Stay, Harden, or Pay: A Free-Tier Checklist for AI Features

Description and use

<h1> Stay, Harden, or Pay: A Free-Tier Checklist for AI Features </h1> <p>Last month a user told me my summarizer "just spun forever."</p> <p>My dashboard was green. My success rate read 94%. So I did the thing I always do: I blamed the prompt.</p> <p>The prompt was fine. My accounting was not. Twelve requests had no outcome row at all — no <code>ok</code>, no <code>error</code>, nothing. They timed out and vanished.</p> <p>That is the trap with free tiers. Nothing throws. Everything just gets quiet.</p> <p>So I wrote a checklist with three possible answers instead of two. Here it is, with the

Problem

<h1> Stay, Harden, or Pay: A Free-Tier Checklist for AI Features </h1> <p>Last month a user told me my summarizer "just spun forever."</p> <p>My dashboard was green. My success rate read 94%. So I did the thing I always do: I blamed the prompt.</p> <p>The prompt was fine. My accounting was not. Twelve requests had no outcome row at all — no <code>ok</code>, no <code>error</code>, nothing. They timed out and vanished.</p> <p>That is the trap with free tiers. Nothing throws. Everything just gets quiet.</p> <p>So I wrote a checklist with three possible answers instead of two. Here it is, with the

Outcome

<h1> Stay, Harden, or Pay: A Free-Tier Checklist for AI Features </h1> <p>Last month a user told me my summarizer "just spun forever."</p> <p>My dashboard was green. My success rate read 94%. So I did the thing I always do: I blamed the prompt.</p> <p>The prompt was fine. My accounting was not. Twelve requests had no outcome row at all — no <code>ok</code>, no <code>error</code>, nothing. They timed out and vanished.</p> <p>That is the trap with free tiers. Nothing throws. Everything just gets quiet.</p> <p>So I wrote a checklist with three possible answers instead of two. Here it is, with the

Evidence

Stay, Harden, or Pay: A Free-Tier Checklist for AI Features

Source