Claude Code Pricing

Q: Can I use an API key with a Claude subscription?

Claude Code uses whichever credential wins: if ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is set and approved, it bills the API even when you are signed in to a subscription, so unset it to use the plan.

Claude Code is included in every paid Claude plan, from Pro at $20 a month (or $17 billed annually) to Max at $100 and Ultra at $200, and shares their usage limits; it is not in the free plan. With a Console account it is billed per token at API rates instead, which Anthropic says averages about $13 per developer per active day.

0:38 Claude Code costs nothing on top of a paid Claude plan: it is included in Claude Pro at $20 a month, or $17 a month billed annually, in Claude Max at $100, in Claude Ultra at $200, and in Team and Enterprise seats, as of Nov 6, 2026. The free plan does not include it. On a subscription, Claude Code draws on the same five-hour and weekly limits as Claude chat, so a long coding session leaves less for conversations and the other way round (Pricing). The alternative is a Claude Console account, where Claude Code is billed per token at API rates with no fixed limit. Anthropic reports that across enterprise deployments this averages about $13 per developer per active day and $150 to $250 a month.

Quick facts

Free plan	Not included
Pro	$20 a month, or $17 a month billed annually ($200 a year)
Max	$100 a month, 5x Pro usage
Ultra	$200 a month, no five-hour limit for verified accounts, 10x Pro weekly
Team	$20 a seat a month billed annually, $25 monthly; Premium seat $100 or $125
Enterprise	$20 a seat a month billed annually, 20-seat minimum, plus usage at API rates
API (Console)	Opus 5.5 $4 / $20 per million input / output tokens
Typical API spend	About $13 per developer per active day, $150 to $250 a month
Fast mode	$8 / $40 per million tokens on Opus 5.5, through usage credits on subscriptions

Sources: Pricing, Manage costs effectively, Claude Code product page, read Nov 6, 2026. Prices as of Nov 6, 2026.

Which Claude plans include Claude Code?

"Claude Code is included in all paid plans," says Anthropic's pricing FAQ, and it shares their usage limits (Pricing). The setup guide states the other side plainly: the free claude.ai plan has no Claude Code access (Advanced setup).

Plan	Price (as of Nov 6, 2026)	Limit every five hours	Limit every week	Fable 5.1
Free	$0	No Claude Code	No Claude Code	No
Pro	$20 a month, $17 billed annually	1x	1x	Usage credits only
Max	$100 a month	5x Pro	5x Pro	Up to half the weekly limit
Ultra	$200 a month	None for verified accounts	10x Pro	Up to half the weekly limit

Source: Pricing, read Nov 6, 2026.

1:08 Anthropic publishes the limits only as multiples, not as a number of prompts or hours, and its FAQ says there is no fixed message count: how far a plan goes depends on the model, the effort level, the size of the codebase and how long the conversation runs. The same FAQ reserves the right to limit use "in other ways", such as weekly and monthly caps, at Anthropic's discretion. Max and Ultra also come with $100 and $200 a month in API credits for building on the Claude Platform. How the limits reset is explained on Claude Usage Limits and the plans on Claude Plans and Pricing and Claude Pro vs Max.

Anthropic doubled Claude Code's five-hour limits for Pro, Max, Team and seat-based Enterprise plans and dropped the peak-hours reduction for Pro and Max in a post dated May 6, 2026. Its May 12, 2026 conference post describes the doubling as announced at Code w/ Claude; the May 6 post is the earlier, dated record.

What happens when you reach a limit?

Claude Code stops sending requests until the window resets. /rate-limit-options offers three ways on: wait and continue automatically when the limit resets, add usage credits, or upgrade the plan (Commands). Usage credits are billed at standard API rates and set at Settings > Usage on claude.ai, or with /usage-credits from Claude Code; on Team and Enterprise, the command asks an admin for them. /usage shows how much of each limit is left, and on paid plans it attributes recent use to skills, subagents, plugins and MCP servers and suggests fixes (Manage costs effectively). Tips for stretching a plan are on How to Make Claude Usage Limits Last.

Team and Enterprise

Claude Team (2 to 150 people) includes Claude Code in every seat. A Standard seat costs $20 a month billed annually or $25 monthly; a Premium seat, with five times a Standard seat's usage, costs $100 or $125. A Team organization also gets up to $500 a month in pooled API credits. Enterprise is priced differently: $20 a seat a month billed annually with a 20-seat minimum, plus all usage at API rates, with spend limits, role-based access and Claude Security. Admins see daily active users, sessions and contributions at claude.ai/analytics/claude-code (Manage costs effectively).

