Startups take different strategies with token spending, from hard budgets to minimum quotas. Hassan Ismail; Brennan Lupyrypa; Kavitta Ghai

Tokenmaxxing is all the rage in Big Tech. For startups, the trend is opening up debate.

Some founders told Business Insider that they spent big on tokens; others used capped subscription plans.

One founder called tokenmaxxing "extremely stupid." Another said: "You've got to spend money to make money."

Kavitta Ghai wants her startup's engineers to spend more tokens.

The 29-year-old cofounder of Nectir started setting minimum quotas for Claude Code use. First it was at least $100 in tokens a week, then $200. Now, the expectation is that her engineers each spend a couple thousand in AI tokens a month.

The strategy has been successful, Ghai said.…