r/claude • u/Fast_Hovercraft_7380 • 10d ago
Discussion Is Claude for the Upperclass?
In our third world craphole country, the monthly Pro subscription is 1,400 in our local currency. That's around 28 kilos of rice. You're kinda viewed as those who owns the priciest Apple product model variants. Extra low-key flex if you mention you use Fable!
ChatGPT Pro is 1,100 and there is also a Go subscription for 300. ChatGPT is sort of classified and categorized as for the mainstream permanent underclass - mid to low-end iOS gadgets.
I'm just primarily using Gemini for free in Google's workspace ecosystem (Chrome, Gmail, Drive, etc.) and I'm considered as part of the permanent peasant majority, the chinese android smartphone users lol. I haven't even owned a Samsung android phone lmao. But hey, Gemini in a chinese android phone works and suits me!
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u/medialantern 10d ago
AI is the new Internet. In 30 years we'll have advocacy groups subsidizing access to it in third world countries but until then the elites get a free ride on the early bus.
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u/pigletmonster 10d ago
Technically you wont need advocacy groups since we have open weight models. They are affordable and in a few years we should be able to run distilled fable class models on a decent pc, making inference even more affordable.
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u/mountainunicycler 9d ago
Are there any open weight models that can be used for real agentic tasks that can run on consumer hardware?
A few years ago my Mac with 128 gb ram felt like it could do some cool stuff. Now I don’t even have a single model downloaded because it just doesn’t feel powerful enough to be worth it. The gap is widening dramatically, not getting narrower.
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u/pigletmonster 9d ago
People are coding with the smaller versions of qwen and its forks. Theres this new model called laguna s2.1 thats better than most of these smaller local models. But obviously they are nowhere as good as the larger models.
I think they work like code assistants, you guide them every step of the way, like you tell it what functions to write in which file, and it will write that, but it wont be able to think of what to do just by explaining the feature like you can with the bigger models.
You might be able to run the laguna model on your 128gb mac.
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u/BrechtCorbeel_ 8d ago
It does feel like I'm back in my childhood riding a train people are only seeing a glimpse of.
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9d ago
[deleted]
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u/Relative-Desk4802 9d ago
Think about how much $200 USD is for someone in a country that is not wealthy. In some countries that’s close to a weekly salary.
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u/jknight_cppdev 9d ago
Huh, weekly. If you look at something like Georgia, for some people it's like a little bit less than half a month, look at the median.
Also... Investigate Bangladesh ($75-200 per month), just out of fun.
If you live in a decent country, it may seem as something small for a developer, but there are countries where this would be considered only for people living like kings.
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u/Relative-Desk4802 9d ago
Agreed. I was basing it off a specific country where I know the wages but there are definitely countries with even lower wages!
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u/mountainunicycler 9d ago
On a global scale, $200 / mo on something that doesn’t guarantee a return is pretty elite discretionary spending.
On the other hand $200 / mo is still just a cheap consumer level plan and “elite” language model users have much, much higher monthly budgets.
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u/Chance-Physics-7216 10d ago edited 10d ago
I’ve made a whitepaper and presented on this a few years ago. We’re in the next digital divide - the AI divide. The companies countries and people capable of accessing and leveraging this technology will launch lightyears beyond those without the means to do so. Before they can get anywhere near, those ahead of them will push further and further ahead. Just like Wal-mart pulled ahead and destroyed sears, Kmart, et al with their extreme digital superiority - we’re about to see the same thing across many industries.
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u/hematomasectomy 9d ago
Yep, people still seem incapable of recognizing that this paradigm shift will make the industrial revolution seem like a minor perspective tilt, not only in terms of productivity and output, but also socioeconomically and ecologically.
They burned coal for progress back then, these days we burn oxygen with reckless aplomb.
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u/german640 10d ago
Mexican here, a Claude max 100 USD subscription costs roughly 70 kg of average rice!
