How Much Does Claude Code Cost? Pricing, Plans, and How to Save Money | Code Boost
Description: Claude Code is available through Anthropic's subscription plans starting at $20 per month, with higher tiers offering more usage and access to the most powerful models. You can also use pay-as-you-go

Article

# How Much Does Claude Code Cost? Pricing, Plans, and How to Save Money

By Matt · Feb 24, 2026

Claude Code is available through Anthropic's subscription plans starting at $20 per month, with higher tiers offering more usage and access to the most powerful models. You can also use pay-as-you-go API billing for more flexibility. This guide breaks down every option so you can choose the plan that matches how you actually work and avoid paying more than you need to.

If you are new to Claude Code, start with our overview of what Claude Code is before diving into pricing. Ready to get started? Head to our installation guide.

## Claude Code Pricing Plans (2026)

Plan | Price | Claude Code Access | Usage Level | Models
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
Free | $0/month | Very limited | Minimal — not practical for development work | Claude Haiku only
Pro | $20/month ($17 annual) | Yes — moderate limits | ~10–40 prompts per 5-hour window | Sonnet, limited Opus
Max 5x | $100/month | Yes — 5× Pro limits | Heavy daily professional use | Sonnet + Opus
Max 20x | $200/month | Yes — 20× Pro limits | Power users, continuous multi-project use | Sonnet + Opus (priority)
Team Standard | $25/seat/month (annual) | No (chat only) | Collaboration features for teams | Sonnet
Team Premium | $150/seat/month | Yes | Technical teams needing Claude Code access | Sonnet + Opus

Anthropic offers several subscription tiers that include Claude Code. Each uses session-based usage limits that reset every five hours, so your capacity refreshes throughout the day rather than being a single monthly allowance.

## Plan Breakdown

### Free Plan

The Free plan provides access to Claude.ai chat but very limited Claude Code functionality. For any real development work, a paid plan is necessary. The free tier is best for exploring Claude.ai's chat interface, not for coding workflows.

### Pro Plan — $20/month

The Pro plan costs $20 per month billed monthly, or $17 per month with annual billing. It includes Claude Code access with moderate limits, roughly 10 to 40 prompts every five hours depending on complexity. Pro works well for:

- Learning Claude Code and building your workflow
- Light development work — a few sessions per day
- Occasional coding sessions and one-off tasks
- Side projects where you're not using it eight hours a day

The plan also includes file creation, code execution, Projects, and web search. If you consistently hit limits during a single session, it's a sign you should upgrade to Max 5x.

### Max 5x — $100/month

Max 5x gives you five times the Pro usage allocation. It includes access to the Opus model and priority during high-demand periods. This is the sweet spot for developers who rely on Claude Code as a primary daily tool — it handles sustained professional sessions without constant interruptions from rate limits.

### Max 20x — $200/month

Max 20x delivers twenty times Pro limits and is designed for power users running Claude Code continuously across multiple projects. It also gives you the highest priority for Opus access. If you would otherwise spend more than $200/month on API tokens, this tier saves money.

One developer tracked eight months of heavy daily usage that would have cost over $15,000 on API pricing but only $800 on the Max plan. For most developers using Claude Code full-time every day, the subscription wins on cost by a wide margin.

## API Pay-As-You-Go Pricing

If you prefer usage-based billing, use Claude Code with an Anthropic Console account and API key. You pay per token, with costs varying by model:

Model | Input (per million tokens) | Output (per million tokens) | Cache write | Cache read
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
Claude Sonnet 4.6 | $3.00 | $15.00 | $3.75 | $0.30
Claude Opus 4.7 | $15.00 | $75.00 | $18.75 | $1.50
Claude Haiku 4.5 | $0.80 | $4.00 | $1.00 | $0.08

API pricing offers precise cost control and no hard usage caps, which matters for automation and scaling. The API also offers:

- Batch processing at 50% off for non-urgent tasks
- Prompt caching that charges only 10% for cached content after the first request — system prompts and CLAUDE.md files are cached automatically

However, API costs can be variable and high with heavy use. For most developers using Claude Code daily interactively, the subscription wins on cost. API billing makes more sense for automated pipelines, CI/CD integration, or teams with highly variable usage patterns.

