Justifying Claude Max with ccusage

I pay $200/month for Claude Max 10x and wanted to verify it’s actually saving me money. ccusage shows what I would have spent on API tokens: Even in June (lighter usage), API tokens would have cost more than the subscription. July shows why I’ll keep paying - I’m already at 6x the subscription cost. The numbers Claude Max 5x: $100/month Claude Max 20x: $200/month My June API usage: $246 My July API usage: $1,362 (and counting) Check your own usage npx ccusage@latest monthly Context I run a side business and bill clients for development work, which makes a $200/month tool easier to justify. With a fixed monthly cost, I never think “is this prompt worth it?” or “should I try a different approach?” I just build. No mental math on whether refactoring this feature will cost $0.50 or $5.00 in tokens. ...

People aren't using IDEs anymore by end of year

I just watched Mastering Claude Code in 30 minutes by Boris Cherny from Anthropic, which is an excellent overview if you haven’t tried it yet. He demonstrates the capabilities clearly and shows some useful examples. But this prediction caught my attention: “I think there’s a good chance that by the end of the year, people aren’t using IDEs anymore” That’s a bold timeline. When I’m not doing security consulting, I’m building software and Claude Code has transformed my workflow. Whether it’s Python, Swift, TypeScript, C#, or Go, I can prototype ideas faster than I could ever code them manually. The ability to rapidly prototype and discard has fundamentally changed how I develop. ...