A 28-day build log

Building Your Own App
in the Age of GenAI

What it actually costs. What it actually takes. What it actually means.

◆ anthologist.ai  |  May 2026

Who am I?

  • My Job Technical Manager for AI/ML teams.
  • My Education Master's in Public Policy from Georgetown University and a BA in Legal Studies from UC Berkeley.
  • My Escape An avid reader of serial fiction (e.g., 1632, Safehold, Mechwarrior).
  • My Project Started working on Anthologist.ai exactly 29 days ago to fill my reading gaps.
  • IMPORTANT Despite my technical role, I am not a developer, let alone a full-stack engineer.
Chapter 01
The Idea

What is Anthologist and why does it exist?

What is Anthologist?

"Anthologist is a platform for building, managing, and experiencing shared fictional universes through AI-generated short fiction. Creators define the rules of their worlds; the platform brings those worlds to life on a recurring basis, delivering new stories to subscribers automatically."
WorldBuilding AI-Generated Fiction Serialized Anthology Open Beta
Chapter 02
The Build

28 days, a modern stack, and an AI pair programmer

The Tools & Services

The Tools

  • Claude Code (Pro Subscription)
  • Google Antigravity (Free Pro sub from Pixel)
  • Good ol' elbow grease

The Services

  • Fly.io (Hosting, Redis)
  • Neon (Database)
  • Resend (Emails)

The Applications

  • Frontend: Vue.js Web Application
  • Backend: Python API
  • Engine: Background worker handling story generation workflows using LangGraph (with Redis facilitating events between the backend and engine).

28 Days: The Commit Log

210+ commits. Moments of triumph, moments of despair.

"port to vue"
huge movement!
"nightmare of nightmares;
ai sucks because you can't yell at it"
"refactor everything"
"i hate claude code"
"database migrations
can eat my ass"
"it works, omg, it works"
  • Red bars indicate breaking points where AI and I fought.
  • Green bar indicates the moment of triumph.
Chapter 03
The Economics

What does it actually cost to build and run this?

Cost to Build: AI Licenses

Tool What I used it for Total Cost
Claude Code Pro Primary coding assistant (Yearly Subscription) $200.00
Gemini Pro Planning and spot fixes assistant Free
OpenRouter RooCode Emergency Repair $1.12
Total AI licenses (build phase) $201.12

Tokenomics: Takeaways

  • The Easy: Extending new features is a piece of cake
  • The Expensive: Frontend design changes; Multi-file refactors; Human errors
  • The Ugly: Database Migrations; Horizontal Scaling
In Time Tokenomics

Tokenomics: The Lessons

  • Token limits force you to be surgical and deliberate.
  • The more you plan, the more token efficient your tasks will be.
  • Cost per task will increase with codebase size and complexity.
  • Entropy audits and other housekeeping tasks can drastically reduce token consumption over time.
  • Documentation is just as important for the AI as it is for humans.

Cost to Run: Infrastructure / Month

Service Notes Cost / month
Fly.io hosting Backend + Engine + Frontend $10.87
PostgreSQL (managed) Neon $8.31
S3 / Object storage Story markdown, cover images Included in hosting
OpenRouter (runtime) Per-generation cost, scales with usage $3.13
Email Service Resend Free
Total / month (current scale) $22.31

Cost to Run: Other Costs

Item Notes Cost
Domain registration anthologist.ai $209.98
Virginia name registration LLC $10.00
Total other costs $219.98

The Real Cost

28 Days of development
$443.41 Total spend to date
5 Content creators
40 published stories across 8 universes by 5 content creators. 13 total registered users. More stories written every day.

anthologist.ai

Worlds that write themselves.

Questions?