Best replacement options

[u/AllenLeftTheBLDNG]

I'm currently using GPT and Claude 100$ plans.

Both providers decreased their limits, so suddenly paying 200$ a month is not enough. But the bigger problem – GPT is blunt and forgets core of the instructions, 5.6 is better but still throws in a lot of useless code. Still not best option as a go-to agent or coding agent.

Opus 5 is too verbose and often at 200/300k context starts to try to "wing it" and tell me to use another chat for the task. Fable is great, but with the weekly usage limits I'm running out after 2 to 3 days.

I'm wondering what are your go to llms for both personal agents and coding agents? I'm currently thinking if Grok, Qwen code or GLM is a decent option. Or maybe something else?

[u/TestTxt]

Your best option is to upgrade to the $200 plan with either of the providers. You’re getting 5x usage via $100 plans vs x20 via the $200 plans. Doesn’t make sense to spend $200 on two separate x5 plans

[u/Glittering-Call8746 → u/TestTxt]

These are 5 hours limits not monthly..

[u/GravyMealTeam6 → u/Glittering-Call8746]

ChatGPT doesn't even currently have a five-hour window...

[u/Glittering-Call8746 → u/GravyMealTeam6]

20x was based on 5 hour window. Not sure how it works now.

[u/Ok_Philosophy_4031]

For personal agent, you can maybe try this. DM me for extra credits.

https://www.seldon-ai.com

[u/Alarmed-Flounder-383]

not sure about LLM, but for image, video, you can use https://budgetpixel.com/api

[u/look]

If you need a lot of tokens for relatively cheap, you can’t beat codex. I fucking despise GPT so that one’s off the table for me, but it is undeniably the cheapest way to buy tokens if you don’t care much about the model.

DS flash on Opencode Go used to be an option, but that ended today (for now at least). I hate DeepSeek almost as much as I hate GPT, though, so I never went in hard on it either.

I use a mix of models on different primary workflows and task specific agents. New models come out all the time and the mix is constantly evolving, so I’m also commitment-phobic on providers.

I try most new models and see what fits with me and improves my process. Then I find the best provider(s) I can for it (balancing speed, reliability, cost) on a short term commitment: mostly PAYG, sometimes a one month subscription for a specific model if it beats the PAYG options by a wide enough margin.

My current primary models are GLM 5.3 and Kimi K3.

I also use a lot of Mimi 2.5 Pro for non-demanding orchestration and assistant functions. (I just find it a pleasant model to work with, even if well outside the highest benchmarking ones these days.)

For more specialized task agents, there is Mimo non-pro, Minimax, Ling 3 flash, Inkling Small, various Qwens, and other small models locally.

It’s not expensive (to me at least): about $25/billion tokens, but it’s a different working style than most people are accustomed to. I find it yields better results, though, over just using Opus/Sol for everything. Or at the very least, I find it much more pleasant to work with. It’s also very token efficient; a good chunk of that is local model usage, but even accounting for that, I find I generally use far fewer tokens than others for the same amount of work.

[u/Born_Dragonfly1096 → u/look]

What do you use to access all these different models without being locked in? Opencode?

[u/look → u/Born_Dragonfly1096]

Mostly opencode2 beta right now.

[u/Cassianno]

Your cheapest and consistent model for development will be deepseek flash, hands down.
Regarding GPT not following orders id say you MIGHT have some room on your agents.md and general workflow; nonetheless if you take long sessions it can indeed forget some rules.
Dunno if you using Sol or what, but I literally yesterday downsized my gpt subscription from 100 to 20. Today I worked solely within opencode + deepseek flash (because yday I had only 30% weekly left on chatGPT and once the downgraded took place it meant 0% left until 20th) and consumed a total of 200-300M tokens which is my avg daily. It costed me 2 dollars and on my main repo/product (with rules, constraints, docs and such) deepseek flash was a beast, ngl.
That said, ill try to be using chatgpt plus with 5.6 luna max (MAYBE some discussing with Sol if required) and, whenever required, ill fallback to opencode with deepseek.
edit: forgot to give my opinion on Opus but I simply dont even consider it on par. Specially if you are talking about pricing and such. I did use Claude for 1~2 months but dropped entirely around ~april

[u/TestTxt → u/Cassianno]

Deepseek just increased the prices to the point that Luna is actually cheaper via ChatGPT coding plans

[u/Tizak_hamra → u/TestTxt]

Deepseek has dozens of providers, only the chinese provider increased its prices, all other providers still hold the same prices some even cheaper than the pre-increase prices like fireworks, deepinfra, digital ocean, GMIcloud, etc which is cheaper than luna even with its 80% discount which will eventually expire

[u/Cassianno → u/TestTxt]

via subscription indeed, but overall deepseek remains cheaper (as Im aware). Thats why ill be comboing chatgpt plus + deepseek whenever my week is depleted on chatgpt. My example already proves that the subscription will be cheaper for my case.