Summary
Theo of t3.gg tests Ultrafast, the new high-speed mode for the Astra model, and finds it impressive but hard to justify. In a live demo, an app built with Lakebase updates in real time as he asks for a light mode and funnier copy.
The pricing is the main problem. Astra’s output costs $50 per million tokens, which rises to $300 on Ultrafast and $450 for long-context work, with cache reads at $6 per million and cache writes at $75. Theo says reviewing two small pull requests cost about $600 in usage. He also covers the $500-per-month Ultrafast plan, which includes roughly $1,000 of usage per week and can be used up in about 2.1 hours.
He then explains where the speed does pay off. Building his Slopolytics site, which charts data from Artificial Analysis, Astra on Ultrafast produced a first draft in about a minute and a half, versus roughly 15 to 20 minutes for Opus 5.5. The Opus draft looked better at first, but fast iteration let the Astra version overtake it. The video also touches on the risks of giving users a knob like max reasoning, and includes a sponsor segment for Greptile’s T-Rex code review agents.
📺 Source: Theo – t3․gg · Published October 06, 2026
🏷️ Format: Review
