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Best LLM for every budget, updated daily

184 points · 113 comments · terryds

  1. jrflo · · focus · HN ↗
    Does anyone actually pay API costs out of their own pocket? It's about 10x cheaper to just get a codex or chat gpt subscription, it's so heavily subsidized compared to the API that I'm sure it would be cheaper to use frontier models on a subscription plan rather than paying API prices for deepseek flash.
    1. LeBit · · focus · HN ↗
      I use local LLMs on my Mac Mini.

      Otherwise DeepSeek Flash 4.1 is dirt cheap (other "Flash" models are not that expensive either). I pay (very few dollars) out of my own pocket.

      There are many things where having an API Key is necessary.

      Maybe I’ve missed the boat though: is there now a method to use an api key to access a subscription?

      1. jrflo · · focus · HN ↗
        You can't use an API key on subscriptions, but I've gotten around it using the `codex exec` command to run requests outside the CLI or GUI if you're already authenticated on that machine. Won't work for all cases, but I've never ran into a limitation in my use case of not having an API key.
        1. LeBit · · focus · HN ↗
          I’ll look into this. But there is no universal solution. I find this to be quite limiting. I understand this is on purpose. If you want to automate, you need to pay more to have an api key.

          It’s a good thing we have access to those very cheap and useful Chinese models.

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