The Broke Developer's Guide to AI: 10 Money-Saving Hacks

Introduction

Do you need to learn about AI even if you're not a developer?

My answer is yes. We're currently in the wild west phase of consumer AI agents, and to be honest, most C-end AI Agents are pretty useless right now. If you want to explore and leverage AI capabilities ahead of the curve, you'll need some "hardcore technical support."

This article provides high-level methods without detailed step-by-step breakdowns or resource recommendations. But I can give you the one-sentence answer: "Everything is available on the second-hand market."

Pure beginners can bookmark and like this post for future reference.

"Join the AI arms race—not taking advantage is a loss."

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The Essential Trio for Regular Users

1. Nigeria Region Claude—Save Up to 51%

Overview

Claude is currently the only AI I pay for. I previously tried the Max 5x plan for a month, then switched to Pro when Claude Code became available. The product updates frequently and quickly, making it a worthy competitor to ChatGPT.

While everyday users might not perceive it as strongly as ChatGPT or Google Gemini, OpenRouter's API call statistics show its importance to professional users.

Money-Saving Hack

Many people used to recharge with Nigeria region gift cards via App Store, but these cards seem to be completely out of stock now. Plus, gift cards weren't that cheap anyway.

My current method is to open a Nigeria virtual card, then find someone to deposit funds and recharge. This process has its barriers—phone cards, virtual card accounts cost about 200-300 RMB. But it's a one-time investment. After that, besides Claude, you can use Nigeria pricing for any other app.

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2. ChatGPT Team Plan—As Low as $1/Month

Overview

ChatGPT is definitely the safest bet for AI. It recently released Codex to compete with Claude. Unfortunately, ChatGPT will unify pricing globally in mid-to-late September, so the Nigeria region pricing advantage will disappear.

Money-Saving Hack

The Business version is $1 for the first month, and supports teams of up to 5 people. In theory, as long as you can find a team, you can keep getting this deal indefinitely.

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3. Gemini—Free Pro Membership for a Year

Overview

Google Gemini's free version is already quite generous, letting you experience many features. Especially Gemini CLI, which is completely free and practically unlimited.

Money-Saving Hack

There's a student discount with one year of Pro for free. If you know how to get a student email, do it yourself. If not, check the second-hand market.

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Production Environment—Token Burning

4. SiliconFlow—Get ¥1,900 Worth of Tokens for ¥70

Overview

SiliconFlow is a large model marketplace, China's version of OpenRouter. It rode the DeepSeek wave with referral growth six months ago.

One reminder: the rate limits for bonus credits are different from paid ones. For example, DS3.1 paid users get 30,000 RPM and 5,000,000 TPM; bonus credit users get 1,000 RPM and 100,000 TPM. But who cares? Most regular users won't hit those limits.

Money-Saving Hack

1. Get ¥14 just for signing up
2. Verify with business credentials for ¥500 instantly
3. The referral program can get you up to ¥1,400

All in, for about ¥70, you can burn through ¥1,900 worth of tokens.

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5. Zhipu AI—Get 200 Million Tokens for ¥20

Zhipu AI, with the recent release of GLM-4.5, is one of the more competitive domestic large models. Their product and market response speed is impressive.

Money-Saving Hack

1. Get some tokens for registering
2. There are 90% off token packages
3. The referral program lets you invite up to 10 people per month for 200 million GLM-4.5-air tokens

All in, for about ¥20, you can get 200 million tokens. Unlike SiliconFlow, these referral tokens have the same treatment as paid tokens.

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6. Free Tier Options

Honestly, I don't really want to recommend these because pure free tiers are definitely not great—lots of restrictions, slow rates. But here's the info:

Domestic:

• Some models on SiliconFlow
• Zhipu's GLM-4.5-flash

International:

• Google Gemini has a free tier
• OpenRouter also has free tier: 20 requests per minute, 1,000 per day after adding funds

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7. Rotation/Reverse Proxy

These have higher barriers.

"Rotation": Register multiple accounts and automatically switch when you hit limits.

"Reverse Proxy": Some people figured out how to call Gemini CLI directly as an API since it's practically unlimited free.

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8. Local Open Source Model Deployment

I actually don't recommend this. First, the barrier is high; second, the performance isn't there. I sometimes find official APIs slow. But if you want to try, most people deploy via Ollama.

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Production Tools

9. Servers—From Free to Lowest Price

I believe everyone who decides to practice AI needs their own server to deploy various open-source tools or platforms, including WordPress, N8N, etc.

I currently use Hostinger, with idle Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud instances.

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10. Cloudflare—Comprehensive Free Infrastructure

Cloudflare offers low-cost domain registration, free CDN, free storage, free image transformation, free Workers. Their free package provides many quality services—essential for AI practice.

Cloudflare Free Services Overview

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Final Thoughts

No matter what, I sincerely recommend getting back to business:

1. If you like e-commerce and want to quickly start a cross-border business, open a Shopify store—first 3 months at $1/month.

2. Or use WordPress: WordPress is great? Cross-border e-commerce independent site for as low as ¥200/year?