Real quotas, back-calculated from community tests and editor runs โ not official sticker caps.
There is no single "best" plan โ it depends on your schedule. For night-time heavy use, Alibaba's Qwen 3.8 Max Token Plan (~1.5B tokens/month for ยฅ39) is unmatched. For all-day coding, Kimi K3 Allegretto (ยฅ159/mo, ~950M tokens) is the steadier pick.
| Model | Lowest /moโ | Monthly quotaโ | Tokens / ยฅโ | 5h window | Night discount | Best for | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kimi K3 (Allegretto)Moonshot AI | ยฅ159 | ~950M | ~6M | ~40M | None | All-day coding & agents | Details โ |
| Qwen 3.8 Max Token PlanAlibaba Cloud | ยฅ39 | ~1.5B (night) | ~38M (night) | 700 credits / 5h | 80% off (night) | Night-owl heavy users | Details โ |
| GLM 5.2Zhipu AI | โ | โ | โ | โ | โ | โ | โ |
Data is back-calculated from community users' real usage, not official fixed caps. Providers may adjust quota dynamically. Click a column header to sort.
Official pages rarely publish a hard token cap. We infer it: Total quota โ tokens already used รท usage-percentage shown. E.g. 15M tokens at 37.3% of the 5h bar implies ~40M for that window. We cross-check across the 5h, 7-day and monthly bars.
Caps are dynamic: they shift with model version, server load, and business strategy. A published number becomes a promise and a target for abuse, so providers keep them fuzzy on purpose. Treat every figure here as a snapshot, not a contract.
In coding/agent workflows the same context is sent again and again. One user logged a 93.7% cache-hit rate โ meaning only ~6% of input was billed at full price. The quota you "feel" is therefore far larger than the raw token count suggests.
A subscription trades flexibility for a flat price within rolling windows. Pay-as-you-go API bills every token but never rate-limits you. If your usage is steady and predictable, subscriptions win; if it's spiky or you need concurrency, API wins.
Subscriptions lock in monthly revenue and reduce billing friction for consumers who distrust pay-per-token unpredictability. They also let providers smooth demand with quota windows instead of raw price spikes.
Inference clusters are over-provisioned for daytime peaks and idle at night. A steep night discount (Qwen's 0.2 ๆ) simply prices the idle capacity โ it costs the provider almost nothing extra and fills otherwise-wasted GPUs.
Three hidden levers decide what you actually get: cache hit-rate, the input/output ratio of your workload, and time-of-day discounts. Two users on the same plan can see 50ร different real throughput โ which is exactly why we back-calculate instead of trusting the sticker.
The most balanced choice for daily coders: ~950M tokens/month, a ~40M 5h window, and 20ร Code quota. Available all day, no night-only catch.
Unbeatable value IF you run heavy jobs at night (22:00โ08:00): ~1.5B tokens/month for ยฅ39. Daytime use drops to ~300M, and without the promo discount to ~30M.
It depends on your hours. Qwen 3.8 Max is far cheaper per token IF you work at night (~38M tokens/yuan vs ~6M for Kimi) โ but daytime Qwen drops to ~300M tokens/month. Kimi K3 gives a steady ~950M tokens/month all day with no time restriction. Night-owls: Qwen. All-day coders: Kimi.
For pure tokens-per-yuan, Qwen 3.8 Max at night is unmatched. For dependability and a coding-focused toolchain, Kimi K3 Allegretto is the strongest all-rounder. For trying things out, start with Qoder's free Qwen 3.8 Max quota before paying anything.
Usually a prompt tells you the quota is exhausted; you wait for the rolling window to release (5h windows free up hour by hour, 7-day windows day by day) or upgrade. Some providers throttle quality or speed rather than hard-blocking.
For heavy, bursty sessions (agent coding, big refactors) the 5-hour bar is almost always the bottleneck โ you can exhaust it well before the monthly bar moves. For steady trickle usage, the monthly bar is what you'll watch.
Yes. Qoder offers a free tier running Qwen 3.8 Max, and Kimi has a free (limited) tier. They're the best way to gauge your real usage before paying for a subscription.