Claude Code vs Cursor vs GitHub Copilot: I used all three for a month — here's the real cost breakdown

I'm a freelance developer. I can't afford to throw $20-40/month at AI tools that might not deliver. So I actually tested Claude Code, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot side by side for 30 days on real client projects.

Here's what I found.

The tools

GitHub Copilot — $10/month (individual) or $19/month (business)
Cursor — $20/month (Pro)
Claude Code — Requires Claude Pro at $20/month OR you can configure a custom API

What I was testing

• Daily code completion quality
• Multi-file refactoring
• Debugging complex bugs
• Understanding unfamiliar codebases
• Following project-specific conventions

GitHub Copilot: Fast, but shallow

Copilot is excellent at autocomplete. If you're finishing a line or a function that follows a clear pattern, it's nearly instant.

Where it falls down: anything requiring context across multiple files. Ask it to refactor a class that's used in 8 different places and it doesn't know what it doesn't know.

# Copilot is great at this:
def calculate_total(items):
    return sum(item.price * item.quantity for item in items)  # ← completes perfectly

# Copilot struggles with this:
# "Refactor the UserService class so it uses the new AuthProvider
#  we added in auth.py, without breaking the 3 places it's used in routes/"

Cost after 30 days: $10

Cursor: Great IDE, expensive

Cursor is genuinely impressive. The Tab completion is better than Copilot for multi-line edits. The Composer (now Agent) mode can touch multiple files in one go.

But at $20/month, you're paying for the IDE wrapper as much as the AI. And if you're already happy in VS Code or Neovim, you're paying for a migration tax.

The other issue: Cursor's agent mode uses Claude or GPT-4 under the hood. You're paying $20/month for... Claude.

Cost after 30 days: $20

Claude Code: Most capable, pricing problem

Claude Code (the CLI tool from Anthropic) is the most capable of the three for complex reasoning tasks. Multi-file refactoring, debugging obscure errors, understanding a legacy codebase — Claude Code does this better.

The problem: the default setup requires Claude Pro at $20/month. And Claude Pro's rate limits are real — if you're using Claude Code heavily, you'll hit them.

# The setup most people don't know about:
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="https://simplylouie.com/api"
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="your-key-here"

# Then Claude Code just... works. Same tool, different backend.
claude "refactor UserService to use the new AuthProvider"

With a custom base_url, Claude Code becomes $2/month instead of $20/month.

Cost after 30 days with this setup: $2

The actual comparison

Tool	Monthly Cost	Inline Completion	Multi-file Refactor	Codebase Q&A
Copilot	$10	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐	⭐⭐
Cursor	$20	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐
Claude Code (default)	$20	⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Claude Code (custom API)	$2	⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

My actual setup after 30 days

I kept GitHub Copilot for inline completion (it's the best at that specific thing). And I switched Claude Code to use a $2/month API for everything else.

Total AI spend: $12/month instead of $50/month if I'd subscribed to everything.

// .claude/settings.json
{
  "env": {
    "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://simplylouie.com/api",
    "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY": "sl_your_key_here"
  }
}

How the $2/month Claude API works

SimplyLouie is an API proxy for Claude that costs $2/month (7-day free trial, no charge upfront). It uses the same Claude models that power Claude Code and Cursor.

The curl to test it:

curl https://simplylouie.com/api/v1/messages \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "claude-opus-4-5",
    "max_tokens": 1024,
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "hello"}]
  }'

7-day free trial at simplylouie.com — no charge for a week, then $2/month if you keep it.

Bottom line

If I had to pick ONE tool:

• Heavy inline completion user? → Copilot at $10/month
• Full IDE switch, love GUIs? → Cursor at $20/month
• CLI-comfortable, want the most capable AI? → Claude Code + $2/month API

The $2/month Claude API is legitimately the best value for developers who are comfortable with a terminal.