As AI tooling gains traction, I’ve been wondering who’s actually paying for these innovative dev tools like Cursor, Claude Code, Snyk, and Weight & Biases. Are individual developers digging into their own pockets, or are companies sponsoring licenses for their teams? Perhaps some developers are expensing these tools and getting reimbursed. I’d love to hear from the trenches about the actual purchasing dynamics.
From what I’ve observed, there seems to be a mix of adoption patterns. Some developers are willing to pay $20-100/month for these tools, while others are trying to get their companies to foot the bill. But what about the ROI conversation at the organizational level? Is it a top-down decision from VPs/CTOs, or do developers need to make the business case themselves?
I’m particularly curious about the differences in adoption patterns between startups and enterprises. Are startups more likely to have devs pay personally, while enterprises go through procurement? Which tools have been easiest to get organizational buy-in for? Any horror stories about trying to expense AI dev tools? Has anyone successfully made the business case for AI tooling budget allocation?
I’m trying to understand if we’re in an ‘early adopter paying out of pocket’ phase or if enterprise procurement is catching up to the hype. Share your experiences below!