Coding Agents · Prices, limits, changes
Coding agents became the most expensive thing most developers pay for in AI — and the most volatile. In 2026 every major one changed how it charges: request counts gave way to usage pools, weekly windows and credits, two products changed owner or name, and the ~$200 “all-day” tier became standard. This page tracks the six that matter, with every price taken from the vendor's own pricing page and every change logged with its date.
| Agent | Entry price | Top individual tier | Models | Where it runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Code Anthropic | $20/mo | Max 20x · $200/mo | Anthropic only | Terminal, IDE, Desktop app, Cloud agent |
| OpenAI Codex OpenAI | $20/mo | Pro · $100, $200 or $500/mo | OpenAI only | Terminal, IDE, Desktop app, Cloud agent |
| Cursor SpaceXAI | $30/mo | Ultra · $200/mo | Multiple vendors | Editor (own), Cloud agent |
| GitHub Copilot GitHub (Microsoft) | $10/mo | Max · $100/mo | Multiple vendors | IDE, GitHub, Cloud agent |
| Devin Desktop Cognition · formerly Windsurf | $20/mo | Max · $200/mo | Multiple vendors | Editor (own), Cloud agent |
| Antigravity CLI / Gemini CLI Google · formerly Gemini CLI (for free and Google One users) | Free tier | Google AI Ultra · $99.99 or $199.99/mo | Google only | Terminal, IDE, Cloud agent |
Entry price is the cheapest plan with real agent use. Cursor's $8 Plus plan is Grok-only, so its entry is listed at Premium.
You already pay for Claude Pro
Claude Code
Included at no extra cost, with Claude Opus 5.5 as the default model.
You already pay for ChatGPT Plus
OpenAI Codex
Included, with published 5-hour estimates — 15–160 messages on GPT-6.1 Sol.
You want the cheapest paid agent
GitHub Copilot Pro
$10 with $15 of AI Credits and GitHub's cloud agent.
You want several vendors' models in one tool
Copilot Pro+ or Cursor Premium
Copilot Pro+ ($39) delegates to Claude and Codex; Cursor Premium ($30) bills other vendors' models at API list price.
You code with an agent all day
A ~$200 tier
Claude Max 20x, ChatGPT Pro, Cursor Ultra or Devin Max — pick by the model family you prefer.
Claude Code
Anthropic's terminal-first coding agent, included in every paid Claude plan from $20.
OpenAI Codex
OpenAI's coding agent, bundled into every ChatGPT plan; Pro tiers have no 5-hour cap.
Cursor
The AI code editor, now owned by SpaceXAI and sold in a shared Grok/Cursor usage pool.
GitHub Copilot
The cheapest paid entry to an agent, with Claude and Codex as delegated agents on Pro+.
Devin Desktop
The editor formerly called Windsurf, now part of Cognition's Devin, with quota-based plans.
Antigravity CLI / Gemini CLI
Google's terminal agents: Antigravity CLI for consumers, Gemini CLI for API and Workspace users.
Newest first. Official entries are confirmed on the vendor's own pages.
GPT-5.5 retires from ChatGPT, ChatGPT Work and Codex on all plans (the API is not affected).
windsurf.com now redirects to Devin; the editor is sold as Devin Desktop with Free, Pro $20, Max $200 and Teams plans.
SpaceXAI launches 'The X Subscription', bundling Grok, Cursor and X Premium with a shared weekly usage pool. Cursor's plans become Plus $8, Premium $30, Super $100 and Ultra $200, replacing the earlier Pro ($20), Pro+ ($60) and Ultra ($200) line-up.
GPT-6.1 Sol launches at DevDay for paid plans through ChatGPT Work and Codex.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 launches at $2/$10 on the API.
Claude Opus 5.5 launches. Claude Code v2.1.280 switches the default on Pro and Team Standard from Sonnet to Opus 5.5. Anthropic announces higher 5-hour limits on paid plans without publishing amounts.
GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna launch.
GPT-6 Astra launches and becomes available in Codex.
Claude Fable 5.1 launches: credits-only on Pro, included on Max up to 50% of weekly limits.
Usage starts billing at the routed model's list price rather than a flat Cursor rate.
SpaceXAI completes its acquisition of Cursor's maker, Anysphere, in a deal valued at about $60 billion.
Gemini CLI is replaced by Antigravity CLI for unpaid and Google One users; enterprise and API-key users keep Gemini CLI.
Individual plans move from premium-request counts to usage-based GitHub AI Credits.
Code review workflows start consuming GitHub Actions minutes.
Google launches Antigravity 2.0 at I/O as the successor to Gemini CLI.
Anthropic doubles 5-hour session limits for Pro, Max, Team and seat-based Enterprise, and removes weekday peak-hour reductions.
Windsurf replaces its monthly credit system with daily and weekly quotas; Pro moves from $15 to $20.
It depends on what you already pay for. If you have Claude Pro or ChatGPT Plus, Claude Code or Codex is included and is the obvious place to start. For the strongest coding model, Claude Code runs Claude Opus 5.5 by default. If you want to switch between vendors' models in one tool, GitHub Copilot Pro+ or Cursor Premium allow it.
GitHub Copilot Pro at $10/month, which includes $15 of AI Credits and GitHub's cloud agent. Google's Code Assist Individual is free with a published 1,000 requests a day for Gemini CLI. Cursor's $8 Plus plan is Grok-only.
Every major vendor now has a tier around $200 a month aimed at it: Claude Max 20x, ChatGPT Pro ($200 tier, no 5-hour cap), Cursor Ultra and Devin Desktop Max. Choose by model preference: Claude, OpenAI, a mix through Cursor, or Devin's cloud agents.
Agents use far more tokens than chat, and vendors have spent 2026 moving from fixed request counts to usage pools, weekly windows and credits so heavy users pay for what they use. In 2026 alone Cursor was bought and rebundled, Windsurf became Devin Desktop, Copilot moved to AI Credits and Gemini CLI was replaced for consumers. We log each change on this page with its date.
The same data is available as JSON at /coding-agents.json, with each fact's source and verification date. Related: AI plan limits, best AI for coding, SWE-bench leaderboard.
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