## Team and Enterprise Plans

For organizations, Anthropic offers team-level management through the Anthropic Console:

- Team Standard ($25/seat/month with annual billing): Collaboration features, shared Projects, and usage dashboards. Does not include Claude Code — this is for teams using Claude.ai chat collaboratively.
- Team Premium ($150/seat/month): Adds Claude Code access and early access to new features. Suited for technical teams where developers need agentic coding capabilities alongside collaboration tools.
- Enterprise: All Team features plus additional governance, security controls, SSO, and custom billing. Contact Anthropic directly for enterprise pricing.

## Which Plan Should You Choose?

Choose Pro ($20/month) if: You are starting out, use Claude Code a few times per week, or are evaluating whether it fits your workflow. You will hit limits during sustained sessions, but for occasional use it works well.

Choose Max 5x ($100/month) if: Claude Code is a regular part of your daily workflow. It handles professional work including complex debugging, feature implementation, and code review without constant rate limit interruptions. This is the tier most active developers land on.

Choose Max 20x ($200/month) if: You are running Claude Code continuously across multiple projects, need unrestricted Opus access, or your equivalent API usage would cost more than $200/month.

Choose API billing if: Your usage is unpredictable, you're integrating Claude Code into automated pipelines, or you want per-token cost visibility without a monthly subscription commitment. Start with a small credit amount to understand your patterns before committing.

## How to Track and Reduce Costs

The `/cost` command shows your session's token usage and estimated cost — most useful for API users. For continuous visibility, configure the status line to show token usage at all times.

The most effective cost reduction strategies:

- Clear context between tasks with `/clear` — stop paying for stale conversation history from a different task
- Use /compact to summarize long conversations and free up context window space
- Choose Sonnet over Opus for routine tasks — Sonnet handles most coding work at much lower token cost
- Use CLAUDE.md files to give persistent project context so you don't repeat setup in every session

For teams, administrators can set workspace spend limits in the Anthropic Console and view per-user usage reports. The average API cost is roughly $6 per developer per day, with 90 percent of users staying below $12 daily.

## Understanding Usage Limits

Anthropic uses a five-hour rolling window for usage limits rather than monthly caps — your allocation resets every five hours throughout the day. This means a developer can hit their limit mid-morning, wait a few hours, and resume with a fresh allocation.

Anthropic also introduced weekly rate limits in August 2025 on top of the five-hour session resets. These primarily affect power users running Claude Code continuously and impact less than five percent of subscribers. Max subscribers can purchase additional usage beyond rate limits at standard API rates if needed.

Claude Code sessions consume more capacity than regular Claude.ai chat because they include system instructions, full file contexts, long code outputs, and multiple tool calls per interaction. You will use your allocation faster than in the chat interface.

For more on how tokens and context windows work technically, read how Claude Code works under the hood. To learn practical efficiency techniques, see our guide to using Claude Code effectively.

## Frequently Asked Questions

### Is Claude Code included in Claude Pro?

Yes. Claude Pro at $20/month includes Claude Code access with moderate usage limits. The limits reset every five hours, so you get multiple productive sessions per day. For heavy daily use, the Max 5x plan at $100/month is significantly more practical.

### What happens when I hit my Claude Code usage limit?

When you reach your five-hour usage limit, Claude Code will tell you the limit has been reached and when it resets. You can wait for the reset, switch to a lighter model, or — on Max plans — purchase additional usage at API rates if you need to continue immediately.

### Is Claude Code cheaper than using the API directly?

For most developers, yes. A developer doing heavy daily Claude Code usage could easily spend $50–$150/month on API tokens. The Max 5x plan at $100/month includes that usage plus subscription benefits. The breakeven point is roughly 30 million input tokens or 6 million output tokens per month at Sonnet rates.

### Does Claude Code cost extra on top of a Claude subscription?

No. Claude Code is included in Pro, Max, and Team Premium subscriptions at no additional charge. You pay your subscription fee and Claude Code access is part of that plan. API usage (if you connect via API key instead of subscription) is billed separately per token.

### Can I use Claude Code on the Team Standard plan?

No. Team Standard ($25/seat/month) includes Claude.ai chat and collaboration features but does not include Claude Code. You need Team Premium ($150/seat/month) or individual Max plans for Claude Code access.