What AI Coding Tools Cost per Month

Claude Pro is $20 a month and Max 5x is $100. Sample monthly budgets for solo, side-project and small-team use, built only from official pricing pages.

TL;DR

From official list prices (checked 2026-10-23), an AI coding budget is about $20/month to try one tool solo, about $120 for daily side-project use, and about $125 for a five-person team.
These are generic examples built by adding up list prices, not anyone's actual spending.
Claude Code isn't in Claude Free, Codex CLI with a ChatGPT plan needs Plus or higher, and Cursor Plus runs Grok models only.

Built from official pricing pages alone, a monthly budget for AI coding tools comes out at about $20 to try one tool solo, about $120 for daily side-project use, and about $125 for a five-person team. These are generic examples made by adding up list prices. They are not what we or anyone else actually spends. This guide covers the pricing assumptions, monthly prices for the main tools, three sample setups, costs beyond the subscription, and what to watch for when you choose.

Pricing assumptions

Checked: every price on 2026-10-23
Currency: US dollars, as shown on each official page
Tax: Anthropic and Cursor state their prices exclude tax. We found no tax note on the OpenAI (Codex) or GitHub Copilot pages (unverified)
We compare monthly billing; annual discounts are listed separately

Prices change, so check the official page before you subscribe.

Monthly prices

Tool	Plan	Monthly (billed monthly)	Source
Claude	Pro	$20	https://claude.com/pricing
Claude	Max 5x / Max 20x	$100 / $200	https://support.claude.com/en/articles/11049741-what-is-the-max-plan
Claude	Team (Standard seat)	$25 per seat	https://claude.com/pricing
ChatGPT (Codex)	Plus	$20	https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/pricing
ChatGPT (Codex)	Pro	$100 / $200 / $500	https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/pricing
ChatGPT (Codex)	Business	$25 per user	https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/pricing
Cursor	Plus / Premium	$8 / $30	https://cursor.com/pricing
Cursor	Super / Ultra	$100 / $200	https://cursor.com/pricing
Cursor	Teams	$30 / $100 / $200 per seat	https://cursor.com/help/account-and-billing/pricing
GitHub Copilot	Pro / Pro+ / Max	$10 / $39 / $100	https://github.com/features/copilot/plans

Source: each URL in the table (checked 2026-10-23)

Three things to note when reading the table:

Claude Code isn’t included in Claude Free. It is included in Pro, Max 5x and Max 20x, and in Team. Max is billed monthly only
To use the Codex CLI with a ChatGPT plan, you need Plus or higher. On Free and Go ($8), Codex is limited to the desktop app
Cursor Plus runs Grok models only; third-party models such as Claude and GPT aren’t available on it

Annual billing is cheaper on some plans. Claude Pro is $17 a month billed annually ($200 up front), and a Claude Team Standard seat is $20 billed annually. ChatGPT Business is $20 per user billed annually, for 2 or more users. Cursor Plus is $80 a year and Premium is $300 a year. ChatGPT prices here are as shown on the Codex pricing page (https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/pricing).

Setup 1: Trying one tool solo

Start with the cheapest paid plan of a single tool:

Claude Pro (monthly) $20 = $20 per month

ChatGPT Plus costs the same $20. For less, there’s Copilot Pro ($10) or Cursor Plus ($8), but Cursor Plus is limited to Grok models.

Setup 2: Daily side-project use

Raise the usage on your main tool and add a second one as backup:

Claude Max 5x $100 + ChatGPT Plus $20 = $120 per month

Max 5x gives five times the usage of Pro. With a second subscription, you can keep working when one tool hits its limit. For more on Claude Code pricing, see What Claude Code Really Costs; for Cursor, see Cursor Pricing and How to Choose.

Setup 3: A small team

Assume five people. Multiply the seat price by the headcount:

Claude Team Standard seat (monthly)  $25 × 5 = $125 per month
Claude Team Standard seat (annual)   $20 × 5 = $100 per month

Team covers 2 to 150 seats, and Claude Code is included. ChatGPT Business is also $25 per user billed monthly, so five people come to $125 too. Cursor Teams starts at $30 per seat, so $150 and up for five. The Copilot pricing page shows no price for Business or Enterprise, only a contact-sales path (unverified).

Costs beyond the subscription

API usage: with an API key, you pay per use at API rates
Extra usage: Claude’s usage credits bill anything past your plan’s limits at standard API rates. Copilot lets you set a budget for extra usage and keep going (1 AI credit = $0.01)
Third-party models: on Cursor Premium and above, Claude, GPT and other third-party models are billed separately at API list price
CI runs: running agents in CI draws on your plan’s usage or API billing. See Running Claude Code in CI: Costs and Traps

Sources: https://support.claude.com/en/articles/12429409-manage-usage-credits-for-paid-claude-plans , https://github.com/features/copilot/plans , https://cursor.com/docs/models-and-pricing (checked 2026-10-23)

If you keep an agent running around the clock, add the cost of a server; check the provider’s official pricing. For the setup itself, see Run an AI Agent 24/7 on a VPS.

What to watch when you choose

Usage resets on different schedules depending on the tool:

Claude: a five-hour session limit plus a weekly limit
Cursor: the usage pool refreshes weekly
GitHub Copilot: plans include a monthly allowance of GitHub AI Credits

Because Claude also has a weekly limit, waiting five hours doesn’t always get you back to work. The weekly limit resets at a fixed time each week assigned to your account. Claude’s limits are shared between chat and Claude Code. More in When You Hit Claude Code’s Usage Limit.

Sources: https://claude.com/pricing , https://support.claude.com/en/articles/11049741-what-is-the-max-plan , https://cursor.com/pricing , https://github.com/features/copilot/plans (checked 2026-10-23)

Summary

From list prices alone: about $20 a month to try one tool, $120 for daily side-project use, $125 for a five-person team.
These are list prices added together, not actual spending.
Claude Code needs Pro or higher; the Codex CLI needs ChatGPT Plus or higher.
Annual discounts exist for Claude Pro, Claude Team, ChatGPT Business and Cursor. Claude Max is monthly only.
Beyond the subscription, budget for API usage, extra usage, CI and servers.
Limits reset on different clocks: Claude every five hours and weekly, Cursor weekly, Copilot monthly.