Code Review for GitHub, generally available for Team and Enterprise since Oct 15, 2026, has no flat price per review: each review's tokens are billed to the organization's usage credits (Code Review costs and usage).

Claude Code on API pricing

With a Claude Console account, Claude Code "consumes API tokens at standard API pricing" (Claude Code product page). As of Nov 6, 2026, per million tokens:

Model	Input	Output
Claude Fable 5.1	$10	$50
Claude Opus 5.5 (the default)	$4	$20
Claude Sonnet 5.5	$2	$10
Claude Haiku 5.5	$0.10 ($0.50 over 100K tokens)	$0.50 ($2.50 over 100K tokens)

Source: Pricing, read Nov 6, 2026. Full API rates, including prompt caching, are on Claude API Pricing.

Anthropic's cost guide gives the only published typical spend: around $13 per developer per active day and $150 to $250 per developer a month across enterprise deployments, with 90% of users under $30 a day. The same guide warns about spend that is easy to miss. Thinking tokens are billed as output and the default budget can reach tens of thousands of tokens a request; agent teams use tokens roughly in proportion to their size; and recaps, idle compaction and prompt suggestions can spend tokens while you are not typing. Prompt caching does most of the saving: /usage shows a line such as "91% of input tokens from cache". For teams on API billing, the guide recommends rate limits per user that fall from 200,000 to 300,000 tokens a minute for one to five users to 10,000 to 15,000 for more than 500 (Claude API Rate Limits).

Extras that cost more

Fable: on Pro it is paid with usage credits; on Max and Ultra it may use up to half the weekly limit. In -p (headless) mode Claude Code bills Fable without asking (Model configuration).
Fast mode: Opus 5.5 up to 2.5 times faster at $8 / $40 per million tokens, twice the normal rate, billed to usage credits on subscriptions.
Ultrareview (/code-review ultra): three free runs on Pro, Max and Ultra, then typically $5 to $25 in usage credits a review, depending on the size of the change.
Cloud sessions and cloud scheduled tasks use the plan's ordinary usage, with no separate charge for the cloud machine (Claude Code on the Web).

Is Claude Code worth it compared with rivals?

On price alone, Codex is cheaper to start: OpenAI includes it in ChatGPT's free tier and its $8 Go tier, while Claude Code starts at $17 to $20 a month (Codex pricing; Claude Code vs Codex). Google's Gemini CLI no longer has a free tier: free individual use moved to Google's Antigravity CLI on Jun 18, 2026 (Claude Code vs Gemini CLI). On results, Claude Code with Opus 5.5 led the public Terminal-Bench 4.0 leaderboard on Nov 6, 2026 at 64.85%, but its run cost $4,718.65 against $634.24 for the best Codex entry at 58.18%, about seven times as much for 6.7 points. Which matters more depends on the work.

Learn more: Codex Pricing and Limits on chatgpt.vi.ki, Gemini CLI on ai.vi.ki, Google Antigravity on ai.vi.ki

Frequently asked questions

Is Claude Code free? No. Claude Code is not part of the free Claude plan; the cheapest way in is Claude Pro at $20 a month, or $17 a month billed annually, as of Nov 6, 2026.

Is Claude Code included in Claude Pro? Yes. Claude Pro includes Claude Code with Claude Opus 5.5, and its use counts against the same five-hour and weekly limits as Pro chats.

How much does Claude Code cost per month on the API? Anthropic reports Claude Code averages about $13 per developer per active day and $150 to $250 per developer a month across enterprise deployments, with 90% of users under $30 a day.

Is Claude Max worth it for Claude Code? Claude Max at $100 a month gives five times Pro's Claude Code usage every five hours and every week plus a share of Fable 5.1, so it suits people who hit Pro's limits most days; Ultra at $200 removes the five-hour limit for verified accounts.

Do Claude Code and Claude chat share limits? Yes. On a subscription, Claude Code and Claude chat draw from one pool of usage, so time in the terminal reduces what is left for conversations.

Can I use an API key with a Claude subscription? Claude Code uses whichever credential wins: if ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is set and approved, it bills the API even when you are signed in to a subscription, so unset it to use the plan.