Cost the scripted run before the mail drop
Lesson 3 of 5 · The buying week
1 · Learn the move · Constraints + negative instructions
Having a model draft one owner letter is free, near enough. Drafting one for every parcel on a county list, every month, in three counties, is a line in your books. Before the first full run, do the arithmetic on paper: what one letter uses, times the number of parcels, times the price. The price is the one number the model must never supply. Prices change, and a model will state an old one with full confidence. Copy it from the provider's pricing page, write down the date you read it, and hand it over as an input. Then ask for the arithmetic line by line, a monthly figure at your real list size, and a cap: the count or spend at which the script stops and asks. Missing input means [NEEDS: ...], not an estimate. The dated vendor notes under this lesson hold the prices; the lesson states none. Postage is a second line, and it is yours.
Work out what this run costs. Price, copied from the provider's pricing page on [date]: [paste]. One letter uses about [N] input and [M] output tokens (from a test call). Parcels in the first run: [count]. Parcels per month after: [count]. Show the arithmetic line by line. Never supply or adjust a price yourself; if any input is missing, write [NEEDS: ...]. Then write a stop rule I can paste into the script: the parcel count at which it stops and asks me.
Vendor notes, dated
Prices and plan names move. Each note says when it was looked up, whether a person has confirmed it, and the day it comes due. Past that day, treat it as a question.
- Claude. Claude Pro is $20 a month billed monthly, or $17 a month billed annually. Researched Oct 6, 2026, not yet confirmed by a person, recheck by Dec 15, 2026.
- ChatGPT. ChatGPT Plus is $20 a month. Researched Oct 6, 2026, not yet confirmed by a person, recheck by Dec 15, 2026.
- Google Gemini. Google Gemini's paid consumer plan is Google AI Pro at $19.99 a month; Google AI Ultra starts at $99.99 a month. Researched Oct 6, 2026, not yet confirmed by a person, recheck by Dec 15, 2026.
- Anthropic. Anthropic's consumer plans (Free, Pro, Max) may use chats to train models under a setting the user controls, with five-year retention when training is on and 30 days when it is off; Claude for Work, Education, Government and the API are excluded. [P] Researched Oct 6, 2026, not yet confirmed by a person, recheck by Dec 15, 2026.
- Anthropic. Anthropic's usage policy, effective 2025-09-15, requires a qualified human reviewer and disclosure of AI use for housing, legal and financial decisions. [P] Researched Oct 6, 2026, not yet confirmed by a person, recheck by Dec 15, 2026.
- OpenAI. OpenAI's consumer plans train on chats unless the Improve the model setting is turned off, and a Temporary Chat is not used for training; Enterprise, Business, Edu and API data are not used by default. [S] Researched Oct 6, 2026, not yet confirmed by a person, recheck by Dec 15, 2026.
- Google Gemini. Google Gemini Apps keeps activity 18 months by default, keeps human-reviewed chats up to three years, and tells users not to enter confidential information. [P] Researched Oct 6, 2026, not yet confirmed by a person, recheck by Dec 15, 2026.
- Microsoft Copilot. Microsoft Copilot on a personal account may use chats to train models unless the user opts out; Entra and Microsoft 365 work accounts are excluded. [S] Researched Oct 6, 2026, not yet confirmed by a person, recheck by Dec 15, 2026.
- LandGlide. LandGlide is $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year after a seven-day free trial. Researched Oct 6, 2026, not yet confirmed by a person, recheck by Dec 15, 2026.
- Regrid. Regrid's Data Store sells a county parcel CSV at $100 Standard or $200 Premium, and a county shapefile at $200 or $400. Researched Oct 6, 2026, not yet confirmed by a person, recheck by Dec 15, 2026.
2 · Your turn. You write the prompt
You built a script that drafts an owner letter from each row of the scrubbed list, with the parcel number, the acreage from the deed, and your name as sender. The test on eight rows read well. The first run is the whole Pruett County list, 1,100 scrubbed parcels, then about 400 a month across three counties. Your partner wants the cost before the mail drop.
Write the prompt for this scenario as given, or swap in a real one from your own work. The score works the same either way.
Remember: the AI sees only your prompt, not this page. If the situation isn't in your prompt, it doesn't exist.
Optional. These shape the output when you run your prompt below, not your score.