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Ask HN: ChatGPT or their API for costs consideration?

by freakynit on 2/17/25, 5:48 AM with 3 comments

I just did a small experiment:

I exported all my chatgpt conversations and calculated total costs I would have incurred were I using their API (gpt-4o) model.

My "total" costs, across all conversaitons from entire history of using it for almost 2 years, came out to just 34$!!! In the same time I have been paying them 20$/month, amounting to 20*20=400$!

I'm an average ChatGPT user using it mostly for ptogramming related tasks.

Here's the script I used to calculate (this is adapted from their own index.html file when you get exported chat data):

https://gist.github.com/freakynit/e8b2c173290f210a1cb7644a6e41752c

  • by stop50 on 2/17/25, 7:20 AM

    I can't judge the format, but everything else looks fine. The only thing that is concerning me is the filtering that looks a bit too strict in the inner loop.

  • by not_your_vase on 2/17/25, 5:54 AM

    What's the question?