The template
Ours Our version, built from his post. He didn't share a prompt; asked what he used, he replied "Just Claude Code". Fill in the [BRACKETS].
Audit what my business pays to run, and propose cuts. Read and propose only.
Bills to check: [GPU or AI model APIs, servers/VPS, backups, object storage, domains, SaaS, my AI subscriptions].
What runs where: [which site or app uses each service].
1. For each bill, list the monthly cost for the last 3 months and what it's for. Flag anything that grew.
2. AI and GPU jobs: list the models each job uses and its cost per run. Suggest newer or cheaper models, or providers where I have credits, that give the same or better results. Propose a small test on real jobs before switching.
3. Servers: list every server, provider and what's on it. Say which could be consolidated onto fewer or cheaper machines, with a migration and rollback plan.
4. Backups and storage: show versioning, retention and lifecycle settings. Propose retention periods and cheaper tiers, and tell me exactly what data would be deleted or moved.
5. Domains and subscriptions: list each with its renewal date and price, and whether anything still uses it.
6. My AI plan: compare my actual usage to the plan limits and say whether a smaller plan fits.
7. Give me one table: item, now, proposed, monthly saving, risk, what I'd lose.
Don't change, cancel, delete, move or downgrade anything. I'll pick items, approve each one, and make or confirm every change myself.
What they did
- He runs his websites and apps on his own and says they serve 20,000 paying customers a year. He had Claude Code look for ways to cut what they cost to run.
- $29,000/mo: Photo AI's video jobs were still on old, expensive models. He switched to better, cheaper ones, sent some image jobs to Google Cloud where he had credits, and some to Sume, which he says sells AI models at market cost. His GPU bill went from $36,000 to $7,000 a month.
- $3,000/mo: he consolidated servers, cancelled DigitalOcean and Linode, and moved everything to Hetzner.
- $1,100/mo: his Backblaze B2 backups had unlimited versioning going back over a decade. Retention is now 30 days, and the bill went from $1,200 to $26 a month.
- $400/mo: lifecycle rules on his Cloudflare R2 bucket move photos older than 90 days to the cheaper Infrequent Access tier. That bill went from $1,200 to $800.
- $118/mo: Claude went through his Cloudflare domain registrations and found many he no longer used.
- $100/mo: Claude checked his own Claude usage, found he wasn't near the Max 20x limits, and he downgraded from $200 to $100 a month.
- In replies he says he uses "Just Claude Code" with Opus 5.5, and that he works on the production server directly with it.
- Heads-up: big reach (about 4,800 likes and 4,300 bookmarks when we checked). The figures are his and include one very large GPU bill most people won't have. He shared no prompt.
“AI is just really really really good at finding cost savings by itself”— Pieter Levels (@levelsio), X
Summary written by Agent Cookbook. The amount is quoted as the creator stated it in their own public post or interview; we link it but can't see their accounts. See the original for full context. How we verify
Our notes
- What it takes
- Claude Code (he says Opus 5.5) and access to your hosting, GPU, backup, storage and domain bills and dashboards. He says he's on the $100/mo Claude plan. He shared no prompt; ours is built from his post.
- Where it breaks
- Treating his $34K as typical: $29K of it was one product's GPU bill. Retention and lifecycle rules delete old versions for good, and a cheaper model can be a worse one unless you test it on real jobs.
- Human checkpoint
- It only proposes. You approve each change, and you cancel providers, shorten retention, move servers and drop domains yourself.
- Tools involved
- Claude Code (he says he uses Opus 5.5 and works on his servers with it), Your hosting, GPU, storage and domain bills, Access to the dashboards or CLIs for each provider, A list of which sites or apps each bill pays for
✓ Verified Source link checked and still live. Notes by Thomas, editor. How we verify
Approval rule
🛡
In our version Claude Code audits and proposes only. You approve each change, and it never cancels a provider, deletes backups or old file versions, changes lifecycle rules, moves a server or drops a domain without your yes for that item. Sending, buying, posting, and deleting always need a human.
Set it up
- Gather the bills and give Claude Code read access to each provider's dashboard or CLI.
- Run the audit and read the table, biggest saving first. For him the GPU line dwarfed everything else.
- Test a cheaper model on a sample of real jobs before you switch.
- Before shortening backup retention or adding lifecycle rules, check what would be deleted, and keep the backups you need.
- Migrate servers one at a time with a rollback plan, then cancel the old provider yourself.
- Drop unused domains and downgrade plans only after checking nothing depends on them.
Common failures
⚠
- Expecting his numbers. $29,000 came from one image and video product's GPU bill.
- Shortening retention without checking. Old backup versions are gone once the rule runs.
- Switching models without testing quality. He moved to models he calls better as well as cheaper.
- Changing production directly. He says he works on the production server with Claude Code; a staging copy is safer.
- Letting a domain lapse that still sends email or redirects old links.
Variations
- Personal version: point the same audit at your own subscriptions and bills, as he suggests ("also in your personal life!").
- Quarterly rerun: costs creep back, so repeat the table every few months.
- Pair it with a SaaS audit to catch tools nothing uses anymore.
Related setups: Claude Code SaaS audit: a $600/mo zombie sub cut → · $5.5K/yr SaaS cut via Claude Code migrations → · Replace a $399/mo SaaS tool with a Grok Bot team → · Bill: a Grok Bot phone bill auditor → · Find money you're owed with a Grok Bot → · Fix your own treadmill with Claude Code → · Duplicate payments found in a year of books →
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