Cost
What running an app and an agent really costs — hosting, cloud dev environments, Claude plans — and how to keep the bill down.
10 posts
What Is "the Cloud"? Cloud Computing for Beginners
The cloud is other people's computers, rented by the minute. What cloud computing actually is, the difference between IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, what AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure sell, how cloud billing works, and how much of it a first app really needs.
What Is Rate Limiting? Protecting Your App From Too Many Requests
Rate limiting caps how many requests someone can make in a period. Why every public app needs it — for login forms, sign-ups, AI features, and APIs — how it works, what a 429 response means, where to add limits, and what to do when you hit someone else's.
What Are Tokens in AI? Why Your Usage Is Counted in Pieces of Words
AI models read and write in tokens, not words — and pricing, limits, and context windows are all measured in them. What a token is, roughly how many words it equals, input vs output tokens, why code uses more of them, and practical ways to use fewer.
VPS vs PaaS: Where Should a Small App Live?
A VPS is cheap and does whatever you tell it — including nothing when it breaks. A PaaS runs your app for you and bills you for the privilege, often by usage. What each one actually includes, what it quietly leaves to you, and how to decide for a side project, an AI-built app, or a small business.
How to Stop Bots From Running Up Your AI App's Bill
If your app calls an AI model on a user's behalf, every request costs you money — and a bot, a scraper, or one determined user can make thousands of them overnight. Rate limits, usage caps, provider spending limits, and the architecture that keeps a surprise bill from happening.
How to Keep Claude Code Costs Down (Without Making It Worse)
Claude Code usage is driven less by how much you ask and more by how much context every request carries. Where the tokens actually go, how to see them, and the habits that cut usage — clearing between tasks, picking the right model, trimming CLAUDE.md, and planning before building.
How Much Does It Cost to Run an App? A Realistic Monthly Budget
Hosting, database, domain, email, AI usage, storage, and the tools around them. What each costs for a small app, what's free, where surprise bills come from, and three example budgets — from a side project to a small business with paying customers.
How Much Does GitHub Codespaces Actually Cost?
Codespaces bills by the hour for compute and by the GB-month for storage, with a free allowance on personal accounts. How the meter works, three worked examples from occasional to full-time use, and the settings that stop the bill surprising you.
Claude Pro vs Max vs API Key for Claude Code: Which Should You Pay For?
Claude Code works with a Pro subscription, a Max subscription, or pay-as-you-go API billing. They're metered differently and suit different ways of working. How to choose, with a simple way to check your own usage.
The Real Cost of a Cloud Development Environment
Sticker price is the smallest part of what a cloud development environment costs — and the laptop it replaces was never free either. A model for working out whether the numbers actually favour you.