Monthly Plan or Pay-As-You-Go? CCSub Plan Calculator
Enter roughly how many tokens you use per day and pick a model ID. The calculator applies CCSub's actual billing rules to get your daily cost in USD, then compares paying from balance (¥1 = $1, never expires) with every monthly plan. A plan's daily quota is forfeited if unused, and anything above it comes out of your balance. The short version: a plan beats pay-as-you-go only when your spend on every day of use stays above the plan price divided by the number of days you use it.
Price: $3 input / $15 output per million tokens; cache reads and writes are billed at the input price.
Unit: million tokens (M) per day
The dashboard's “Today's tokens” card and the Usage page show input, cache read, cache write and output separately — enter one day's totals for the best estimate. The defaults are only an example.
On days you don't use it, a plan's daily quota is still forfeited.
Daily cost
$12.90
input $1.50 + cache $9.90 + output $1.50
Balance only (¥1 = $1)
¥387.00
total for 30 days
The “Entry” plan is cheaper
It saves ¥188.00 over 30 days compared with balance only; at this usage about $63.00 of quota goes unused over the period.
| Plan | Price | Daily quota | Unused per day of use | Forfeited in 30 days | Overage (from balance) | 30-day total | vs balance only |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry | ¥199.00 | $15.00 | $2.10 | $63.00 | ¥0.00 | ¥199.00 | saves ¥188.00 |
| Light | ¥339.00 | $30.00 | $17.10 | $513.00 | ¥0.00 | ¥339.00 | saves ¥48.00 |
| Standard | ¥499.00 | $50.00 | $37.10 | $1,113.00 | ¥0.00 | ¥499.00 | costs ¥112.00 more |
| Advanced | ¥1,188 | $120.00 | $107.10 | $3,213.00 | ¥0.00 | ¥1,188 | costs ¥801.00 more |
| Team | ¥1,888 | $200.00 | $187.10 | $5,613.00 | ¥0.00 | ¥1,888 | costs ¥1,501 more |
| Business | ¥4,688 | $500.00 | $487.10 | $14,613.00 | ¥0.00 | ¥4,688 | costs ¥4,301 more |
| Enterprise | ¥9,188 | $1,000.00 | $987.10 | $29,613.00 | ¥0.00 | ¥9,188 | costs ¥8,801 more |
Estimated at the standard 1.0x rate without VIP multipliers, assuming the same usage on every day of use. Actual charges are shown on the Usage page.
Billing rules (the same ones the calculator uses)
| Item | Rule |
|---|---|
| Model prices | Each model ID has its own input and output price in USD per million tokens, as listed on the models page. |
| Cache reads and writes | Billed at the model's input price for standard accounts — the same as regular input tokens. |
| Balance (pay-as-you-go) | ¥1 buys $1 of credit; the smallest top-up is ¥20. Balance never expires and is charged by actual use. |
| Plan validity | 30 days from the moment you pay. |
| Daily reset | The daily quota resets at 00:00 Beijing time. Unused quota is forfeited — no rollover, no conversion to balance. |
| Above the daily quota | Charged to your account balance at ¥1 = $1. |
| Quota and balance both used up | Requests return 402 with a message that today's plan quota is exhausted and resets at midnight Beijing time. |
| The request that crosses zero | Billed for its actual usage, so the balance can go slightly negative; it is offset on your next top-up. |
| Plans and balance | Buying a plan doesn't add balance. With an active plan, each request uses today's quota first, then your balance. |
Monthly plans and their break-even points
Break-even = plan price ÷ days of use. As long as you stay within the daily quota, a plan costs exactly its price for the 30 days, while pay-as-you-go costs your daily spend times the days you use it — so the plan wins once your daily spend is above the break-even point. The table shows two cases: using it all 30 days, and weekdays only (22 days). If the break-even point is higher than the daily quota, that plan can never beat pay-as-you-go at that number of days.
