$200 a month gives access to $14,000 in tokens

Most of those who pay to use AI models do so with subscriptions. They take advantage of platforms like ChatGPT Plus either Claude Pro and with them they access an all-you-can-eat buffet that at first seems quite generous. Those who are in this modality surely have divided opinions: some will say that they immediately cross the limits and others that they almost never cross them.

They are both right.

Bargain subscriptions. The prestigious SemiAnalysis has carried out an investigation most curious. They signed up for Anthropic and OpenAI subscription plans and then tried to get the most out of them. The question they wanted to answer was simple: are they really profitable, or is it better to pay per use with the API? His conclusion is forceful: these subscriptions are an absolute bargain… if used well.

You pay 200 dollars in tokens, they give you 14,000. SemiAnalysis research took advantage of these subscription plans to execute complex programming tasks that also extended over time to exhaust the weekly usage limits of each account. Popular belief is that these plans have a consumption limit of about $2,000 (costing $200). However, their tests showed that Anthropic’s plan allowed them to consume $8,000 per month in API tokens. In the case of OpenAI, things were even better: they managed to consume the equivalent of $14,000 worth of tokens per month. The savings are simply amazing and make one thing clear: if you make the most of your subscription, it is almost a free gift.

The all-you-can-eat buffet trap. The figures make it clear that OpenAI and Anthropic are using the same model of business than that of gyms or free food buffets: users who do not go or eat little finance those who do not stop going and put on their boots. The technology companies are taking huge losses with the power users of AI that do not stop using these plans with autonomous agents that squeeze them.

Risk. But that group is balanced by many subscribers who pay the flat rate but only ask a handful of fairly simple questions each day. According to analyst Ed Zitron, that’s dangerous: it is enough for 25% of users to decide to squeeze those usage rates for the profit margins of these companies to be negative.

Price drop in sight. Coinciding with the study, in The Wall Street Journal they indicated this week how OpenAI is considering entering a price war by lowering the prices of its subscriptions. It could thus anticipate Anthropic—which could do the same—but for experts that could end badly. Gary Marcus explained that OpenAI is already surviving by creating hypeand a decision like that could go very badly for them.

The Ghost of DeepSeek. This hypothetical price war could also be motivated by the costs of Chinese models such as DeepSeek, which offers much of the capacity of GPT or Claude, but at a much lower cost. Opposite that, of course, are the APIs that allow payment per use and that both Anthropic and OpenAI are increasingly forcing. These APIs impose a surcharge of between 40x and 70x the price of the subscription tokens according to some experts.

Agents against subscription plans. What is threatening the future of these subscription plans are AI agents that are capable of completing complex tasks autonomously and in long sessions. These agents “burn” millions of tokens quickly, which is why both OpenAI and Anthropic limit (or ban) the use of their subscriptions to use them for example in OpenClaw. Amjad Masad, CEO of Replit, believe that the subscription tap will soon be closed in the face of these costs triggered by agentic AI.

“Intelligence” keeps getting cheaper. But in the face of all those realities that seem to threaten the end of AI subscriptions, there is a factor that can contribute to their survival. As they point out in SemiAnalysisthe market laws themselves are confirming that generating tokens is increasingly cheaper. Efficiency improves and the costs of producing tokens decrease, and they could do so at such a pace that in the end access to AI remains profitable for these free buffets.

Companies are subsidizing AI for us. All this leads to think that in many cases AI companies are subsidizing the use of their models. They do it by taking advantage of that scheme that only a few really take advantage of the subscription plans. The question is, of course, whether this situation has an expiration date.

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