How Much Is Too Much? How Do You Actually Value a Prototype? And Is Token Spending a Good Metric?

We’ve seen this surface a lot in the last few weeks. Spend more -> get praised more. Post your token bill and suddenly people treat you like you “went harder.” Hit the bottom of the spender leaderboard and you can feel the quiet judgment in the back of your head. Meanwhile, overspending is happening left and right. New tools pop up every other day promising to slash your token usage (rtk, etc...). Everyone’s optimizing… but optimizing what, exactly? So let’s ask the real questions out loud: 1. How much is too much? There is no universal number. If you’re a solo weekend builder like me: few $ per month on tokens while shipping playable games and tools feels like the best money I’ve ever spent. If you’re running a startup with agents in production: $1k+/day might be fine if the ROI is there… or it might be a slow-motion disaster. If you're in a company that promotes spending fiesta: $60-200/month per user might be fine if you're focused on delivery. See next questions on value for tok