How a rescue dog inspired an AI revolution — and a $2/month pricing model

It started with a dog named Mango.

Mango was a 4-year-old Labrador mix who'd been in a shelter for 11 months. Not because he was aggressive or difficult — but because the shelter didn't have the time or staff to get his story out to the right people.

I was building an AI assistant at the time. Nights and weekends, side project, the usual story.

When I heard about Mango, I thought: what if the AI helped tell his story?

So I asked it to write a bio. A personality profile. Something that sounded like him, not like a shelter form.

Mango got adopted within a week.

The problem I didn't expect

I wanted to do this for more dogs. Dozens of them. Hundreds.

But every time I used Claude directly, the cost added up fast. At scale — even at 100 dogs a week — the API costs were significant. And the ChatGPT subscription at $20/month? That's for one human user, not a shelter workflow.

The math didn't work for a volunteer rescue operation.

So I did what developers do: I built something.

What I actually built

I built SimplyLouie — a hosted Claude interface that runs on a flat subscription model.

✌️2/month. That's it.

Unlimited conversations. Real Claude (Sonnet) under the hood. No usage caps that cut you off mid-thought.

And here's the part that still surprises people: 50% of every subscription goes to animal rescue.

Not a rounding error. Not "we donate sometimes." Half. Every month. Automatically.

Mango was the reason. The pricing is the proof.

Why $2/month?

Because I kept thinking about who can't afford $20/month.

A developer in Nigeria where ChatGPT costs N32,000/month — nearly a week's salary for many people.

A student in the Philippines where P1,120/month is a significant expense.

A volunteer coordinator in Kenya running on zero budget.

These are the people who have the most to gain from AI — and the least access to it.

So the pricing isn't charity. It's a design decision.

If you charge $2/month, a developer in Lagos can afford it. A shelter volunteer in Nairobi can afford it. A student in Manila can afford it.

AI shouldn't only be for people with $20/month to spare.

The local currency table

Same AI. Ten times cheaper. Half the revenue goes to rescue animals.

What happened to Mango?

He's living with a family in the suburbs. The humans report he's "extremely opinionated about dinner time" and "an excellent couch occupant."

The shelter still uses the AI workflow. So do a few others now.

And every $2 subscription — from a developer in Lagos, a student in Bangalore, a freelancer in São Paulo — keeps that work going.

Try it

simplylouie.com — 7-day free trial. ✌️2/month after.

If you're a developer: the API is available too — $10/month for programmatic access.

curl -X POST https://api.simplylouie.com/v1/chat \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"message": "Write a personality profile for a 4-year-old Labrador named Mango who loves fetch and hates Mondays"}'

Mango would approve.

50% of every SimplyLouie subscription goes to animal rescue. Not someday. Now. Every month.