Spent $500 building 4 apps with AI in a month - how do you all manage costs?
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"Spent $500 building 4 apps with AI in a month - how do you all manage costs?"
Vibecoding community! 🙋♂️
I just built iOS, Android, Web, and Chrome extension apps in a month using only AI, but the costs are getting crazy... need some advice
What I built
working on LLMonster - a mobile AI agent app
core concept:
save URLs → AI summarizes articles
save resumes → AI optimizes for job postings
save videos → AI creates shorts
save app ideas → AI writes the code
basically trying to do everything on mobile without touching a PC
what i shipped:
- iOS (Swift) - main app, Share Extension, App Clip
- Android (Kotlin)
- Web (React)
- Chrome extension
total cost: ~$500 💸
breakdown:
- Claude Pro/Max subscriptions
- API usage fees
- other random stuff...
honestly, this is rough for indie development
prompt Claude Code for UI design → generates layouts
implement for each platform
endless bug fixing loops (this burns money)
polished components like stats needed multiple iterations
Swift Share Extension was particularly painful - Claude doesn't really get it, so lots of trial and error
1. how do you manage costs? $500 hurts as an indie dev
2. cross-platform efficiency tips? - tired of implementing the same feature 4 times
3. dealing with AI limitations? - native features and special APIs still struggle
4. prompt engineering tricks? - how do you make "polished stats component" less abstract?
What I've learned
total beginners still can't do this alone (manual fixes needed)
AI can do character design but keeping consistency is hard
mobile-first approach has way more constraints than PC development
also looking for beta testers if anyone's interested!
(iOS/Android - 10 spots each)
anyone else blown their budget vibe coding apps?
how did you recover? need all the advice i can get 🙏
p.s. - Cursor mobile is out but let's be real, PC is still way easier for dev work...
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