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No, it doesn't cost Anthropic $5k per Claude Code user

martinalderson.com

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Re: No, it doesn't cost Anthropic $5k per Claude Code user

#81

Post by nbardy »

Bolwin wrote: post #29
ymaws wrote: post #8

How confident are you in the opus 4.6 model size? I've always assumed it was a beefier model with more active params that Qwen397B (17B active on the forward pass)

Yeah that's a massive assumption they're making. I remember musk revealed Grok was multiple trillion parameters. I find it likely Opus is larger. I'm sure Anthropic is making money off the API but I highly doubt it's 90% profit margins.

You can estimate on tok/second

The Trillions of parameters claim is about the pretraining.

It’s most efficient in pre training to train the biggest models possible. You get sample efficiency increase for each parameter increase.

However those models end up very sparse and incredibly distillable.

And it’s way too expensive and slow to serve models that size so they are distilled down a lot.

Re: No, it doesn't cost Anthropic $5k per Claude Code user

#82

Post by himata4113 »

What people don't realize is that cache is *free*, well not free, but compared to the compute required to recompute it? Relatively free.

If you remove the cached token cost from pricing the overall api usage drops from around $5000 to $800 (or $200 per week) on the $200 max subscription. Still 4x cheaper over API, but not costing money either - if I had to guess it's break even as the compute is most likely going idle otherwise.

Re: No, it doesn't cost Anthropic $5k per Claude Code user

#83

Post by eru »

himata4113 wrote: post #82

What people don't realize is that cache is *free*, well not free, but compared to the compute required to recompute it? Relatively free. If you remove the cached token cost from pricing the overall api usage drops from around $5000 to $800 (or $200 per week) on the $200 max subscription. Still 4x cheaper over API, but not costing money either - if I had to guess it's break even as the compute is most likely going idl…

> [...] if I had to guess it's break even as the compute is most likely going idle otherwise.

Why would it go idle? It would go to their next best use. At least they could help with model training or let their researchers run experiments etc.

Re: No, it doesn't cost Anthropic $5k per Claude Code user

#84

Post by eru »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #38
eaglelamp wrote: post #31

If Anthropic's compute is fully saturated then the Claude code power users do represent an opportunity cost to Anthropic much closer to $5,000 then $500. Anthropic's models may be similar in parameter size to model's on open router, but none of the others are in the headlines nearly as much (especially recently) so the comparison is extremely flawed. The argument in this article is like comparing the cost of a Rolex…

But opportunity cost is not actual cost. “If everyone just kept paying but used our service less we would be more profitable” is true, but not in any meaningful way. Are Anthropic currently unable to sell subscriptions because they don’t have capacity?

Opportunity costs are real. In many cases they are more real than 'actual costs'. However, I otherwise agree with you.

Re: No, it doesn't cost Anthropic $5k per Claude Code user

#85

Post by eru »

KronisLV wrote: post #46
eaglelamp wrote: post #31

If Anthropic's compute is fully saturated then the Claude code power users do represent an opportunity cost to Anthropic much closer to $5,000 then $500. Anthropic's models may be similar in parameter size to model's on open router, but none of the others are in the headlines nearly as much (especially recently) so the comparison is extremely flawed. The argument in this article is like comparing the cost of a Rolex…

Don’t give them any ideas, please! I need my 100 USD subscription with generous Opus usage!

Google's Antigravity has Opus access, and I suspect it's subsidised.

Re: No, it doesn't cost Anthropic $5k per Claude Code user

#86

Post by eru »

fragmede wrote: post #76
NooneAtAll3 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The argument in this article is like comparing the cost of a Rolex to a random brand of mechanical watch on gear count I mean... rolex is overpriced brand whose cost to consumers is mainly just marketting in itself. Its production cost is nowhere close to selling price and looking at gears is fair way of evaluating that

> production cost is nowhere close to selling price When has production cost had anything to do with selling price?

