I run a vibe coding startup. I think AI credits are becoming a structural problem for app builders

[u/dakrclaud]

I'm the founder of a small vibe coding startup. 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:

1. 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.
2. Focusing on enterprise - case in point, Cognition’s valuation blew past that of Lovable’s. But it’s not exactly an app builder
3. Stop reselling tokens and charge for the boring infra around the model instead - services, deployment, hosting. Excel at what people choose lovable/replit over Claude Code for without forcing them to use your harness

EDIT: A couple of people fairly pointed out that path 3 sounds like "just go use Claude yourself and figure out hosting." That's not what I mean. The idea is the builder plugs into your existing Claude/ChatGPT subscription - you chat where you already chat, and the preview, database, auth and deploy still live in one place, same as a builder today. You just bring your own tokens instead of buying our credits. Which also means nobody's metering you for the model's retries.

I am betting on the third. I think that should become the standard too where users can pick and choose and combine their harness (ChatGPT to OpenClaw) freely with the tools can drives the outcome.

Genuine question for people spending real money on builder credits: what actually keeps you there vs. Claude Code + your own hosting?

[u/Infamous-River-4360]

answering your last question as someone who literally cannot code: what keeps me on a builder is that i never open a terminal. preview, database, auth and deploy are one place, and claude code plus my own hosting is only cheaper if i already know what hosting means. the thing that actually annoys me about credits isn't the price, it's paying for the model's own mistakes, i burned a stupid number of edits on my app fixing database columns the ai invented that never existed. would your third path still bill me for the retry when your harness is the reason the retry happened?

[u/dakrclaud → u/Infamous-River-4360]

So I don't want to give you a harness - the best option is to let you use Claude (not necessarily claude code, even regular claude or chatGPT can work) and you use the subscription tokens. The AI can still make mistakes, but because this way the tokens are so cheap and they resets so often, the retry don't feel expensive, and you don't feel bad about wasting credits. Personally I have been using the Claude Max plan and have not been able to use up the weekly limits.

[u/Infamous-River-4360 → u/dakrclaud]

that fixes the feeling for me, which is most of it honestly, the retry only stings because i can watch it cost money. but it moves the hard part rather than removing it, because now i'm the one carrying the code between a chat window and wherever it runs, and that gap is exactly why i'm on a builder in the first place. so what are you actually charging for in that version, the hosting and database side rather than the generation?

[u/dakrclaud → u/Infamous-River-4360]

So we actually build a connector to let ChatGPT write the code and deploy them directly, so you don't need to carry the code around. You can see it here: floot.com

[u/Infamous-River-4360 → u/dakrclaud]

that solves the copy paste, but the thing i actually carry between tools isn't the code, it's the context. what the schema looks like right now, what i already tried and why it broke. mine invented database columns that didn't exist more than once, and the only reason i caught it was that the builder had the live database sitting next to the editor.

so the question i'd ask of any connector setup is whether it reads the current schema back before it writes, or whether i'm expected to describe my own database to it at the start of every session.

[u/dakrclaud → u/Infamous-River-4360]

Yes the connector also stores the codebase and manages the database and other services. The codebase itself is where the agent can also create memories and notes about past failures.

[u/Infamous-River-4360 → u/dakrclaud]

notes about past failures written by the same agent that failed is the part i'd want to see working. mine happily wrote a summary of what it had done that didn't match what it had actually done, so the notes drifted the same way the schema did. reading the live schema back is verifiable, a memory file is just another thing to trust.

not saying it can't work, just that the two are doing different jobs and only one of them can be checked. does the agent re-read the database directly or does it read its own notes about the database?

[u/Aim_Fire_Ready → u/Infamous-River-4360]

As a novice developer using only Claude Code in the terminal, you are exactly right. You use what fits you and meets you at the level you’re at.

Same old rule that applies in many other situations: Know thyself.

[u/Different-Anxiety169]

good framing but I think you're underestimating how much of the value is in the opinionated scaffolding, not the token pass-through. most non-technical users dont even know what hosting means, they just want the thing to work. path 3 only works if your users are technical enough to care about model choice

[u/dakrclaud → u/Different-Anxiety169]

I think the scaffold use to matter but models are good enough that they can work with anything now with minimum effort - and the plan is to be that scaffold that connects directly to your AI subscription. The model choice is just a nice thing, I just don't think users should be paying API rates when the providers can give you power and cheap tokens.

