Pricing read from Cline's and Anthropic's own pages
Cline vs Claude Code: Cline Pricing, Cline Subscription and Claude Code Cost Compared
Every comparison says Cline is $0 and Claude Code starts at $20. Put the same Claude model behind both and the tokens cost exactly the same. What you are really choosing is the meter, and the right one depends on how many days a month you code.
Flat $29/mo billed yearly · No API key · No usage meter
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The short answer
Cline is free to install and bills you for the model you plug in, while Claude Code is bundled with a Claude plan at $20, $100 or $200 a month. Run Claude through either tool on an API key and the tokens cost exactly the same, because Cline charges inference at cost. So the real choice is the meter: a capped Claude subscription suits someone who codes most days, metered tokens suit occasional use, and only Cline can switch to cheaper non-Claude models.
Cline vs Claude Code at a glance
The two are often described as a free tool against a paid one. That is true of the software and misleading about the bill. Cline is an open-source agent that needs a model to do anything, and Claude Code is Anthropic's own agent sold as part of a Claude plan.
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| Cline | Claude Code | |
|---|---|---|
| What you pay for the tool | Nothing for individuals. The extension, CLI and SDK are open source. | Included with Claude Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise. Not on the free Claude plan. |
| What you pay for the model | Your own API key, Cline credits at cost, a $9.99 ClinePass for open models, or your Claude subscription. | Your Claude plan quota, or Anthropic API rates if you sign in with a Console key. |
| Cheapest paid way in | $9.99 a month ClinePass, open models only | $17 a month, Claude Pro billed annually |
| Models | Claude, GPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Qwen, Kimi, GLM and local models | Claude only, direct or through Bedrock, Google Cloud or Microsoft Foundry |
| Where it runs | VS Code extension, CLI and TUI, SDK, desktop app, and ACP clients such as Zed and JetBrains | Terminal, VS Code and JetBrains extensions, desktop, web and mobile |
| How much it asks you | Approval per tool call by default, with Auto Approve per category | Permission modes, with more autonomy once you allow it |
| Spend ceiling | Only the one you set with your provider | Your plan cap on a subscription, none on an API key |
| Team plan | Enterprise, custom quote, bring your own inference | Team from 2 to 150 seats, $25 or $125 a seat monthly; Enterprise bills usage at API rates |
Cline pricing: five ways to pay for a free tool
Cline's pricing page puts it plainly: the open-source version is free for individual developers and you "pay only for AI inference on a usage basis". There is no seat fee. There are, however, five different ways that inference gets paid for, and they behave very differently at the end of a month.
Bring your own API key
Provider list rates
Per token, no cap unless you set one
Connect Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Bedrock, Vertex, OpenRouter or 30+ others. Cline adds nothing on top, so Claude Sonnet 5 costs $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output, exactly what Anthropic charges.
Cline credits (usage-billing)
Pay as you go, at cost
Prepaid credit balance
One sign-in and one balance across 100+ models instead of a key per vendor. Cline describes model inference here as purchased at cost.
ClinePass
$9.99 a month
5-hour, weekly and monthly limits
A subscription giving 2 to 5 times the usage of standard API rates on curated open models: GLM, Kimi, DeepSeek, Qwen, MiniMax and MiMo. No Claude or GPT models are in it.
Your Claude subscription
Whatever your Claude plan costs
Your Claude plan limits
Cline's Claude Code provider runs the Claude CLI you installed and signed in to. Cline documents three trade-offs: responses may not stream token by token, and image uploads and prompt caching are limited.
Cline Enterprise
Custom quote
Your own inference contract
Adds SSO, role-based access, limits on which providers developers can use, a team dashboard, authentication logs, centralized billing and OpenTelemetry export, on top of your Bedrock, Vertex, Azure or direct model contract.
The subscription people ask about, ClinePass, is narrower than its name suggests. It is $9.99 a month for more headroom on open models, measured against a five-hour window, a weekly limit and a monthly limit, and it contains no Claude or GPT model at all. If Claude is the model you want Cline to drive, your real options are an API key, Cline credits or the Claude subscription you may already hold.
What Claude Code costs
Claude Code has no price of its own. It comes with a Claude plan, and the plan decides how much you can use it. Every figure below is from claude.com/pricing and Anthropic's Claude Code cost documentation.
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| Plan | Price | Usage | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Pro | $17/mo annual, $20 monthly | Baseline allowance | Includes Claude Code in the terminal and IDEs. The quota is shared with Claude chat. |
| Claude Max 5x | $100/mo, monthly only | 5x Pro | No annual price is published, so a year is $1,200. |
| Claude Max 20x | $200/mo, monthly only | 20x Pro | The only individual tier cheaper per unit of usage than Pro. |
| Team, standard seat | $20/seat annual, $25 monthly | More than Pro | Sold for teams of 2 to 150, with central billing and SSO. |
| Team, premium seat | $100/seat annual, $125 monthly | 5x a standard seat | Anthropic lists Claude Code and Cowork against this seat type. |
| Anthropic API key | Sonnet 5 $2 in, $10 out per million tokens | Metered, no cap | Anthropic puts the average at about $13 per developer per active day and $150 to $250 per developer per month. |
Two details matter for this comparison. The subscription quota is shared between Claude Code and Claude chat, so a morning of research in the browser leaves less for coding. And if an ANTHROPIC_API_KEY variable is set in your shell, Claude Code bills that key at API rates instead of using your plan. The tier-by-tier detail is on our Claude Code Max plan pricing page.
