Vibe coding platform Replit's latest update is infuriating customers with surprise cost overruns

AI coding service Replit is in trouble again as users are protesting steep cost increases and some glitches when employing the newest version of its service. Readers may remember Replit for deleting one of its customers’ production databases and making up data. The company promised to move on from that mess, and on September …

[An_Old_Dog]

CEO's Marketing-Inspired Analogies

we are positioned to supercharge customer traction

So as a customer, they'll add a supercharger to my Dodge 426 Hemi engine, and glue sandpaper to the soles of my shoes for "customer traction"?

[Paul Crawford]

Re: CEO's Marketing-Inspired Analogies

I think they mean your charges with be super-sized, as customers are now discovering...

[gv]

Re: CEO's Marketing-Inspired Analogies

... and the sandpaper will be deployed when you attempt to cancel the service.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: CEO's Marketing-Inspired Analogies

I think they mean all their customers will feel like they are on a medieval rack.

[Joe W]

1k$/week? That's over here not a bad entry level job salary..

I mean this is 4k$ / month and some change. And I'm pretty sure the young kid I'd hire would improve and learn faster than the machine learning thingy.

So far this is mostly a way to burn money, it seems to me.

[Tom66]

Re: 1k$/week? That's over here not a bad entry level job salary..

And that's subsidised. Companies like Replit are losing money on every query. These large AI models burn cash like mad.

[cookiecutter]

costs are going to rocket

when openai loses money on every user including in the $200 teir even while it gets discount azure from MS, you know anthropic probably is too. As the models prices go through the roof & token usage is basically random & even harder to predict than cloud costs, you're going to see LOTS more of this

[m4r35n357]

Excellent

Let them all pay for their stupidity.

[Mint Sauce]

It's just vibe pricing, bro.

Or maybe they only did vibe due-dilligence before signing on the dotted line...

[harrys]

Desperately......

Trying to milk it before the crash and burn

[Doctor Syntax]

"I spent $1k this week alone"

And how much value did you get? Big clue, value isn't what you paid, that's just the price.

[DrSunshine0104]

That is what I am thinking.

Is it worth to comb over working code to fix presumably performance issues, and do those issues actually matter?

Unless you blindly trust the suggestions is it worth double checking the AI's work? To make such judgement calls you presumably have an understanding of the code base and would you want AI to suddenly refactor huge amounts of your codebase without your understanding; would you know what source file or module/assembly to start looking for a bug? This tool sounds like it just makes you worse at your job, less skill and less knowledge.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

You want Vibe? Then pay!

I am ROLF-ing here... If those, who use Vibe coding to improve their self-importance the cheap way out, have to pay more: Go ahead. Suddenly not cheap way out any more. My crocodile tears are flooding the room.

[Handlebars]

Re: You want Vibe? Then pay!

Rolfing? Are you sure?

[J. Cook]

Re: You want Vibe? Then pay!

Probably ROFL-ing, although the entire concept behind this makes me want to ralph.

If I want vibe coding, I'll have my cat walk across the keyboard...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: You want Vibe? Then pay!

> Rolfing? Are you sure?

I don't think he can see what it is yet.

[Irongut]

In the last week alone it charged me $1K

Get used to that because the prices are not going to fall. Sooner or later these chatbot hawkers are going to have to pay Jensen for all his very expensive chips and the prices are going to go up, up, UP!

[Fonant]

It's all just bullshit

"AI" is just a fancy bullshit generator. Excellent if you need lots of bullshit, awful otherwise.

When will the "AI" bubble burst? Feels like it's not long now...

[JacobZ]

The next turn of the enshittification screw

On a related note, Anthropic increased what it charges Cursor, so expect that to go up in price too.

We're going to see a lot more of this as these GenAI companies try to increase their prices to something closer to break even. And we're going to see a lot of usage fall away as customers decide that the value is not there when they have to pay a realistic price.

This is the future of vibe coding: higher costs, worse results.

[IGotOut]

Re: The next turn of the enshittification screw

It already happened.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/07/cursor-apologizes-for-unclear-pricing-changes-that-upset-users/

[Anonymous Coward]

"billions – of people bringing their ideas to life with a few clicks."

At the risk of channelling Arthur Wellesley: I don't what effect these maladictions will have on his audience, but, by God, they frighten me.

In the past it was the budding Victor Frankensteins of whom we had to be wary, now it is the nightmare of not just their now masterless Igors but the poorly sutured deranged monsters with loose neck bolts 'bringing their ideas to life ' with mere clicks not lightning bolts.

[StewartWhite]

Re: "billions – of people bringing their ideas to life with a few clicks."

Don't worry, I hear that OpenAI are remaking "The man with two brains" as "The AI with no brain whatsoever but that costs a **** lot of $$$$".

[seblosiv]

Agent3 has turned normal usage into bills that are 3–4× higher, with some devs reporting $400+ overnight charges. We’re asking Replit to roll pricing back to normal, add real hard caps, and stop charging more for small edits. Support the campaign here: https://stopaibills.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, you know, just hire a real programmer

[druck]

Or take that weekly spend and go on a programming course, so you can write some crappy smartphone app yourself.

[IGotOut]

Don't want to alarm you, but the new pricing is closer to normal.

Pretty much every AI company is making a loss, so prices HAVE to increase.

Don't expect it to be the last either.

[katrinab]

Humans are cheaper, and more intelligent.

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Some humans are.

[Blackjack]

At this rate naybe ir will be easier to just learn to code.

[Sh00P00Mag00]

Error In VibeCoding_x64_Bin.dll at Line 1295385. -> Stack Trace: It failed to pass the vibe check.

[that one in the corner]

If only TLA was about vibe codin with grok

Then this tune going round my head would be more appropriate:

Hi there, nice to be with you, happy you could stick around

Like to introduce "Legs" Larry Smith, drums; Sam Spoons, rhythm pole; And Vernon Dudley Bohay-Nowell, bass guitar; And Neil Innes, piano

Come in, Rodney Slater on the saxophone; With Roger Ruskin Spear on tenor sax; Hi, Vivian Stanshall, trumpet

Big hello to big John Wayne, xylophone; And Robert Morley, guitar; Billy Butlin, spoons

And looking very relaxed, Adolf Hitler on vibes... nice

[JamesTGrant]

Serious question - is it that people ask the thing to do stuff and they don’t know what they are going to pay for the thing to do the stuff? And, if the thing fails to do the stuff then they have to ask it again and pay again?

[Henry Wertz 1]

local AI

I am not about to do vibe coding (the 'lets just let the AI write the code and trust it's right') but if I were having one spiff up a bit of code (I'd make a diff and see what it actually changed) I'd run it locally. Probably slower but 0 the cost. (Electricity costs, but my GPU and CPU if both flat out draw like 135 watts altogether so it won't be all that high.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Sound Familiar ???

Nine days ago I said ===> https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2025/09/10/visual_studio_2026_previewed_deeper/#c_5140847

Apparently, someone was ahead of the game and started planning it, for real, at least a year ago!!!

Now do you understand where all this 'AI' crap is going !!!

Oversell the ability, Build it into everything anyway, deskill by stealth, charge by the 'Thought' on a constant drip-feed, YOUR money become MY money automagically !!!

Result, another 2 or 3 Super-yachts a year for 'everyone' in the 'AI' Biz .... YAY !!!!

[O.K. ... Well ONLY the 'really' IMPORTANT ones !!!!]

:)