How I Use all the Top-Tier AI Models Without Spending a Cent

I use AI extensively for coding. Most modern editors or IDEs with integrated AI provide an Agent mode. This is the "I do whatever is necessary with your codebase" mode. The AI creates, modifies, and deletes files and directories, and executes commands. It works as if a human programmer were coding for me.

When I use AI to generate large volumes of code—especially with the best available models—the cost adds up quickly. In four days, I can consume my €20 budget, which normally lasts a month. That's expensive! The ideal solution would be to use the best models at a fraction of the cost or even for free.

I discovered an article about prompting that listed sites offering generous free tiers for top models. Here is the list I've curated, sorted from most to least frequently used:

The trade-off, however, is reduced convenience compared to using AI directly in an IDE. I need to switch between tabs and manually include code from files in my prompts. To compose prompts, I use this tool. I select the files to include, write my instructions, and it copies the combined content to my clipboard. Then, I paste it into the chat window of one of these AI services. The prompt looks similar to this:

### START OF FILE css/style.css ###
@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Inter:ital,opsz,wght@0,14..32,100..900;1,14..32,100..900&display=swap');
@import "tailwindcss";

@theme {
    --default-font-family: 'Inter', var(--font-sans);
}

@layer components {
    .btn-secondary {
        @apply px-6 py-3;
    }
}
### END OF FILE css/style.css ###

Add a red primary-action button style!

The process is straightforward. I've developed an intuition for which model works best for specific tasks.

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