Get more from your AI plan with better prompts
Every AI plan has a limit. Chat apps cap how many messages fit in a few hours, and coding tools cap how much work fits in a day or a week. A good share of that allowance goes to turns that never needed to happen. A better prompt is the cheapest way to make a plan last longer.
Where the turns go
Look at a long chat and you can usually point to the turns that were repair work. The answer came back too long, so you asked for shorter. It used the wrong tone, so you asked for a rewrite. It left out the format, so you asked again with the format named. Each repair is a full message, and each one counts against your plan.
The first request caused all of them. It was written fast, from memory, and it skipped the details that would have made the answer right the first time.
One precise message beats four loose ones
A precise prompt states who the answer is for, how long it should be, what shape it should take and what to leave out. Written once, that message does the work of the original request and all three repairs.
Here is a loose request next to a precise one. Loose: Summarize this. Precise: Summarize this for a busy manager in five bullet points, one line each, with the decision needed at the top. The second version costs one turn. The first often costs three.
Restate your instructions once, then keep them
Most people restate the same instructions in every new chat, a little differently each time, and the weaker versions cost extra turns. The fix is to write the instruction once, test it, and keep that exact wording.
- Pick a request you make every week, such as turning notes into an email.
- Run your best version in your AI app and adjust the wording until the first answer comes back right.
- Save that wording as a petal in Prompt Petal, with the tone, length and format written in.
- Use the saved petal from then on instead of typing a fresh version.
How petals keep prompts one click away
Prompt Petal puts a small flower button on your screen. Select some text, click the button, pick a petal, and the saved instruction lands in the chat box with your selection applied. The tested version is as fast to use as a quick one typed from memory, so the quick one stops winning.
Free holds five prompts that you write and edit. Pro holds as many as you like, so a whole library of tested prompts can sit in your flower, and each app can have its own set.
Watch how much of your plan is left
Pro adds a usage meter for your Claude and ChatGPT plans. It shows how much of the plan is used in your menu bar or tray, for the next few hours or for the week, and when the limit resets. As your prompts improve, you can see the meter move more slowly.
The meter also helps you plan. When plenty is left, you can run the big requests. When the limit is close, you can save them for after the reset.