The 90% Off AI API Trap

Why cheap GPT proxies can cost your code

Good morning!

Last week, I discovered something quite alarming.

You can get the GPT or Claude API 90% cheaper.

Same models, same code, you change one line, your base URL, and you’re paying a fraction of the official price.

Some are flipping a $20 plan into $400 of API usage and reselling it.

But researchers tested 400 of these dirt-cheap AI API services…

One of them quietly drained the crypto out of a wallet.

Others were injecting malicious code, or reaching for cloud credentials they were never given.

And people are plugging these exact services into their coding agents right now… and all that just to save a few bucks a month.

And if your first thought was ‘wait — can I point my coding agent at this?’ — that’s the exact moment I would stop and take a step back to consider what’s really happening behind the scene…

Learn more in this week’s video (or read here):

By the way, some personal update: I’ll be giving two new talks at AI Engineer in San Francisco later this month. One with my good friend Paul Iusztin. If you don’t plan to attend, you can still watch it! I’ll be sharing it later this week with all paid subscribers, as with all my talks this year. You can subscribe here: