Counselor JayAI Workshop

For parents

Start at $20/month. Earn the upgrade.

Students can start free, but serious project work quickly benefits from a paid subscription. Hardware and high-tier subscriptions come later, after the student has proven they will use them well.

Screenshot of AI subscription usage limits
Usage limits are part of the learning curve. Students should learn to spend compute intentionally.

Free

Good for testing the workflow. Limits arrive quickly once a student builds seriously.

$20/month

The practical first tier for Level 1 and early Level 2 work.

$100/month

Useful when a student is running longer sessions, building websites, or managing multiple projects.

$200/month and hardware

Only justified once the student has projects worth scaling and enough discipline to use the compute well.

Screenshot estimating counterfactual model API costs
Advanced compute is about cost control, not status. Frontier subscriptions should orchestrate; bulk work can move elsewhere.

Parent lens

What are you paying for?

  • More room for long project sessions.
  • Better model access for planning, coding, and review.
  • Fewer interruptions while the student is learning flow.
  • Later, the ability to move high-volume work to local or lab compute.

Investment rule

Do not buy the machine before the habit.

A high-RAM MacBook or AI workstation can be powerful. It is also premature for most students at the beginning. Start with Codex, the starter harness, sequencing, GitHub, and portfolio proof. Upgrade only when the student's work creates the need.