Scene Hook
Last month I opened my AI coding tool's dashboard and found I'd spent over 800 RMB — I only asked it to tweak a few paragraphs of landing page copy. These pay-per-use things, you use them and forget they're burning money. Uber crashed the same way: they approved a 2-year AI budget for 2025-2026, but burned through it in four months. The reason? They let engineers use Claude Code (a tool where AI directly writes and edits code for you) with nobody watching usage.
What It Is + Who's Using
Claude Code is an AI coding assistant from Anthropic — you tell it what features you want in plain text, and it writes code, edits files, and runs tests directly in your project. Big companies like Uber integrate it into their internal systems and let thousands of engineers use it freely. I made this mistake too — in March this year I was building a client management system and let the AI assistant refactor over 20 files in one go. It kept trying, failing, retrying, and I just watched it run, completely oblivious that every attempt was deducting money. Freelancer Zhang Zhe spent 200 RMB in API fees over three hours at a coffee shop, rushing an e-commerce project — and that project only brought in 1,500 RMB from the client.
Replicate Cost Today
If you want to use a similar AI coding tool, do the math: for personal use, monthly plans start around $20/month (about 150 RMB); pay-per-use depends on how much you use it. Technical barrier: if you can use a chat app, you can use the basic version, but integrating it into your own project takes some tinkering. Time cost: 10 minutes to register an account, 1-2 hours to learn the basics. First step: open the tool's website, choose the monthly plan instead of pay-per-use, then immediately find the "spend limit" (the maximum you'll spend per month before it auto-stops) option in settings and set a number you're comfortable with. This tool isn't for everyone — if you don't write code or edit websites right now, no need to try it yet.
Advice by Stage
If you're just starting out, stay away from pay-per-use AI coding tools — ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro at $20/month is enough; ask it code questions and copy-paste yourself. If you have 1-2 clients, you can try monthly-plan AI coding tools, but definitely set a monthly spend cap — I'd suggest starting at $50 to test the waters. If you're scaling up with a team using these tools, you must do three things: use unified monthly plans (don't let team members open individual pay-per-use accounts), review usage reports monthly, and set spend limits for each person — Uber's lesson was skipping these steps.