| Plan | Price | Daily quota | 30-day quota | Cost per $1 if fully used | Break-even (30 days) | Break-even (22 days) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry | ¥199 | $15.00 / day | $450.00 | ¥0.44 / $1 | $6.63 / day | $9.05 / day |
| Light | ¥339 | $30.00 / day | $900.00 | ¥0.38 / $1 | $11.30 / day | $15.41 / day |
| Standard | ¥499 | $50.00 / day | $1,500.00 | ¥0.33 / $1 | $16.63 / day | $22.68 / day |
| Advanced | ¥1,188 | $120.00 / day | $3,600.00 | ¥0.33 / $1 | $39.60 / day | $54.00 / day |
| Team | ¥1,888 | $200.00 / day | $6,000.00 | ¥0.31 / $1 | $62.93 / day | $85.82 / day |
| Business | ¥4,688 | $500.00 / day | $15,000.00 | ¥0.31 / $1 | $156.27 / day | $213.09 / day |
| Enterprise | ¥9,188 | $1,000.00 / day | $30,000.00 | ¥0.31 / $1 | $306.27 / day | $417.64 / day |
How to read the results
“Unused” and “overage” are different things
Unused quota is whatever is left when the day ends at midnight Beijing time, including the full quota on days you don't use the API at all. Overage is usage above the daily quota, which is charged to your balance. Look at both: a plan that is too big wastes quota, one that is too small pushes part of your usage back to balance pricing.
Averages flatter a plan when usage swings
The calculator assumes every day of use looks the same. If you spend $5 one day and $25 the next, the $15 average seems to fit a $15/day plan perfectly — but in reality every two days you forfeit $10 and also pay $10 of overage. The more your usage swings, the worse a plan performs, so entering a conservative typical day is the safer choice.
Don't leave out cache reads
Claude Code, Codex and similar agents resend earlier context every turn, so cache read tokens are often several times your regular input. Standard accounts pay the input price for them, and entering only input and output badly underestimates the cost. The dashboard's “Today's tokens” card lists input, cache read, cache write and output separately — copy those numbers in. To cut tokens, use /compact when a conversation drifts or /clear to start fresh.
The first and last days are partial
A plan lasts 30 × 24 hours from the moment you pay, but daily quotas follow Beijing calendar days: the first day's quota only lasts until that midnight, and the last day's quota ends at the time you originally paid. Buy late in the evening and most of day one's quota goes unused.
FAQ
Does unused daily quota carry over to the next day?
No. A monthly plan's daily quota resets at midnight Beijing time and whatever is left that day is forfeited — it doesn't roll over and isn't converted into balance. That's why plans only pay off when you use them steadily every day.
When does the daily quota reset?
Every day at 00:00 Beijing time (UTC+8). Billing, the quota display, image generation and the daily reset all use the same moment, regardless of your computer's time zone.
What happens when today's plan quota runs out?
Further requests are charged to your account balance at ¥1 = $1, so nothing stops. If both the quota and the balance are used up, requests return 402 with a message that today's quota is exhausted and resets at midnight Beijing time.
Why are cache reads and writes billed at the input price?
That is how standard CCSub accounts are billed: cache read and cache write tokens are charged at the model's input price, just like regular input tokens, and the calculator uses the same formula. Agents like Claude Code resend earlier context every turn, so cache reads are often several times your input — include them or you will underestimate.
Can I have a monthly plan and a balance at the same time?
Yes. With an active plan, each request is charged to today's quota first and anything beyond it comes out of your balance. Buying a plan does not add to your balance; the two are separate.
Why doesn't the estimate match my actual charges?
Usually one of four reasons: the calculator uses the standard 1.0x rate without VIP multipliers; it assumes every day of use looks the same; you may mix several models; and a plan's first and last days are partial days. Your actual charges are on the Usage page.
When does a monthly plan make sense?
Use your balance for a few days first to learn your real daily spend. If you are almost always above the break-even point (plan price ÷ days of use), a plan is worth considering — and buy it early in the Beijing-time day, because the first day's quota only lasts until that midnight.
Related pages
Start with a balance, decide on a plan later
Sign up, top up a balance and start using it; the dashboard breaks down input, cache and output tokens by day. Once you know your real daily usage, come back and run the numbers again.
