Notes on practice · Essay 01
Left Foot, Right Foot
ChatGPT or Claude is the wrong question. A note on choosing tools, and when pay-as-you-go beats a plan.
People keep asking which AI to use: ChatGPT or Claude. The question treats two tools as rivals. This note is a short argument that they are not, plus a plain account of when paying by usage beats paying for a plan.
Field note
What if a carpenter decided one day he had to make a choice? He's already at the job site. The blueprint has already been drawn up, and he's looking at his tool belt and down at his own two hands. Everything he needs, he sees: the hammer, the nails, all the wood and sheetrock, all the things he needs to get this thing standing. And he asks himself which one's better, the hammer or the nails. I mean, I have to go up this ladder. What's the best way to get up here: left foot, right foot?
Who's going to tell him that, in order to get done what he needs to get done, he needs both equally? You can't have this grand thing with one of these things missing. And I find it hard in an industry where the word "build" is a very used terminology, a new word, but no one is being logical, and the most logical thing there is, is the basics.
Now we can sit here and list why: Claude's strong suits, ChatGPT's strong suits, and all the others, and we pick and we decide like we have to make a trade-off. Why not get both providers' API keys and pay as you go? Unless you drive these models excessively and a plan is more beneficial to you. Whatever floats your boat.
AI is not divided by provider. AI is AI, all together, like a left foot and a right foot. You need both to move forward, or up, or anywhere.
But scale back. Look at what's truly in front of you, at large. Zoom out and look at everything as a whole, and start asking questions. Then start doing things. You don't have to take what's right in front of you. You have options. When you run out of options, that's when you start moving things around. Just don't get rid of something you will need trying to pinch a penny. Don't give your loyalty to something that doesn't reciprocate.
When pay-as-you-go beats a plan
Both providers sell two different things, and the two are billed differently.
- A plan is a flat monthly fee for the provider's own apps (chat, coding tools, and so on), with usage limits. Claude's Free, Pro and Max plans and ChatGPT's Pro tiers work this way.
- The API is billed by the token: you pay for what you send and receive. OpenAI states that its API is billed separately from ChatGPT plans. Anthropic states that its API billing is based on actual monthly usage.
Pay-as-you-go tends to win when:
- Your use is light or uneven. A plan charges the same in a quiet month as a busy one; the API does not.
- You want both providers. Two API accounts bill for what you use. Two plans are two fixed fees.
- The work is automated or runs inside your own tools, where the API is the intended door.
- You want a ceiling. OpenAI lets you set a monthly budget on the API, after which it stops serving requests (OpenAI notes enforcement may lag, so you stay responsible for any overage).
A plan tends to win when you use the chat apps heavily every day, since heavy token use adds up and the apps and tools come bundled.
The honest method is arithmetic, not loyalty: take a typical month, estimate the usage, and price it both ways. Prices and limits change; check each provider's pricing page on the day you decide.