The short answer
For an engineering lead or startup founder budgeting AI coding tools for a team of 5 developers, the seat bill on 11 October 2026 ran from $95 a month on GitHub Copilot Business to $625 a month on Claude Team Premium seats, billed monthly. That is $1,140 to $7,500 a year before anyone pays for extra usage. We read every price on the vendor’s own page that morning.
The bigger change is what a seat buys. Every plan in this table now meters agent work: GitHub in AI credits worth one cent each, Cursor in two usage pools priced at model API rates, Claude and Devin in usage limits that reset on a timer. Code completions are the part that stays flat. So the seat price is the floor of the bill, not the bill.
| Team plan | 5 developers, billed monthly | Billed annually, a month | What the seat includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Copilot Business | $95 | not published | 5 x 1,900 AI credits pooled; extra usage $0.01 a credit |
| ChatGPT Business (Codex included) | $125 | $100 | Codex on the same seat |
| Claude Team, Standard seats (Claude Code included) | $125 | $100 | usage limits, no published quota |
| GitHub Copilot Enterprise | $195 | not published | 5 x 3,900 credits; needs GitHub Enterprise Cloud (not included) |
| Cursor Teams, Standard | $200 | $160 | plus a $0.25 per million token rate on third-party models |
| Devin Teams (formerly Windsurf) | $280 | not published | $80 team fee + 5 x $40 |
| Cursor Teams, Premium | $600 | $480 | 5x Standard Agent limits |
| Claude Team, Premium seats | $625 | $500 | 5x Standard usage |
Every seat now buys a usage meter
GitHub Copilot switched every plan from premium requests to GitHub AI Credits on 1 June 2026, announced on 27 April. Credits are consumed by tokens at each model’s API rate. A Business seat at $19 includes 1,900 credits, and GitHub’s docs price usage beyond the pool at $0.01 a credit, so the seat carries exactly $19 of usage. For 5 developers that is a shared pool of 9,500 credits, $95. Code completions and next edit suggestions do not touch the pool; GitHub says they stay unlimited on paid plans. One cost that is easy to miss: Copilot code review also consumes GitHub Actions minutes.
Cursor splits usage into two pools. Its own models draw on one; third-party models from Anthropic, OpenAI and Google are charged at the model’s API price from the other. On Teams and Enterprise, third-party requests carry an extra Cursor Token Rate of $0.25 per million tokens, including when you bring your own key. Cursor’s docs give their own estimate of total usage: daily Agent users typically land at $60 to $100 a month, and power users often pass $200.
Claude Code comes with every paid Claude plan and shares that plan’s usage limits, which reset on a rolling five-hour window with weekly limits on top. Anthropic publishes multipliers, not a quota. Past the limit, paid plans can turn on usage credits at standard API rates. The Enterprise plan is $20 a seat plus usage at API rates.
Devin, the new name for Windsurf, gives each paid plan an allowance that refreshes daily and weekly, with extra usage sold at API pricing.
What Google’s answer gets wrong
We captured Google’s AI Overview and AI Mode for “best ai coding assistants 2026 pricing” on 11 October 2026 and checked each claim against the vendor’s page the same day. Four did not hold.
