AI Coding Assistant Cost Planner
Compare what your team would pay on GitHub Copilot, Claude and Cursor for the same coding usage.
Team
Usage
About $13 an active day on Sonnet 4.6, the average Anthropic reports across enterprise deployments.
Billing
- Plan
- GitHub Copilot Business
- Per developer
- $96.99
- Same cost
- GitHub Copilot Enterprise, Direct API (pay per token)
Every plan, a month
| Plan | Team, a month | Per developer | On top of seats |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Copilot Pro+ (bought per developer)7,000 credits each, 3,100 of them the flex allotment GitHub calls variable; not pooled, no organization controls. | $1,649.75 | $65.99 | $674.75 |
| GitHub Copilot Business1,900 AI credits per seat, pooled across the organization; usage past the pool at $0.01 a credit. | $2,424.75 | $96.99 | $1,949.75 |
| GitHub Copilot Enterprise3,900 AI credits per seat, pooled; Enterprise adds features, not cheaper usage. | $2,424.75 | $96.99 | $1,449.75 |
| Direct API (pay per token)An agent such as Claude Code or Codex on an API key: every token at list price, no seat. | $2,424.75 | $96.99 | $2,424.75 |
| GitHub Copilot Max (bought per developer)20,000 credits each, half of them flex; not pooled, no organization controls. | $2,500.00 | $100.00 | $0.00 |
| Claude EnterpriseBilled annually, 20 seats at least; every token billed on top at API rates. | $2,924.75 | $116.99 | $2,424.75 |
| Claude Team, Standard seatsA fifth of a Premium seat’s usage; past it, usage credits at API rates. | $625.00 to $3,049.75 | $25.00 to $121.99 | $0.00 to $2,424.75 |
| Cursor TeamsClaude, GPT and Gemini at API list price plus $0.25 per million tokens; the included pool covers Cursor models only. | $5,371.59 | $214.86 | $4,621.59 |
| Claude Team, Premium seatsUsage within the seat allowance is included; Anthropic does not state that allowance in dollars. | $3,125.00 to $5,549.75 | $125.00 to $221.99 | $0.00 to $2,424.75 |
What decides it
- Past the pooled allowance a Copilot seat comes back as credits, so Business and Enterprise both cost $2,424.75, the same as paying the API directly. Below it, the seats are the price.
- Cursor’s token rate adds $2,196.84: it is charged per token, and 94.3% of an agent’s tokens are cache reads that cost a tenth of an input token or less.
Rates used and their sourcesShow
What this model assumes
Show
- Usage is priced at each model’s published per-token rates, the default tier: long-context tiers bill more above a prompt length and are left out. GitHub Copilot’s rates for these models are the makers’ API list prices.
- Code completions and next edit suggestions are not billed in Copilot AI credits, so they are not in the usage here.
- Copilot Pro+ and Max include a flex allotment GitHub describes as variable; it is counted at the figure GitHub lists.
- Claude Team includes usage up to a seat allowance Anthropic does not state in dollars, so its cost is a range: all usage inside the allowance, or none of it.
- Cursor is priced for Claude, GPT and Gemini models, billed at API list price plus $0.25 per million tokens on Teams, counted on every token. Its own models draw on an included pool stated only as a multiple of its Plus plan, so they are not priced.
- Taxes, annual commitments and negotiated discounts are not included.
Prices verified 17 Oct 2026. Public list prices in USD, before any discount you have negotiated.
Paying negotiated rates for Claude, GPT or Gemini?
Cloud and AI Invoice Reconciliation: We check every AWS, Google Cloud and AI invoice against your usage and contracts each month. From $1,250 a month. Nothing paid upfront.
About this planner
AI coding assistants moved from flat seats to usage billing in 2026. GitHub Copilot bills AI credits priced per token, Claude bills usage past a seat allowance at API rates, and Cursor bills third-party models at API list price. A seat price on its own no longer says what a team will pay.
So this planner starts from usage, in tokens per developer per active day, and applies each vendor’s published rules to it. The presets come from Anthropic’s own figures for Claude Code; the report reader starts from your team’s actual Copilot usage instead.
Questions
How much does an AI coding assistant cost per developer?
For agentic use, mostly what the tokens cost. Anthropic reports about $13 per developer per active day for Claude Code across enterprise deployments, $150 to $250 a month, with 90% of users under $30 a day. Seats matter for light users; for heavy ones, the model and the tokens decide the bill.
How does GitHub Copilot bill now?
Since June 2026 in AI credits: one credit is $0.01, and each request costs its tokens at the model’s per-token rates. Business includes 1,900 credits per seat and Enterprise 3,900, pooled across the organization. Past the pool, usage is billed at the same rates. Code completions are not billed in credits.
Is Copilot Enterprise more expensive than Business for heavy users?
No. Its seat costs more, but the seat price comes back as included credits. Once a team uses more than the pool, Business, Enterprise and the API all cost the same for the same tokens; Enterprise is then paying for its features, not for usage.
Why is Claude Team shown as a range?
A Team seat includes usage up to an allowance that resets every five hours and every week, and Anthropic does not publish what that allowance is worth in dollars. The low end assumes all of a developer’s usage fits in it; the high end assumes none does and every token is billed as usage credits at API rates.
Why does Cursor cost more here?
On Teams, Cursor bills Claude, GPT and Gemini at API list price plus its token rate of $0.25 per million tokens. Agents re-read their context from cache on every step, so most of their tokens are cache reads that cost cents per million, and a flat per-token fee lands on all of them.
Is my usage report uploaded?
No. The report is read in your browser and nothing from it is sent, not even into the page address. Only the numbers you type into the planner go into the shareable link.
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