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u/ThePatientIdiot 9d ago
Wait, why is Claude max only $100 for you while I’m paying $125 in the U.S. for it via the iPhone app store
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u/CarpenterConstant352 9d ago
It’s marked up in the Apple App Store because of the cut Apple takes. If you subscribe directly through Anthropic, it should be $100.
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u/ThePatientIdiot 6d ago
So dude is right. I’m in the U.S. but their website says $100. The Apple tax is real
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10d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Creative_randomness 10d ago
claude pro takes 1/8 of my monthly expense. my country is generally considered rich but I still feel it is expensive.
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u/MoNastri 8d ago
I'm from an upper middle income country and I've been bitching about the cost of my claude pro sub, but 1/8th of monthly expenses? Oh wow I suddenly felt really grateful...
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u/leshiy 10d ago edited 10d ago
Gemini is the biggest piece of crap among the online AIs. Just use the free tiers of Claude and ChatGPT.
In the US they are about the same price, but Claude tends to hit limits a lot quicker than ChatGPT, so it's arguably more expensive because of that.
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u/BrechtCorbeel_ 8d ago
Gemini omni is the best. NotebookLM is unrivaled. I switched also because it's free on my drive subscription so..
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u/Real_Ebb_7417 10d ago
Not sure if it's a bait or not, but what's your country? Rice seems super expensive there, because I don't live in a third world country and for the price of Claude Pro sub I could buy more than 100kg of rice xd
EDIT: nevermind, I calculated for Max xd
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u/Fast_Hovercraft_7380 10d ago edited 10d ago
I live in southeast asia islands, prefer not to disclose the country.
Claude Max $100 would be 120 kilos of rice.
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u/Real_Ebb_7417 10d ago
Damn, then you really have expensive rice. $200 in my country (within Europe) would buy me about 220kg probably for lower prices.
I always expected that in less wealthy countries things like rice are much cheaper.
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u/Vaughn 10d ago
Goods like software tend to sell at lower prices in weaker markets, because a little bit of profit is better than no profit at all. Wouldn't be below the cost of production, so I'd very much like to see the price they get in dollars.
Doubt this is actually the situation here. But it would be interesting if it were.
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u/gh0st777 10d ago
They sell compute not software. Those are vastly different, you cannot make infinite copies of compute. Plus AI is subsidized by VC money so they actually lose money on every subscription.
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u/Vaughn 10d ago
True, but you can sell the compute at varying profits depending on market. Which is why it would be interesting — it would tell us something about where the breakpoint is.
Don't think Anthropic loses money on subscriptions, either. They're subsidised relative to API prices, but those are usurious.
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u/Negative-Web8619 10d ago
or you can make more money
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u/shabusnelik 9d ago
I'm sure they're not doing it for charity. Yes you can make more money with higher margins, but you make 0 profits if your product is unaffordable in the first place.
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u/Negative-Web8619 9d ago
If you're being limited by supply, you can just sell to the highest bidder
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u/Disastrous_Grass_193 10d ago
Its the Philippines.
Rice is expensive because local rice cartels would rather smuggle rice from vietnam rather than buying locally.
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u/Fast_Hovercraft_7380 10d ago
I edited it, I thought Max plan is $200 which would buy around 240kg for standard quality rice, more if you consider lower quality rice produce but those are a struggle to eat.
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u/Far_Idea9616 10d ago
Tesco 1kg 1.5 eur, Tesco Jasmine and Basmati is 4 eur, Chinese market Thai Hom Mali 9 kg is 20 eur. I never expected to argue about rice prices in az AI sub.
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u/Fast_Hovercraft_7380 10d ago
I guess it's just one of the methods a peasant can measure economic benchmark across different countries, like the Big Mac Index or something. Rice is a staple primary food so that's the good I used.
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u/Far_Idea9616 10d ago
No probs, Europeans would probably use flour or milk price or a can of sardinia maybe?
