Vendor-neutral · Beginner · 5 lessons · about 35 minutes · updated 2026-09-12
Am I Overpaying for AI? 10 Real Spending Scenarios
Ten people, ten bills, ten verdicts. Each one is a real shape of AI spending; you pick the cheapest option that still does the job, then see the arithmetic.
For anyone paying for AI who has a nagging feeling the number is wrong: a subscription that renews unexamined, a model chosen by reputation, seats nobody uses. No technical background needed; every verdict is a multiplication you can check.
Course outline
- 1Scenarios 1 and 2: the $200 seat and the student paying twiceA solo writer on ChatGPT Pro at $200 a month and a student paying for both ChatGPT Plus and Claude Pro. Both are overpaying by a clear multiple; work out the cheapest plan that still does each job.7 min · 3 objectives
- 2Scenarios 3 and 4: a flagship for boilerplate and a team of five on PlusA developer running Claude Opus 5 for routine boilerplate and a team of five deciding between individual Plus seats and Business at $25. One is a 5× overpay; the other depends on a question most teams never ask.7 min · 3 objectives
- 3Scenarios 5 and 6: GPT-5.5 for classification and the researcher paying twiceA small business classifying 50,000 support messages a month on GPT-5.5, and a researcher paying for both Perplexity Pro and ChatGPT Plus. One is a 25× overpay; the other is two subscriptions for one search habit.7 min · 3 objectives
- 4Scenarios 7 and 8: Cursor Pro plus Claude Pro, and an agent loop on a flagshipA developer paying for Cursor Pro and Claude Pro, and a team running every step of an agent loop on a flagship model. One is a $240-a-year overlap; the other is the shape of overspend that grows with every step.7 min · 3 objectives
- 5Scenarios 9 and 10: Google AI Ultra for chat and the founder's three empty seatsSomeone on Google AI Ultra at $249 who only chats, and a founder paying for eight seats when five people log in. The last lesson, and the one-minute audit you can run on your own bill.7 min · 3 objectives
Frequently asked
Am I overpaying for AI?
If any of the ten scenarios sounds like you, yes. The shapes repeat: the top plan bought for a ceiling you never reach, two subscriptions doing one job, a flagship model on routine work, an agent loop on a flagship at every step, and seats nobody uses. Each lesson prices the fix.
Where do the prices in this course come from?
From the site's live catalogue as of 2026-09-12: subscription prices from the vendors' plan pages and API rates in dollars per million tokens. They move, so the arithmetic is shown in full for you to re-run with current numbers.
Does this course tell me to cancel everything?
No. In every scenario the verdict keeps a paid plan where it does a real job: a $20 seat for a daily writer, Business seats where data terms matter, a flagship for the tenth ticket the cheap model fails. The overpay is always the part that does no work.
How do I check my own spending?
Lesson 5 ends with a one-minute audit prompt you can run on any free tier, and a flow into the decision engine and the calculator. List every charge, match it to a job, price the job, pick the cheapest option that passes, and recheck monthly.