Claude Code plans and prices
Anthropic sells Claude Code as part of its Claude subscriptions. Every paid plan includes it; the free plan does not. Subscription usage is capped by a rolling five-hour session limit and a weekly limit, shared with the Claude apps.
| Plan | Price | Claude Code | Usage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Not included | — |
| Pro | $20/month, or $17/month billed yearly | Included | Five-hour session limit plus a weekly limit |
| Max 5x | $100/month | Included | 5x Pro's usage per session |
| Max 20x | $200/month | Included | 20x Pro's usage per session |
| Team, Standard seat | $25/seat/month, or $20 billed yearly | Included | Per-seat allowance, five-hour and weekly windows |
| Team, Premium seat | $125/seat/month, or $100 billed yearly | Included | Per-seat allowance sized by seat tier |
| Enterprise | $20/seat/month billed yearly (20-seat minimum) plus usage at API rates | Included | Billed at API rates |
Is Claude Code free?
The CLI costs nothing to install, but it needs a paid source of model usage to do any work. Anthropic's plan comparison lists Claude Code as not included on the free Claude plan, so you need one of three things: a paid Claude plan, API credit in the Claude Console, or an Anthropic-compatible endpoint from another provider.
API pricing: paying per token
Without a subscription, Claude Code bills the Console account you sign in with at Anthropic's API rates. Prices per million tokens:
| Model | Input | Output | Cache read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Opus 5.5 | $4 | $20 | $0.20 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $2 | $10 | $0.10 |
| Haiku 5.5, prompts up to 100K tokens | $0.10 | $0.50 | $0.01 |
| Haiku 5.5, prompts over 100K tokens | $0.50 | $2.50 | $0.05 |
- Claude Code resends the whole conversation on every request and leans on prompt caching, so the cache-read price matters as much as the input price: on Sonnet 5.5 it is a twentieth of it
- Batch processing saves 50%, but it does not apply to an interactive coding session
- Fast mode on Opus 5.5 costs twice the standard price
What people actually spend
Anthropic's Claude Code documentation gives its own figures: across enterprise deployments the average is about $13 per developer per active day and $150 to $250 per developer per month, with 90% of users below $30 per active day.
Read those numbers against the plans. A developer whose API bill would land in that range pays less on Max, provided Max's usage limits cover the work. At around $13 an active day, even Pro at $20 a month costs less than the API after two active days, as long as its limits cover your sessions.
What happens when you hit a limit
On Pro and Max you can turn on usage credits to keep working past the five-hour or weekly limit, billed on top of the plan. The monthly API credits that come with Max cannot be spent in Claude Code. Otherwise you wait for the window to reset, upgrade, or switch to Console billing. The full picture is in Claude Code usage limits, explained.
Cheaper ways to run Claude Code
Claude Code reads its endpoint from ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL, so the same CLI can run on any Anthropic-compatible provider. The client stays the same; the model that answers changes, and none of these are Anthropic's Claude models.
- DeepSeek's own API: an Anthropic-compatible endpoint at
https://api.deepseek.com/anthropic; DeepSeek V4.1 Flash costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens at peak, half that off-peak - A flat plan: Nexum Router is $5.50 a week with no hourly or weekly windows on its Qwen, Xiaomi and Meta models, and includes $5 of DeepSeek V4.1 Flash usage a day (setup guide)
- Step-by-step DeepSeek setup: How to use DeepSeek in Claude Code
How to check what you are spending
Run /usage inside Claude Code. On the API it shows the session's token counts and an estimated cost at list price; on a subscription it shows plan usage bars and a breakdown of what used them. For billing, the Usage page in the Claude Console is authoritative.
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Code free?
The CLI is free to install, but the free Claude plan does not include Claude Code usage. You need a paid plan (Pro from $20 a month), API credit, or an Anthropic-compatible endpoint from another provider.
Does Claude Pro include Claude Code?
Yes. Pro, both Max tiers, Team seats and Enterprise all include Claude Code. Usage is shared with the Claude apps and capped by a five-hour session limit and a weekly limit.
How much does Claude Code cost per month on the API?
Anthropic reports an average of $150 to $250 per developer per month across enterprise deployments, about $13 per active day. Your cost depends on the model, context size and how many hours you run it.
Can I use Claude Code without a Claude subscription?
Yes. Sign in with a Claude Console account to pay per token, or set ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL to another provider's Anthropic-compatible endpoint, such as DeepSeek's API or Nexum Router.
Sources
Prices, limits and features were checked against these pages on 2026-10-29.