Alibaba Coding Plan
Ranked 4 of 5 coding subscriptions by recommenders
Cheap subscription giving generous limits for coding models like Qwen and GLM, enough for hobby projects. Caveat: the cheap tiers were withdrawn, leaving a $50 monthly plan.
Cheap subscription giving generous limits for coding models like Qwen and GLM, enough for hobby projects. Caveat: the cheap tiers were withdrawn, leaving a $50 monthly plan.
13 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 46%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Generous limits, rarely hits caps
“I've not managed to get close to the limits that the cheapest plan has.”
Comment from 14 Mar 2026 in “Can I Run AI locally?” “Even the Alibaba $6/month plan supplies a reasonable amount of API use”
Comment from 20 Oct 2026 in “DeepInfer: High-performance inference framework for DeepSeek models” “Alibaba, Z.ai and MiniMax have quite generous coding plans.”
Comment from 5 Apr 2026 on Hacker News - Comment from 12 Jun 2026 in “Kimi K2.7-Code: open-source coding model with better token efficiency”
Cheap monthly plan
“I got lucky and got the Alibaba Coding Model lite plan, which is so cheap they got rid of it”
Comment from 27 Mar 2026 in “Schedule Claude Code tasks on the web” “Even the Alibaba $6/month plan supplies a reasonable amount of API use”
Comment from 20 Oct 2026 in “DeepInfer: High-performance inference framework for DeepSeek models”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Cheap tiers withdrawn or discontinued
“hence Alibaba killing the Lite plan and not letting people sign up to their Pro one either”
Comment from 17 Apr 2026 in “Codex for Almost Everything” “they killed it entirely after two months haha, too cheap obviously”
Comment from 16 Apr 2026 in “Codex for Almost Everything” Only $50 tier, too expensive
“Checked the price for the alibaba coding plan and it's a single tier pricing with $50/month.”
Comment from 16 Apr 2026 in “Tell HN: Qwen Free Tier Is Discontinued” “Alibaba's only coding plan today is $50/mo, too rich for me”
Comment from 27 Mar 2026 in “Schedule Claude Code tasks on the web”
Other coding subscriptions people recommend
The four most recommended other coding subscriptions, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Z.ai GLM Coding Subscription | 68 | 54 | 56% | 11 | 1 yr8 owners | — |
| Cerebras Code | 28 | 12 | 70% | 10 | 3 mo4 owners | Approved |
| MiniMax Coding Plan | 8 | 1 | 89% | 5 | — | — |
| Alibaba Coding PlanThis page | 6 | 7 | 46% | 5 | — | — |
| Kimi coding plan | 5 | 1 | 83% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
All 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Even the Alibaba $6/month plan supplies a reasonable amount of API use”
“use the Token-Plan on AlibabaCloud, when I need faster results”
“have generous limits on fixed subscriptions”
“This is the very reason I've heard I shouldn't use Alibaba!”
“hence Alibaba killing the Lite plan and not letting people sign up to their Pro one either”
“they killed it entirely after two months haha, too cheap obviously”
“the page said that the plan was unavailable for me”
“Checked the price for the alibaba coding plan and it's a single tier pricing with $50/month.”
“GLM-5 stays coherent far longer on Alibaba's coding plan/infra”
“Alibaba, Z.ai and MiniMax have quite generous coding plans.”
“it’s more than enough for hobby projects”
“required signing up for an account and attaching PayPal billing”
“Alibaba's only coding plan today is $50/mo, too rich for me”
“I got lucky and got the Alibaba Coding Model lite plan, which is so cheap they got rid of it”
“I've not managed to get close to the limits that the cheapest plan has.”
“I racked up a big bill (for me, in the hundreds of dollars per month) because I insisted on using the Alibaba provider”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.