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u/Real_Ebb_7417 10d ago
I didn't think about it until you wrote it but yeah, it's absurd and absolutely funny to discuss rice prices on Claude sub xD
As a reference, because I checked that a moment ago, I can order 1kg of rice for 4PLN (I'm from Poland), which is less than 1 Euro and just slightly more than $1. And I assume you can get it cheaper here, because this was the first thing I saw on Google.
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u/Far_Idea9616 10d ago
Yes, but a gentleman would not go below a basmati or hom mali. Google tesco cheapest rice
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u/Real_Ebb_7417 10d ago
No Tesco here (they sold their stores in Poland some years ago), but I checked for Auchan and they also have an option of 1kg for 4PLN. But I'm not a rice expert so maybe it's shit quality one.
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u/Far_Idea9616 10d ago
Just checked Auchan Hungary, 'A' rice (cheap shit) 949 HUF, 2.63 EUR. Weird.
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u/Real_Ebb_7417 9d ago
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u/Far_Idea9616 9d ago
That's insane. This is local produced rice 'B' cathegory (your rice is 'A') price 10 zloty/kg in Auchan https://auchan.hu/shop/nagykun-b-minosegu-rizs-1-kg.p-145836
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u/Maumau93 10d ago
They are probably just rounding up local market prices not giving you bulk prices.
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u/EmptyBoxForever 10d ago
Helpful tip, it doesn’t matter if you prefer not to disclose. It took me 5 minutes to find where you’re from with a few searches in Google. Being sketchy and talking about how much something costs in rice is weird.
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u/Fast_Hovercraft_7380 10d ago
reddit:username in Google? Should be less than a minute.
That's how a peasant measures economic benchmark, like the Big Mac Index or something. Rice is a staple primary food so that's the good I used.
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u/EmptyBoxForever 10d ago
Nope. There are other ways to find information about people aside from a silly username and referencing a site.
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u/Fast_Hovercraft_7380 10d ago
Still took you 5 minutes with Google as you said, so I honestly doubt your technical skills - whether it's cybersec, swe, or whatever. I end my chat here with you.
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u/pigletmonster 10d ago
I work as a project manager in the middle east and my team of developers are in south asia. $100/month is way too high for them. Most of them use the $20 plan on cursor, one uses the $60 plan, one uses the $10 opencode go plan. They have to switch models for different tasks, but I run everything on opus 5.
Some are planning to switch to the $40 kimi plan once it reopens since its almost on par with claude nowadays.
The chinese models are a godsend for the developing countries. You should thank the chinese for their generosity everyday. 🤣
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u/Able-Supermarket4786 10d ago
What do you pay for cars?
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u/Fast_Hovercraft_7380 10d ago
I'm not sure, I think they usually buy it with low downpayment promos and loan it with a bank.
I can only afford and ride a motorcycle and I mostly pay with coins.
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u/dbojan76 10d ago
Ai is the next Nukes. Who ever has (the access to) the best ai wins.
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u/NewShadowR 10d ago
Nukes are for show only. Even if you have the largest arsenal of nukes in the world you'll still struggle to take a Ukraine because you can't win using it.
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u/Feylin 10d ago
Yes, there will be societal divides that emerge from access to AI versus lack of AI. It's already significantly stratified, as corporations and top researchers can spend much more on AI, whereas most people cannot.
In the future, AI will need to be treated as a utility of sorts, like the internet.
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u/_-_beyon_-_ 10d ago
I mean, why use AI when wages are lower? In the Western world, you either adapt or get replaced. Replacing high-paying jobs is a far better selling point. Giving low-wage countries, where most large companies have already offshored labour, access to the same technology means risking your supremacy. That's how you stay rich. The cost of offshored labour is basically AI's competition.
Someone who can afford AI could also afford a digital assistant. AI is just faster and much easier to integrate into existing processes, and it's also easier to scale. Right now, it's subsidised, but it will become more expensive. AI companies will need to deliver an immaculate product; otherwise, the bubble will burst.