| Google says | The vendor’s page says | Read |
|---|---|---|
| Cursor’s free tier is “2,000 completions/mo” | Cursor’s Hobby plan lists “Limited Agent requests” and no count. 2,000 completions a month is Copilot Free’s limit, per GitHub. | 11 October 2026 |
| Copilot has no free tier | Copilot Free is $0 with 2,000 completions a month | 11 October 2026 |
| “Windsurf (by Codeium)” at Pro $20; AI Mode says “around $15/mo” | Devin Desktop is the new name for Windsurf; windsurf.com/pricing redirects to devin.ai/pricing, where Pro is $20 a month | 11 October 2026 |
| Claude Code’s free tier cell reads “Usage / $100/mo” | Claude Code is not on the Free plan; it starts with Pro at $20 billed monthly | 11 October 2026 |
One developer: the plan ladder
| Tool | Entry paid plan | Heavy-use plan | Top individual plan | Usage beyond the plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Copilot | Pro $10 with $15 of credits | Pro+ $39 with $70 | Max $100 with $200 | buy more AI credits |
| Cursor | Pro $20 ($16 yearly) | Pro+ $60 ($48) | Ultra $200 ($160) | on-demand at model API rates |
| Claude Code | Pro $20 ($200 a year) | Max 5x $100 | Max 20x $200 | usage credits at API rates |
| Devin (formerly Windsurf) | Pro $20 | not offered | Max $200 | extra usage at API pricing |
| ChatGPT with Codex | Plus $20 | not offered | Pro from $100 | not published on the page |
Two numbers in this ladder change the math. First, GitHub’s individual plans include more usage than they cost: $15 of credits for $10 on Pro (1.5x), $70 for $39 on Pro+ (1.79x) and $200 for $100 on Max (2.0x). The extra is a “flex allotment”, and GitHub’s page says flex allotments may change over time. A Business seat carries 1.0x. Second, Claude’s Max plans list API credits equal to the plan price, $100 a month on Max 5x and $200 on Max 20x, for building on the Claude Platform.
Annual billing saves 20% on every Cursor plan and $40 a year on Claude Pro ($200 up front against $240). Claude’s Max plans are billed monthly only.
Each assistant, priced
GitHub Copilot
Free $0 (2,000 completions a month), Pro $10, Pro+ $39, Max $100, Business $19 and Enterprise $39 per seat. Enterprise is designed for organizations on GitHub Enterprise Cloud, which is billed separately. For a team that already lives in GitHub, Business is the lowest seat price in this comparison at $19, with pooled credits and admin budget caps.
Cursor
Hobby is free with limited Agent requests. Pro $20, Pro+ $60 (3x Pro Agent limits), Ultra $200 (20x). Teams Standard $40 and Premium $120 per user. Premium costs 3x Standard for 5x the Agent limits, a better ratio than Claude’s Premium seat at 5x the price for 5x the usage.
Claude Code
Included with Pro ($20 monthly, $200 a year), Max 5x ($100), Max 20x ($200) and Team seats ($25 or $125 monthly, $20 or $100 annual) for teams of 2 to 150. Team plans list up to $500 a month in pooled API credits. If your developers live in the terminal, our guide to the 12 most installed Claude Code subagents shows what each one adds to a session’s cost.
Windsurf, now Devin Desktop
The editor once sold as Codeium, then Windsurf, ships as Devin Desktop; the vendor says existing plans and prices carry over unchanged. Free $0, Pro $20, Max $200, Teams $80 a month plus $40 per full developer seat, up to 200 users. The flat team fee is why a 5-person team pays $280, more than 5 Cursor Standard seats.
ChatGPT and Codex CLI
Codex runs on a ChatGPT plan: Free has limited Codex access, Plus at $20 expands it, and Business at $25 a user monthly ($20 annual, 2 users minimum) puts Codex on every seat. The Codex CLI itself is open source and can also run on an API key instead of a plan.
The open source route: drop the seat, keep the token bill
Four open source assistants replace the seat fee, not the model cost. You run the tool for free under its licence and pay a model provider per token, or run a local model. For 5 developers that removes $95 to $625 a month of seats, $1,140 to $7,500 a year, in exchange for metering tokens yourself.
| Project | Replaces | Licence | GitHub stars | Activity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Codex CLI | a ChatGPT seat used for Codex | Apache-2.0 | 128,596 | release rust-v0.162.1 on 9 October 2026 |
| Cline | Cursor or Copilot agent mode in VS Code | Apache-2.0 | 70,144 | pushed 11 October 2026 |
| Aider | Claude Code or Codex in the terminal | Apache-2.0 | 49,462 | last release v0.86.0 on 9 August 2025, 428 days earlier |
| Continue | Copilot chat and autocomplete | Apache-2.0 | 36,176 | pushed 9 October 2026 |
Two cautions. Aider says it connects to almost any LLM, including local models, but its last tagged release is 428 days old. And Cline’s README says its JetBrains plugin is not open source. Whether tokens beat a seat depends on volume: Cursor’s own estimate puts a daily Agent user at $60 to $100 a month of usage, which is model cost you pay either way. If you want to cut the model bill too, see when a self-hosted LLM beats a $0.14 API.
