I’ve been paying $125/mo (promo pricing for the $250/mo tier) for Google’s top-tier “AI Ultra” subscription for about a month.
I signed up because I’m a power user. I manage large repos, build my own MCP tools, and live in the terminal. I assumed “Ultra” meant “Pro Developer.”
I was wrong. I downgraded to the $20/mo plan today. Here’s why other developers should probably avoid the top tier.
The “Double Pay” paradox
The subscription gives you:
The Web UI (Gemini Advanced)
30TB of storage
It gives you:
Zero API credits
If you use modern AI coding tools like Aider, Cursor, or your own CLI scripts, you still pay per-token for the API.
My bill:
$125/mo for the subscription
~$50/mo for API usage
Reality:
I was effectively donating $125/mo to Google for a Web UI I barely use, because I work in the CLI.
The “official” CLI is broken
I tried to use the official gemini-cli to avoid API costs. It’s unusable for agentic work.
There’s a known, persistent bug where the CLI crashes with a 400 Bad Request error whenever the model attempts parallel tool calling (a standard model feature).
Error:
“Please ensure that the number of function response parts is equal…”
The pricing only makes sense if you look at Google’s internal structure:
Google One wants to sell storage (30TB bundle)
Google Cloud wants to sell APIs (Vertex)
DeepMind wants to ship models
“AI Ultra” is a Franken-product stitched together by the storage team. There’s no billing concept for “individual developer who needs API credits,” so instead you’re forced to buy a data center’s worth of hard drives.
The feedback black hole
There’s no way to get this feedback to someone who can act on it. You can’t file a ticket that says “your pricing model ignores developers.” You just shout into a generic feedback form.
The fix: unbundle the intelligence
What’s needed is a real Developer Tier:
Give me: high API rate limits + API credits
Charge me: fairly for what I use
Until that exists, I’ve downgraded to the $20/mo plan and moved the rest of my AI budget to Anthropic.
Hinge Health | All Levels, Engineering & Product | Remote USA/Canada (office hubs also) | https://www.hingehealth.com/
Hinge Health is the leading provider of digital musculoskeletal therapy, basically we provide an app that enables exercise to improve conditions such as knee or back pain (it works, see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32208358/). We change people's lives for the better every day and we get to read their feedback.
We’re looking to hire full-time developers, across our stack, technologies we use are typescript, react, react-native, ruby on rails, node.js, python, and more -- ultimately we want to use the best tools for the job in a microservices environment.
We’re thriving as a business, valued at ~$6 billion during the last round of funding. Additionally we have SRE. QA engineer, hardware, embedded software eng, health coach, management, product and design positions available.
Hinge Health | All Levels, Engineering & Product | SF, South Bay, LA CA, Portland OR, Boulder/Denver CO, Austin TX, Minneapolis MN, Chicago IL, New York NY (WFH/REMOTE during pandemic) | https://www.hingehealth.com/
Hinge Health is the leading provider of digital musculoskeletal therapy, basically we provide an app that enables exercise to improve conditions such as knee or back pain (it works, see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32208358/). We change people's lives for the better every day and we get to read their feedback.
We’re looking to hire full-time developers, across our stack, technologies we use are typescript, react, react-native, ruby on rails, node.js, python, and more -- ultimately we want to use the best tools for the job in a microservices environment.
We’re thriving as a business, valued at ~$6 billion during the last round of funding. Additionally we have SRE. QA engineer, hardware, embedded software eng, health coach, management, product and design positions available.
Hinge Health | All Levels, Engineering & Product | SF, South Bay, LA CA, Portland OR, Boulder/Denver CO, Austin TX, Minneapolis MN, Chicago IL, New York NY (WFH/REMOTE during pandemic) | https://www.hingehealth.com/
Hinge Health is the leading provider of digital musculoskeletal therapy, basically we provide an app that enables exercise to improve conditions such as knee or back pain (it works, see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32208358/). We change people's lives for the better every day and we get to read their feedback.
We’re looking to hire full-time developers, across our stack, technologies we use are typescript, react, react-native, ruby on rails, node.js, python, and more -- ultimately we want to use the best tools for the job in a microservices environment.
We’re thriving as a business, valued at ~$6 billion during the last round of funding. Additionally we have SRE. QA engineer, hardware, embedded software eng, health coach, management, product and design positions available.
Am I in the right place here?
(so confused at google's plans and pricing)