What 18 AI coding agents actually cost (October 2026)

Edzon Perez — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 01:41:33 +0000

Pricing pages for AI coding agents change constantly. I collected the current public pricing for 18 agents, each copied from the vendor's own pricing or docs page, and logged every dated pricing change with a source. Amounts that aren't public are marked that way, never estimated. Here's the short version.

All prices are USD per month, for individuals, before tax, as checked on 15 October 2026.

The table

Tool	Cheapest paid plan	Free tier?
Cursor	Plus $8	Yes (limited usage)
OpenAI Codex	ChatGPT Go $8	Yes (limited, via ChatGPT Free)
Cline	ClinePass $9.99	Yes (open-source extension + BYOK)
GitHub Copilot	Pro $10	Yes (2,000 completions/month + AI credits)
Zed	Pro $10	Yes (Personal $0)
Claude Code	Pro $20 ($17/mo billed annually)	No
Amazon Q Developer	Pro $19/user (new subscriptions blocked)	Existing accounts only
Gemini CLI	Google AI Pro $19.99	Yes (1,000 requests/day with a Google account)
Devin	Pro $20	Yes
Windsurf (merged into Devin)	Pro $20	Yes
Amp	Individual $20	Yes (Hobby)
Kiro	Pro $20	Yes (50 credits)
Augment Code	Standard $20	No
Factory	Pro $20	No
Warp	Build $20	Yes
Aider	None, CLI is $0	Yes (you pay your model API)
Continue (acquired)	Hosted plans not public	Open source
Roo Code	Shut down	n/a

The full table, with every plan tier and a source link for each price, is on CodingAgent Watch.

Takeaway 1: the cheapest paid entry is now $8

Two products tie for the lowest paid plan: Cursor Plus at $8 and ChatGPT Go at $8, which includes Codex. New self-serve customers now buy The X Subscription (Free / Plus $8 / Premium $30 / Super $100 / Ultra $200), while the legacy Pro $20 and Pro+ $60 plans stay only for existing subscribers.

Cursor Plus gives you a weekly pool of Cursor models (Grok / Composer) and no third-party models. Claude, GPT and Gemini only show up from Premium ($30), and they're paid from prepaid credit at API list price. If you mostly want Claude inside Cursor, the "$8" headline doesn't apply to you. I broke this down in Cursor vs Claude Code.

Right behind those two: Cline's ClinePass at $9.99, then Copilot Pro and Zed Pro at $10. Most others sit at $20. The full ranking is on the cheapest AI coding agents page.

Takeaway 2: most have a free tier, but Claude Code doesn't

13 of the 18 have some kind of free path. The most generous ones I found:

Gemini CLI: 1,000 model requests per user per day when you sign in with a Google account.
GitHub Copilot Free: 2,000 code completions a month plus an AI-credit allowance (Auto model selection only).
Aider, Cline, Zed: the tool itself is free. You bring your own API key and pay the model provider.

Claude Code is not on Claude Free. You need at least Pro ($20, or $17/mo billed annually). Augment Code and Factory also don't list a free individual plan. There's a full list at free AI coding agents.

Takeaway 3: know what happens when you hit the limit

The monthly fee is rarely the whole bill. How each tool handles going over:

Copilot: 1 AI credit = $0.01. Extra usage is billed at model token rates, and completions stay unlimited on paid plans.
Claude Code: shares your Claude plan's usage pool, and heavy sessions can switch to pay-as-you-go API credits.
Codex: local messages and cloud chats draw from the same ChatGPT plan allowance.
Factory: after Standard Usage runs out, you drop to Droid Core, a free open-weight model pool.

Choosing between Copilot and Cursor? This matters more than the sticker price: Copilot vs Cursor.

Takeaway 4: recent changes, with dates

14 Oct 2026: GPT-5.5 is retired from Codex sessions signed in with ChatGPT. API-key sessions aren't affected. (Claude Code vs Codex)
12 Oct 2026: Cursor is now sold as The X Subscription, starting at $8.
23 Sep 2026: Factory launches self-serve Teams at $60/month plus $40 per seat, up to 10 seats.
21 May 2026: Warp makes BYOK available on every plan, including Free.
19 May 2026: Google adds a $100 AI Ultra plan and cuts the top Ultra tier from $250 to $200.
15 May 2026: Roo Code shuts down, and Amazon Q Developer stops accepting new signups.
19 Mar 2026: Windsurf moves to Free / Pro $20 / Teams $40 / Max $200 and has since merged into Devin's pricing (Windsurf vs Cursor).

Each entry links to its source in the pricing changelog.

If you want to know when one of these prices changes, there's a free newsletter that only goes out when something actually changes. And if you spot a wrong number, tell me in the comments and I'll fix it with a source.