Not directly. But if production cost is above selling price, you typically tend to get less production. And if production cost is (way) below selling price, that tends to invite competition.

Re: No, it doesn't cost Anthropic $5k per Claude Code user

#87

Post by himata4113 »

eru wrote: post #83
himata4113 wrote: post #82

What people don't realize is that cache is *free*, well not free, but compared to the compute required to recompute it? Relatively free. If you remove the cached token cost from pricing the overall api usage drops from around $5000 to $800 (or $200 per week) on the $200 max subscription. Still 4x cheaper over API, but not costing money either - if I had to guess it's break even as the compute is most likely going idl…

> [...] if I had to guess it's break even as the compute is most likely going idle otherwise. Why would it go idle? It would go to their next best use. At least they could help with model training or let their researchers run experiments etc.

inference compute is vastly different versus training, also it has to stay hot in vram which probably takes up most of it. There is limited use for THAT much compute as well, they are running things like claude code compiler and even then they're scratching the surface of the amount of compute they have.

Training currently requires nvidia's latest and greatest for the best models (they also use google TPU's now which are also technically the latest and greatest? However, they're more of a dual purpose than anything afaik so that would be a correct assesment in that case)

Inference can run on a hot potato if you really put your mind to it

Re: No, it doesn't cost Anthropic $5k per Claude Code user

#88

Post by eru »

himata4113 wrote: post #87
eru wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] if I had to guess it's break even as the compute is most likely going idle otherwise. Why would it go idle? It would go to their next best use. At least they could help with model training or let their researchers run experiments etc.

inference compute is vastly different versus training, also it has to stay hot in vram which probably takes up most of it. There is limited use for THAT much compute as well, they are running things like claude code compiler and even then they're scratching the surface of the amount of compute they have. Training currently requires nvidia's latest and greatest for the best models (they also use google TPU's now which…

They can run any number of inference experiments. Like a lot of the alignment work they have going on.

I am not saying this would be a great use of their compute, but idle is far from the only alternative. (Unless electricity is the binding constraint?)

Re: No, it doesn't cost Anthropic $5k per Claude Code user

#89

Post by MaxikCZ »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #38
eaglelamp wrote: post #31

If Anthropic's compute is fully saturated then the Claude code power users do represent an opportunity cost to Anthropic much closer to $5,000 then $500. Anthropic's models may be similar in parameter size to model's on open router, but none of the others are in the headlines nearly as much (especially recently) so the comparison is extremely flawed. The argument in this article is like comparing the cost of a Rolex…

But opportunity cost is not actual cost. “If everyone just kept paying but used our service less we would be more profitable” is true, but not in any meaningful way. Are Anthropic currently unable to sell subscriptions because they don’t have capacity?

> Are Anthropic currently unable to sell subscriptions because they don’t have capacity?

Absolutely! Im currently paying $170 to google to use Opus in antigravity without limit in full agent mode, because I tried Anthropic $20 subscription and busted my limit within a single prompt. Im not gonna pay them $200 only to find out I hit the limit after 20 or even 50 prompts.

And after 2 more months my price is going to double to over $300, and I still have no intention of even trying the 20x Max plan, if its really just 20x more prompts than Pro.

Re: No, it doesn't cost Anthropic $5k per Claude Code user

#90

Post by himata4113 »

eru wrote: post #88
himata4113 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

inference compute is vastly different versus training, also it has to stay hot in vram which probably takes up most of it. There is limited use for THAT much compute as well, they are running things like claude code compiler and even then they're scratching the surface of the amount of compute they have. Training currently requires nvidia's latest and greatest for the best models (they also use google TPU's now which…

They can run any number of inference experiments. Like a lot of the alignment work they have going on. I am not saying this would be a great use of their compute, but idle is far from the only alternative. (Unless electricity is the binding constraint?)

Electricity is charged whenever you use it or not, so very unlikely, but sure, they can find uses for it. Although they are not going to make that much money compared to claude code subscriptions.
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