Choose your plan

Learning objective

By the end of this lesson, you will have picked one of this course's two tracks — Path 1 or Path 2 — and you will be able to say, in dollars, what it costs you to run.

Why this matters

Your computer can run either track. Now the question that decides which account you create next: what does each track cost you, in real dollars or real limits? The biggest reason learners quit a course like this is cost shock — a subscription renews for more than expected, or a free tool suddenly asks you to wait or pay. Five minutes here prevents that.

Core read

The honest premise

Every path costs you something — money, or limits, or both. You're choosing between paying a predictable monthly amount for a larger allowance (Path 1), or paying nothing for a smaller one that can also change without much warning (Path 2). Both can ask you to wait on a heavy day. Both are honest paths, as long as you know which one you picked and why.

Path 1 — Claude Code desktop (the paid track)

Path 1 installs Claude Code desktop (the paid-track agent app, opening in its own window on your computer, → GLOSSARY). It costs $20/month, or $17/month if you pay for a year up front. There's no cheaper way to get Claude Code, and no free plan includes it.

What the $20 buys: every lesson in this course, with a usage allowance that resets on a schedule. The allowance is real, not unlimited: on a heavy day the app can tell you to wait until it resets. You don't need to turn on any paid extras for this course.

Pick Path 1 if you have $20/month you're comfortable spending on this, and you'd rather pay for a bigger, predictable allowance than manage a free one.

Path 2 — Codex, inside the ChatGPT desktop app (the free track)

Path 2 installs the ChatGPT desktop app and uses Codex (the coding agent inside the free-track ChatGPT desktop app, → GLOSSARY) from inside it. Codex is included on ChatGPT's free tier (the portion of a paid service you can use at no cost, usually capped by hours, requests, or limits, → GLOSSARY) — no card, no subscription, $0 to start. This course installed it and made a first edit with it before writing a single Path 2 lesson.

Two honest catches. First, OpenAI's own wording says Codex is on the Free plan "for a limited time." If that changes before you finish, the paid ChatGPT plans keep Codex working the same way, at a monthly cost. Second, the free allowance is real, not unlimited: on a heavy day, the app may ask you to wait before you can keep going, or offer you a paid plan. The size of that allowance isn't published and can change.

Pick Path 2 if $0 matters more to you than a bigger allowance.

Side by side

	Path 1: Claude Code desktop	Path 2: Codex (ChatGPT desktop app)
Monthly cost	$20 ($17 if billed yearly)	$0 to start
What you get	Every lesson, with a larger usage allowance	Every lesson, free, for as long as the free tier lasts
What can make you wait	Your usage allowance on a heavy day, until it resets	Your free allowance on a heavy day, or the free tier itself if OpenAI changes it

A third option, not taught here

OpenCode desktop (a third agent app, free and capable, but the least user-friendly of the three, → GLOSSARY) exists. It's built for people comfortable finding their own way, not for a first-ever build; its free models are trial models offered for a limited time and may learn from what you submit; and this course hasn't verified how it saves your work. This course names it so you know what it is, and doesn't walk you through it.

Switching is cheap

Nothing locks you to the path you pick today. Lessons that differ between the two tracks show both side by side, so switching later costs you one thing: creating the account you skipped the first time.

Exercise

1. Reread the table above.
2. Say your path out loud, in one sentence: "I'm on Path 1" or "I'm on Path 2."
3. Say your path's monthly cost out loud — a number, not a shrug.
4. Write your path down somewhere you'll see it before Lesson 4.

Checkpoint

You've got this if you can:

• Name your chosen path in one phrase.
• Say what it costs you per month, in dollars.
• Say which account Lesson 4 has you create next: a Claude account for Path 1, or a ChatGPT account for Path 2.

What you just did

You picked a path and put a real number on it before creating a single account — knowing that either path can ask you to wait on a heavy day. Lesson 4 is the payoff: you'll create exactly the accounts your path needs, nothing more.