Cost vs. Value

Perspective on costs: If Claude Code saves you meaningful time on a task, the API cost is usually negligible compared to your hourly rate. Don't over-optimize for token costs at the expense of productivity.

When to optimize:

• ✅ You're on a tight budget (student, hobbyist)
• ✅ High-volume usage (>4 hours/day)
• ✅ Team usage (5+ developers)

When NOT to optimize:

• ❌ Your time is more expensive than API costs
• ❌ You're spending more time optimizing than the savings
• ❌ Optimization hurts productivity (being too restrictive)