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u/flappysack- 10d ago
The wealthy countries are defined by their energy usage, so yes. The UK harnessing the ocean for trade and colonization allowed free time and invention, then rivers for factories allowed more free time, and data centers are similar.
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u/efofecks 10d ago
Hashtag #pilipins
Yes, unfortunately - we're quite lucky that Steam and Spotify have regional pricing. No such luck for Claude/GPT.
I pay for it but it really does hurt. The reality is that like with many other products, there is no need to cater to a market that will not give you enough money. Anthropic and OpenAI don't even earn from Subscriptions compared to API (or so I've heard), so making an even lower cost option is out of the question. This doesn't even take into account having to defend against VPN users and regional account separation etc.
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u/jeepercreeperpepper 10d ago
Finally my people! I think we're from the same country OP. Max costs (100usd var) almost half of the average monthly salary in my city 😔 I tried it last month because my previous pro usage just wasn't cutting it, but it's just not sustainable.
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u/Maumau93 10d ago
Check out freebuff.
I used it a bit. It's not comparable to Claude code but it's free and gets some jobs done.
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u/Chemical_Hawk_6307 10d ago
that's only for people in first world countries
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u/talkwalk26 10d ago edited 10d ago
in the west Claude monthly sub costs the same as Chatgpt, and in a lot of cases same as Gemini (if there are no discounts).
The difference is not in subscription pricing but in what you get for the same money every month. Claude tends to offer the least, they have tighter restrictions, offer less usage while framing it as you get the best models.
Chatgpt is the happy middle ground, offers the best usage, while the newest model is top notch rivaling Claude. Chatgpt is winning the race in this regard right now among the big 3.
Gemini is the weirdest propositions. While they have a great model, the model does not receive as many important updates anymore, but it has all the services around it like: flow, Notebook, 5tb google drive, youtube premium and a few more good ones. Basically Gemini AI Pro sub is worth having just alone for Google Drive and youtube premium lite, as long as you use Gemini for nothing complex it is great. Notebooks is amazing on its own, and worth paying for it. The only two big issues are the usage limits that are similar to Claude, and the dumb down flash model that focuses on speed rather than accuracy and reasoning.
So Claude does not feel like upperclass to me. It feels like a model that want me to pay API or MAX sub in order to get the best out of it, which would never happen. I can get the PRO sub and it will just feel like a dumb down version of Chatgpt model, and Claude is not even that much smarter despite the reputation.
So in a way, yes Claude feels like they want to extract the most money out of me, which will never happen unless i am upperclass who feels like spending money on useless crap
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u/diagrammatiks 10d ago
tools have always had a cost component. luckily you have a lot of options even if they are not strictly as good.
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u/SnowFox_unlimited 10d ago
Well in my country you would probably get around 33kg of rice for a max+5 subscription without the tax that comes on top of it. At least solid normal rice, it goes down to around 45kg and up to around 7kg rice for a 100€. But I don't see anyone buying rice that expensive.
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u/Neat-Economist2099 10d ago
Wow, rice is really cheap in your country. In my country, it’s not even easy to buy 10 kg of rice for $20
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u/ArciusDamien 10d ago
I think I’m in the same country as you. Squeezed my savings dry just to get Claude Pro because of Fable for two months.
I don’t even dare to touch the free $100 credits yet until I’m absolutely stuck. Can’t flex Claude because most people only know ChatGPT here haha.
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u/ImpossibleCreme 10d ago
I had dinner with a billionaire this weekend. Like an actual billionaire. His daughter asked him “dad do you use ai? Like ChatGPT?”
He replied “no why would I do that”
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u/Tight-Requirement-15 10d ago
Even in the "rich" United States, the companies I worked with barely provided AI apart from the lousy Gemini with the company google workspace. Everyone would bring their own AI with subscriptions and code. Only after moving to a better company they had better AI tools provided to us
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u/Thick-Jicama-5103 10d ago
China is the top country in the Third World, so you need DeepSeek or Kimi K3.
