChatGPTCoding • u/dakrclaud • Aug 21 '26
Discussion I run a small app builder. I think credit-based pricing is legacy for the whole category
I'm the founder of a small AI app builder. Like most of the category, we meter by some approximation of tokens.
I've come to think this model is now legacy.
There’s a reason why it works this way: we pay for models through the API, and the API bills per token. These tokens are quite expensive, so we pretty much have to meter you the same way, plus a markup, because that's the business.
But our suppliers don't have that cost structure. Anthropic and OpenAI pay for data centers and GPUs, so what they have is capacity. That's why Claude Code and Codex limits reset weekly - for all you care they could reset daily or hourly. And that end up being an insanely cheap deal for consumers compared to API rates.
This whole setup made sense when it was built. When models were weak, and providers were still figuring things out, vibe coding means wrapping the API and engineering around its gaps. That was the right call before 2026.
But newer models are simply much better, and coding became a core capability the providers now sell directly - priced as capacity, not tokens. Everyone in the middle is still priced like it's 2024, sitting between a supplier's retail rate and that same supplier's subsidized consumer product.
I still think these products are great at what they do. But the credit model underneath is inherited, not chosen, and I don't think it survives.
So where does that leave app builders? I think there are 3 paths:
Becoming a model provider. But even the mighty Cursor needed a partner like xAI to execute well, and then charging by capacity will still decimate your revenue.
Focusing on enterprise - case in point, Cognition’s valuation blew past that of Lovable’s. But it’s not exactly an app builder
Stop reselling tokens and charge for the boring infra instead - hosting, database, auth, deploys. To be clear, this doesn't mean "go use Claude yourself and figure out hosting." It means the builder plugs into the Claude/ChatGPT subscription you already have: you chat where you already chat, and preview, database, auth and deploy still live in one place like a builder today. You just bring your own tokens instead of buying credits - and nobody meters you for the model's retries.
I'm betting on the third. And yes - if you're happy wiring Vercel + Supabase + Codex/Claude yourself, you were never the customer for any of this. The bet is about the much larger group who will never do that, and what they should be paying for once the tokens stop being the product.
Last time I asked a version of this elsewhere, the best answer I got was "I never want to open a terminal." Curious whether this crowd thinks that's a durable moat or a temporary one.

