High-Spending AI Developers Logged More Pull Requests at Much Higher Cost
Photo: TokenPost
AI token spending varied widely among developers in Q1 2026. The highest-spending fifth averaged about twice as many merged pull requests as the lowest-spending fifth, while its calculated cost per merged pull request was much higher. An analysis covering 12,000 developers at 200 companies estimated monthly AI token costs at $52.38 for the median developer and $691.14 at the 90th percentile. For the quarterly group comparison, developers in the lowest-spending 20% spent about $3 and averaged 11 merged pull requests. Those in the highest-spending 20% spent $1,822 and averaged 23.
Source: TokenPost
