How the money works
Using AI costs real money to run, and most products hide that from you. I'd rather explain the whole thing like we're neighbors leaning on a fence. It takes nine little pictures.
One time. The whole machine, parked in your driveway forever, in plain files on your own computer. Nobody can repossess it.
A full tank on the 1st of every month, and the car keeps getting upgrades: new parts in the catalog, a better engine when one comes out. Nothing else to sign up for, ever.
A fuel gauge on the dash: at a quarter tank, the app tells you. Run it dry and nothing breaks; the car just parks itself until the 1st. There is no meter running.
Put a lot of miles on it? Your subscription goes from a month to — twice the gas for well under twice the price. Heavy drivers are my favorite customers. It means the thing is working.
I could run this on premium, the top-shelf AI people pay $200 a month for. Instead I built an efficient engine that runs beautifully on regular unleaded, at a quarter of the price. Same trip, same destination. That's why it costs this little. (And if regular ever spikes, I just switch stations. The engine runs on any of them.)
Already paying for your own AI subscription? Flip a switch in settings and run the car on your own supply: more privacy, the exact AI model you're used to working with, your own gas, same everything. (The a month stays; it's what lets you start the engine.)
Photos are like towing a trailer: they burn gas fast. Throw a few at it whenever you like; if you're dumping in a camera roll every day, you'll want the bigger tank.
Everyone on the team gets a tank, and the tanks share. Nobody's gas strands, nobody starves. A heavy month for one person borrows from a light month for another.
Stop paying and the car stays yours, parked in the garage until you re-subscribe. Your files are plain files on your own computer: readable forever, seat or no seat. Come back anytime; the mechanic catches you up same-day.