# What it costs, and how to avoid surprises

> Building your first apps requires one paid subscription—your coding agent—while GitHub, Vercel Hobby, Neon and Sentry start on free tiers, and any AI features inside your app use prepaid credit with daily spend caps and separate low-limit development keys so you never face a surprise bill.

## Analogy

Think of a prepaid mobile plan with a daily limit instead of an open tab. You decide upfront how much credit to load, set a hard ceiling per day, and get a text alert long before the balance runs low.

## How it works

Your only fixed monthly bill when starting out is your coding-agent subscription (such as Claude Pro or higher). Everything else you need for a personal project starts free: **GitHub** stores your repo for free, **vercel Hobby** hosts personal, non-commercial sites for free (switch to Pro when you charge money or run a commercial project), and both **Neon** (database) and **Sentry** (error alerts) offer generous free plans.

Each app gets only the pieces it needs: if your app doesn't store data between visits, you don't open a Neon account; if it doesn't have AI features, you don't pay for an AI provider. You can review the full breakdown at any time on the [What it costs](@costs) page.

When your app does call an AI model, you avoid open-ended bills in four ways: (1) load prepaid credit on **Tokentide** (starting from $10, which never expires) and **Vercel AI Gateway**; (2) turn on a **daily spend cap** and email alerts in each dashboard; (3) create a **separate low-cap api-key** for `.env.local` on your computer so a local loop can't touch your Production budget; and (4) set `max_completion_tokens` and a rate-limit on every AI endpoint.

## In your project

Your agent always asks your permission before installing paid services or spending money. When a project uses AI, your agent adds `max_completion_tokens`, rate limits, and server logs that record `X-Tokentide-Charge-USD` so you can see the exact cost of each request.

## Copy for your agent

```text
Review my project and list every external service it uses or plans to use, whether each one is on a free tier or paid, and what caps and rate limits we have in code to prevent unexpected spend.
```

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Source: [Agentic Makers](https://agenticmakers.app/en/learn/what-it-costs) · License: CC BY 4.0