Hitting $200 Claude and Codex rate limits: this GPT-6 + GLM 5.3 Flash combo costs 4x less

Cole Medin · youtube · 2026-09-24

Cole Medin exhausted both his $200 Claude and Codex plans while scaling his AI Software Factory of coding agents, and Opus 5.5 doesn't help nearly enough. His takeaway: you can't use the most powerful model for everything.

He built the same app three ways to find where top models matter. His favorite combo: GPT-6 Astra for planning and review, GLM 5.3 Flash for writing every line of code — about 4x cheaper with equally good results. The video covers a framework for when you need the best model, plus tooling like Neon's AI Gateway (at-cost open models), Pi, and Omnigent for mixing providers.

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