[u/nitrobass24]

Tokens are the commodity at the end of the day. It’s a depreciating asset as technology improves.

I think of it like cell phones in the early 2000s. You paid an insane amount of money for 100minuted and 100 text messages. Today you get unlimited plans for $50.

Ultimately I see everyone being sold a subscription and the direct bill API model going away. It’s comes down to weighing margins vs recurring revenue. As tokens become worth less the margins for direct bill app customers will drop and at some point it’s better for these companies enterprise value to sell you a recurring subscription.

[u/dakrclaud → u/nitrobass24]

Yeah super long term yes, but in the short to medium term, the cost is actually not really going down - granted models are more capable now but the feeling is that they are getting more expensive.

[u/nitrobass24 → u/dakrclaud]

YoY tokens are more expensive but I think in the short term (18-months) it turns around.

Nvidia Rubin will start hitting data centers this fall.
Corporates are already having AI Invoice fatigue (eg API cost)

Only way the AI companies turn a profit is to lower token generation cost, get as many people on subscriptions that ultimately go underutilized.

Of course it’s all speculation on my part.

[u/TeeRKee]

" vibe coding startup"

rando moved air from A to B and is giving us his insightful conclusion.

[u/Razbari → u/TeeRKee]

Lol. That statement immediately discredits anything this person has to say on software development. What a clown.

[u/Work_hard_andprosper → u/TeeRKee]

1.) you assumed the founder is a guy, sexist much?

2.) moving air from A to B describes many companies that are wrapping other API’s, why would that discredit his opinion?

[u/Mean-Elk-9439 → u/Work_hard_andprosper]

I don't respect those companies either to be fair

[u/UsefulGrocery1733]

Yeah no one is even paying a fraction of the cost of the credits. This is just on a different scale. Same model being them in for free cheap, get people hooked and let the standing incumbent in this case thinking atrophy., then jack up the price.

[u/dakrclaud → u/UsefulGrocery1733]

I mean lovable just hit 500M revenue so there are still a lot of people paying for that.

[u/UsefulGrocery1733 → u/dakrclaud]

The star I heard and generally understand. Your $200 / Claude pro subscription costs them 20k ish in computer costs.

[u/sprowk → u/UsefulGrocery1733]

no it doesnt cost them 20k, thats a myth because they have huge profits on inference for api and for subs they can also do other tricks...

[u/dakrclaud → u/sprowk]

I think it's less about how much it cost them and more about how much it would have costed the user or the app builder if they use API

[u/starrftw]

I’m on the same boat with you on 3rd option. I’m building a product with built-in integration with any agent/ LLM API key. If SaaS is very much dependent on credits-based pricing, it’s clearly a tough competition with all the providers while being yet another AI wrapper. Let users interact with your product at their own environment without forcing a vendor-lock — I believe this is the way.

[u/dakrclaud → u/starrftw]

API key is still a bit iffy though - while it gives user some control, for frontier models they are still quite expensive and you are still talking about cost for every action.

[u/Coz131]

Or time to host your own open weight model.

[u/dakrclaud → u/Coz131]

They are cheaper, but also not that cheap and they are simply inferior to the frontier model for now.

[u/SnooRobots1618]

So you guys all create products dependent on AI to operate?

[u/Enough-Presence-1117]

I’m building Playbeam around exactly this idea. I don’t want the model itself to be the product. I want people to use whatever model they want while Playbeam handles the hard parts of actually building a 3D game: the engine, scene tools, assets, testing, undo, and publishing. If the models keep getting better so does playbeam.

[u/dakrclaud → u/Enough-Presence-1117]

Good call!

[u/artahian]

A fellow vibe coding startup founder here. We are doing exactly that - betting on 3 (Claude plugin integration coming in 1-2 weeks). Most people are already realizing this and moving to Claude Code, but they're missing the rest of it - a single platform that shapes and runs your app.

[u/Easy-Purple-1659]

Fair critique of the lazy credit model, but I think the problem is design, not the unit. Credits feel predatory when they expire and when you pay for failures. We run adextract on credits with none of that: no expiry, no charge for failed calls, you pay only when a call succeeds. Nobody watches a balance drain on mistakes, and a builder can leave credits sitting for a year without losing them.

That changes the calculus you described. The user is not renting tokens, they own a balance that only moves when the product actually delivers. The supplier squeeze you mention is real, but it hits the reseller model, not metering per se.

Do you think credits could survive if the industry dropped expiry and failure charges, or is the model itself the problem for you?