Stop Burning Through Your AI Credits (Yes, Even With a Paid Account)

Hi friends! I hope everyone is having a great week. I'll be honest, mine started off a little frustrating. I was deep in a writing flow on Wednesday, using Claude to help me think through some newsletter automations, and then... I hit my dreaded usage limit. AKA come back in a few hours or upgrade to keep going.

Here's the thing: I pay $20/month for Claude Pro. I also pay $20/month for ChatGPT Plus. And I still run out of credits multiple times a week. When I attended a virtual AI workshop this week, I was thrilled to know that I was not the only one who ran into these problems.

So I took a deep dive into the credit and usage system, so you don’t have to, and I am excited to share my findings. Let’s get into it!

What's inside this week:

We Launched, and I'm Still Processing It

Okay, before we get into today's topic, I have to take a moment, because this week, AI Snack Club officially opened its doors, and over 100 ambitious women said YES and joined us as Founding Members, ah!!

I'm not going to lie, I've re-read that number several times. One hundred women who are committing to learning AI together, showing up for themselves, and building something alongside this community. It's the kind of thing that makes all the late nights and "is anyone even going to care about this?" moments so worth it.

And I have been absolutely LOVING seeing everyone post their Founding Member images online! Every time one pops up in my feed, I get a little burst of joy. I'm putting together a photo montage of all of them because you all are incredible!!

A few things coming up:

If you haven't joined yet, Founding Member pricing (50% off) is available through Friday, January 23rd. This is the lowest it will ever be. Lock in your spot here.

🦋 What Are Credits? And Why Do They Matter?

Here's what no one tells you when you sign up for a paid AI subscription: "unlimited" is marketing speak. Every AI tool runs on a credit system behind the scenes, even if they don't call it that. And understanding this has genuinely been a game-changer for me.

For Claude (Pro at $20/month): You get around 45 messages every 5 hours for regular conversations. But, there's also a weekly cap that resets every 7 days. So even if you pace yourself during the day, you can still hit a wall by Friday if you've been using it heavily all week. The newer, fancier model (Opus) burns through your quota WAY faster than the standard one (Sonnet). Anthropic recommends using Sonnet for everyday tasks because Opus drinks credits so fast.

For ChatGPT (Plus at $20/month): ChatGPT Plus now runs on the GPT-5 model family. You get around 150 messages every 3 hours for the standard model, though this varies based on system load. The Thinking mode (for complex reasoning) has separate, more restrictive limits. Deep Research is still limited to around 10 queries per month. Image generation caps are dynamic but generally around 50 images per 3 hours. When you hit your limit, you get downgraded to the mini model until your window resets.

The kicker is that these aren't just message counts. They're based on something called "tokens", basically, every word you write and every word the AI writes back costs tokens. Longer conversations = exponentially more expensive.

Pro Tip: Your 20th message in a chat costs way more than your first message because the AI is re-reading the entire conversation history each time. So, it’s actually better to start new chats more frequently.

🦋 Why Claude’s Opus 4.5 Is Different

When Anthropic released Opus 4.5 in November, it was genuinely impressive. This model scored 80.9% on a major coding benchmark (the first time any model broke 80%.) It's incredible for complex reasoning, debugging, and analysis.

But, one Opus conversation can consume as much quota as 10+ Sonnet conversations. Not so great.

And it gets worse. Opus uses something called "Extended Thinking", where it essentially reasons through problems before giving you an answer. You might see 200 words in the response, but you're actually paying for 1,200+ words of invisible thinking tokens.

🦋 7 Tips to Stop Burning Through Your Credits

After my deep dive, here's what actually works (specifically for Claude users):

1. Use Claude Sonnet for 80% of tasks. Most of what we do doesn't need Opus. Writing emails? Sonnet. Brainstorming? Sonnet. Quick questions? Definitely Sonnet. Save Opus for the complex stuff that requires deep reasoning.

2. Start new conversations more frequently. Every time you send a message, the AI re-reads your ENTIRE conversation history. For simple questions, start fresh instead of adding to a long thread.

3. Don't upload files unless you absolutely need them. When you upload a document, Claude re-reads all files with every message. One PDF + 10 messages = reading that PDF 10 times. Consider copy-pasting relevant sections instead.

4. Be specific upfront. Vague prompts lead to back-and-forth iterations. Each "try again" or "make it shorter" costs as much as your original message. Use my favorite tool: Prompt Cowboy, before asking Claude.

5. Batch your complex work. Instead of five separate Opus conversations throughout the week, batch your deep work into one or two focused sessions. This helps you stay within weekly limits.

6. Time your heavy usage around resets. Claude resets every 5 hours (session) and every 7 days (weekly). ChatGPT's 3-hour rolling window means your oldest messages "expire" and free up space. Here is an in-depth article on the hourly sessions.

7. Consider the Max plans for heavy use. If you're consistently hitting limits, Claude Max ($100/month) gives you 5x the Pro allocation, but $100 a month is a hefty price to pay if you are not using it to its fullest.

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