u/ImaginaryBat4994

I am a data scientist using GitHub Copilot on VS Code, mainly for data analytics, data visualization, reporting, and creating production-ready ML pipelines. Right now I am using both autocomplete and chat/agent modes, with GPT 4.1 for basic tasks and GPT 5.4 for more complex tasks.

I will probably not be impacted by the new policies as much as others who develop complex software, however I have a limited budget for my personal projects and would like to get some suggestions on the best setup for my needs to continue spending $10 a month on code assistants after June.

Should I continue using the GTCP embedded models, or perhaps explore the BYOK feature with other providers? I would like to keep using the GitHub Copilot/VS Code integration, as I find it very convenient for data science and I rely heavily on autocomplete. I believe that cheap models with performance between GPT 4.1 and 5.4 would likely handle most of my needs.

If my subscription is renewed the 3rd of each month can I cancel it on May 31st and create a new one for this purpose?

Will they have the same cost, or is codex/claude code with a subscription cheaper than the API cost?

I’d like to keep paying $10 per month in AI coding assistant to work on my personal data analytics projects, and keep using GitHub copilot as it is very well integrated with VS Code and I believe it’s the ideal for this purpose.

Since I don’t write complex code, a model with effectiveness somewhere between GPT 4.1 and 5.4 would suffice. Is there any tutorial available on how to use affordable models within GitHub copilot ?