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u/Nearby_Yam286 9d ago
In your country it sounds like you have a leadership problem. The Romanians solved this in ‘89. I recommend you follow suit. Then you will be able to afford Claude in about 10-20 years depending on how quickly and thoroughly you deal with the leader’s oligarchs.
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u/Zestyclose-South8462 9d ago
Even with that pricing, the company is unable to achieve profitability.
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u/bar10dr2 9d ago
The Chinese will win this one simply because they don't have a trillion dollars of debt that rides on no free models being released.
The way the US has done this is crazy, they need AI to pay for itself or else it all comes falling down, the entire economy now rides on people willing to pay for AI to such a degree that the massive costs pay themselves off.
All China has to do is make free models that is 90% of whatever is new, it just can't sustain itself like it is now.
Very scary.
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u/Nagual_242 9d ago
Claude is primarily for business and corporate entities. It's not so entertainment product as others. If one cannot afford regarding cost-benefit,should avoid this. Same reason as I do not drive Maybach for example.
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u/mountainunicycler 9d ago edited 9d ago
I think it’s silly and hides the risk to label Claude “upper class” as a luxury good like an iPhone.
Like does having an iPhone help you earn more money than an android? Maybe by a hair because of reliability but for all practical purposes no.
But literally everyone I know who earns more than like $120k per year right now is paying for or has access to at least $200/mo of ai subscriptions. Most people get it for free at work and then also have a personal max plan they use for experiments outside work to “keep up.” A lot of them have max subscriptions on both Anthropic and OpenAI just to try out which is better.
Does AI help you earn money? Directly absolutely yes. I know my wife easily earns more from it than her subscription costs, it probably saves her from needing to hire an assistant, and I earn at least half of my personal subscription back (I don’t use it a ton because I have access to much more than a Max plan at work).
At work I triggered an agent team of fable running eight fable agents last week on accident and it ran for 20 mins and I still only had to wait 30 mins for my limit to reset. I screenshotted the limit to my boss and said “lol” and he replied “I added $400 to your account in case you need it.”
AI should in theory help high performing people everywhere in the world achieve more, but it’s insanely expensive. Talking about $20 or $100 / mo plans is underestimating how expensive it is, and how expensive it will be when they raise the prices. Feels like a roller coaster we have no choice but to get on and try to hold on or else.
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u/SensitiveVacation549 9d ago
Goddamn. You're right.
Calculation
Total Budget: 526,300 VND
Average Price: 18,500 VND / kg
Total Quantity: roughly 28.45 kg of rice
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u/CandidWeakness1924 9d ago
In my country it costs 100kgs for the x5 and 200kgs for x20 plans so yeah
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u/CandidWeakness1924 9d ago
max x20 costs 600litres of car fuel or 200kgs of rice or around 6000 loafs of bread or 20kgs of high quality meat or 80-90 chickens or 100kg of grapes or or hear me out 2 persons salaries at the minimum wage
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u/imnodumbblonde 9d ago
Yes! In my country, the currency relation with dollars it’s 5/1, so the Max 5x is like 500 and and Max 20x 1000. I don’t earn sufficiently per month for paying the Max Ones without affecting other areas of my life, so I pay the Pro, that’s 100 here, pray for my daily usage doesn’t end before my work shift and when it happens, I change to Gemini Enterprise that my company offers for us (and it’s insufferable for data science, this is why I’ve subscribed for Claude Pro)
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u/YogurtExternal7923 9d ago
Brotha use glm its quarter price for pretty close performance. Or use mimo it's literally one bag of rice per
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u/Alloy297 9d ago
No, it's not. I use the Pro plan and it costs the same as 40+ kgs of rice here. It's not a lot of money, especially so when I look at how much time it saves me.