Which plan fits
- Lowest team bill: Copilot Business, $95 a month for 5, with $95 of pooled usage.
- Team already paying for ChatGPT: Business at $125 a month ($100 annual) covers chat and Codex on one seat.
- Terminal-first team: Claude Team Standard at $125 a month ($100 annual), with Claude Code on every seat.
- Heavy agent users: Cursor Teams Premium at $120 a seat buys 5x Standard limits for 3x the price; budget Cursor’s own $60 to $100 a month estimate per daily Agent user.
- No seat budget: Codex CLI, Cline or Continue on a pay-per-token model.
How we checked
On 11 October 2026 we opened each vendor’s pricing page in a rendered browser, clicked its plan tabs, team tab and monthly or yearly toggle by their own labels, and saved the text of every state. Redirects were traced with curl and GitHub figures read from the public API. Every number in this article is quoted from those saved pages, and a script fails the build if a quoted string is missing. We did not sign up for any plan, so this is a price check, not a hands-on speed test. More on our method in our open source alternatives guide.
Questions people ask about AI coding assistant pricing
How much should I pay for an AI coding assistant?
For one developer, entry paid plans run $10 (Copilot Pro) to $20 (Cursor Pro, Claude Pro, Devin Pro, ChatGPT Plus) a month. For a team of 5, seats run $95 to $625 a month. Heavy agent use costs more: Cursor estimates $60 to $100 a month for a daily Agent user. Prices read 11 October 2026.
Is GitHub Copilot free?
Yes, there is a Copilot Free plan at $0 with 2,000 completions a month and a small allowance of AI credits. Paid plans start at $10 a month. Checked 11 October 2026.
Does Cursor have a free plan?
Yes. Cursor Hobby is free with no credit card and limited Agent requests; Cursor publishes no number for the limit. Pro is $20 a month or $16 billed yearly.
Is Windsurf still available?
Yes, under a new name. Devin Desktop is the new name for Windsurf, windsurf.com/pricing redirects to devin.ai/pricing, and existing plans keep their prices. Pro is $20 a month. Checked 11 October 2026.
Is Claude Code free?
No. Claude Code is included in every paid Claude plan, from Pro at $20 a month ($200 a year), but not in Free. Team seats start at $25 monthly.
What happens when I run out of credits or usage?
Copilot charges $0.01 per extra AI credit on paid plans; Cursor bills on-demand usage at model API rates; Claude and Devin sell extra usage at API rates. Without it, you wait for the limit to reset.
What AI should I use for coding in 2026?
By cost: Copilot Business is the lowest team seat at $19, Claude and ChatGPT team seats are $25 monthly, Cursor Teams $40. Open source Codex CLI, Cline and Continue remove the seat and bill only model tokens. Prices read 11 October 2026.
Related reading
- The 12 most installed Claude Code subagents and what each costs to run
- When a self-hosted LLM beats a $0.14 API
- Open source alternatives to paid AI tools, and the licences that decide
Sources
- Cursor pricing, read 11 October 2026.
- Cursor Docs, Models & Pricing, read 11 October 2026.
- GitHub Docs, Plans for GitHub Copilot, read 11 October 2026.
- GitHub Copilot plans and pricing, read 11 October 2026.
- The GitHub Blog, GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing (27 April 2026), read 11 October 2026.
- Claude pricing, read 11 October 2026.
- Devin pricing (windsurf.com/pricing redirects here), read 11 October 2026.
- Devin Desktop (windsurf.com redirects here), read 11 October 2026.
- ChatGPT pricing, read 11 October 2026.
- cline/cline on GitHub, read 11 October 2026.
- Aider-AI/aider on GitHub, read 11 October 2026.
- openai/codex on GitHub, read 11 October 2026.
- continuedev/continue on GitHub, read 11 October 2026.
- Google AI Overview and AI Mode for “best ai coding assistants 2026 pricing”, our capture, 11 October 2026.
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