For indie developers
A cheap LLM API without credit arithmetic.
Prototype for free, then pay a small fixed monthly price instead of forecasting every token before you know whether the product works.
Why flat pricing helps early products
Token metering is precise, but it adds uncertainty when prompts, response lengths, and user behavior are still changing. A $5 monthly plan gives small teams a predictable development line item.
What you still need to design
Unlimited billing does not remove the need for product-side safeguards. Add timeouts, sensible output limits, user-level abuse controls, and graceful empty states.
- Use streaming for perceived speed
- Cache deterministic work
- Do not expose server credentials in browsers
Start on the free tier
Twenty-five daily requests are enough to validate authentication, request shapes, streaming, and error handling before subscribing.