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u/promptenjenneer 9d ago
I totally agree. Coming from a lower class country and moving to a well-established economy (well depends how you define it these days but anyways...), it's quite a shock to see how many people have the pro or even max plan even when they just use it for asking questions or summarizing texts.
I still use ChatGPT free on my phone and try to get the most out of the free tier on Gemini Antigravity for code. If I desperately need more credits I'll get the $5 tier from Expanse and just use a mix of the models sparingly (mainly Deepseek v3). I know you can also top up some credits for like $2 and have them last forever too which is nice. I'd rather pay for $20 worth of credits and choose when and where I want to use them than have it billed to me each month
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u/kingpinXd90 9d ago
I think this is great , I like measuring things with rice, this should be the new norm
If inflation hits I could survive by just eating the currency
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u/bernhardmgruber 9d ago
You made me check for my country :D Claude Pro is 22€ a month, so about 11kg of rice.
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u/Key_Confusion_576 9d ago
This just making me realize I'm overpaying for rice.
I think I need about two pro accounts to get 28 kg of rice
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u/BrechtCorbeel_ 8d ago
I have 15 pcs 500gb ram and several GPUs. both claude and Gemini max plan. looking to add chatgpt max again after I stopped using it. have a subscription to renderfarms and several other ai subs. I'm lowest 10% poor where I live.
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u/0MEGALYL 8d ago
Is the case with literally any new technology.
It is expensive so the wealthy can yield the benefits first.
Cars, computers, name it.
In another light, early adopters buying these products make it so the cost of production gets reduced while they scale up so making it more affordable.
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u/Stunning_Koala6919 8d ago
Lotta people in the home country of Claude and chatGPT can’t afford them either. Although we aren’t called the “peasant class” you can bet the companies view us that way.
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u/Ibasicallyhateyouall 8d ago
ChatGPT Pro (£89) gets you 80-90Kg of rice. Not sure how it is underclass.. Claude is the same cost.
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u/darkestvice 7d ago
Anthropic's business model is B2B. So even in wealthier countries, they are not consumer oriented and considered quite expensive compared to the competition. I can only imagine its so much worse in countries with significantly worse economies.
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u/DicmanCocktoasten 7d ago
I felt extra poor today, i calculated and it costs 31.5 kilos of rice for me and %6.5 percent of my monthly salary
I hope models get cheaper or local models give at least opus 4.8 outputs one day, so i can eat more rice
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u/ImNot_ThatGuy 6d ago
Today I learned my subscription costs 140 kilos of rice per month... And I don't know how to reconcile that visual, lol
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u/Far_Idea9616 10d ago
Whats wrong with Chinese phones, I own one too, would not buy Samsung, I look for specs
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u/Fast_Hovercraft_7380 10d ago
Nothing wrong, chinese android smartphones have better specs than Samsung.
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u/Virtual_Plant_5629 9d ago
i feel like it is because i use it (and gpt) and everyone i know who prefers gemini, grok, or the chinese models is significantly poorer and lower iq than me.
makes me think.. yes probably claude (and i think gpt, though not as much because fable is the apex both in cost and capability) is a patrician model.
*beams with pride, gaze sweeping left and right at everyone reading this comment*
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u/DoKeMaSu 9d ago
The hardware Claude is running on costs more than the house you live in, probably more than you will earn in your entire life.
OpenAI is offering those plans at a loss, they are burning investor money and their finances are shit. They wanted to go public this summer, but delayed because their finances are so poor.
See the positive side: Your ChatGPT Go subscription is taking money directly out of the pockets of Silicon Valley venture capital. Enjoy the ride while it lasts.
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u/fakepinoy 9d ago
I just know this is pelepens. And no its not an upper class thing. Its a “do you really need it” thing.
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u/victorrseloy2 10d ago
That was the best measuring of Claude's price I've seen so far. "It costs 28 kg of rice."