Same model, same tokens: the tool is not the bill
Cline says it passes inference through at cost or on your own key. Claude Code on a Console key pays Anthropic's list price. So a task on Claude Sonnet 5 costs $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens in either harness. Harnesses differ in how many tokens a task burns, but neither adds a margin on top.
That turns "Cline or Claude Code" into a simpler question: pay per token, or pay for a capped plan? Anthropic publishes the number that answers it. Across enterprise deployments Claude Code averages "around $13 per developer per active day", with 90% of users under $30. Divide each plan by that average and you get the number of active coding days after which the subscription is cheaper than tokens.
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| Plan | Per month | Active days of API spend it equals | What that means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Pro, monthly | $20 | 1.5 | If you code with Claude on more than two days a month, Pro costs less than paying per token, as long as its cap does not stop you. |
| Claude Max 5x | $100 | 7.7 | Roughly two days a week of average use. Past that, the subscription wins on price. |
| Team premium seat, monthly | $125 | 9.6 | The team equivalent, with admin controls, at about two and a half days a week. |
| Claude Max 20x | $200 | 15.4 | A developer coding every working day at the average passes this in the third week. |
A typical US work month has around 21 working days. A developer who uses Claude on all of them spends about $270 on tokens at the average, more than Max 20x, and that is true whether the tokens go through Cline or through Claude Code. The subscription stops you at a cap and the token bill does not, so the plan wins on price for daily users and the key wins on flexibility for everyone else.
The day counts are our arithmetic on Anthropic's published $13 average. Your own average depends on model, context size and how much the agent reads per task, so measure a week with Claude Code's /usage command or your provider dashboard before committing.
Can you use a Claude Pro or Max plan inside Cline?
Yes, and it is the option most comparison articles leave out. Cline's Anthropic documentation has a Claude Code provider: you install and sign in to the Claude CLI, point Cline at it, and requests use "your Claude subscription limits instead of API token billing". You get Cline's interface with a subscription's price ceiling.
Trade-off one
No token-by-token streaming
Cline notes responses may arrive in chunks rather than as they are generated, so long answers feel slower even when they are not.
Trade-off two
Limited prompt caching
Caching is what keeps long agent sessions cheap on tokens. On a subscription it shows up as how fast you reach the cap rather than on an invoice.
Trade-off three
Limited image uploads
Screenshots of a broken layout or an error dialog are less useful in this mode than on an API key.
Anthropic's terms are worth reading before you rely on it. Its Claude Code legal page says subscription sign-in is meant for ordinary use of Claude Code and Anthropic's own apps, that third-party developers may not route requests through Free, Pro or Max credentials on their users' behalf, and that advertised Pro and Max limits "assume ordinary, individual usage". The same page confirms an end user may sign in to the unmodified Claude Code binary with their own plan, which is how Cline's provider works. Usage still counts against the limits you share with Claude chat.
The one cost lever only Cline has: cheaper models
Claude Code runs Claude models, whether you reach them directly or through Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud or Microsoft Foundry. Cline runs almost anything. For a team whose backlog is full of routine edits, routing that work to an open model and saving Claude for the hard tasks is a genuine saving, not a rounding error.
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| Model | Available in | Input, per million tokens | Output, per million tokens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 5 | Both tools | $5.00 | $25.00 |
| Claude Sonnet 5 | Both tools | $2.00 | $10.00 |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | Both tools | $1.00 | $5.00 |
| Qwen3.8 Max | Cline only | $2.00 | $6.00 |
| GLM-5.3 | Cline only | $1.40 | $4.40 |
| Kimi K2.7 Code | Cline only | $0.95 | $4.00 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash (peak) | Cline only | $0.44 | $1.32 |
Claude rates are Anthropic's list prices. The open-model rates are the reference prices Cline publishes for ClinePass, which it uses to measure your quota, so on a $9.99 pass you are not charged them directly. Output tokens are where agent work gets expensive, and on that column DeepSeek V4 Flash is under a seventh of Sonnet 5. Whether the quality holds for your codebase is something only a trial on real tickets will tell you.
Which is better to work in, day to day?
Past the money, the two feel different in the hand. Cline was built as a VS Code agent that asks before it acts: each file read, edit, terminal command or browser action is a tool call it can pause on, and Auto Approve lets you wave through the safe categories while keeping a prompt on risky commands. Plan and Act modes separate thinking from doing, and checkpoints let you roll code back without losing the conversation.
Claude Code started in the terminal and spread outward. The same agent now runs in VS Code and JetBrains extensions, in a desktop app, on the web against a connected repository, and inside GitHub Actions or GitLab CI/CD. If you want one agent that follows you from a laptop to a pipeline under one plan, that reach is the reason to choose it. If you want to watch and approve every step in your editor with a model of your choosing, Cline is the more comfortable tool.
You code with Claude most working days
Claude Code on a Max plan
At Anthropic's own average of $13 per active day, a daily user spends more on tokens than Max 20x costs by the third week. A subscription is the cheaper way to buy the same Claude work, and Claude Code is the harness built for it.
You code with AI a couple of days a week
Either tool on an API key
Below about eight active days a month, metered tokens undercut Max 5x. Pick the harness by workflow: Cline if you live in VS Code and want to approve each step, Claude Code if you prefer the terminal.
You want cheaper models for routine work
Cline
Claude Code runs Claude models only. Cline can route boilerplate to an open model through a $9.99 ClinePass or your own key and keep Claude for the hard tasks, which is the one real cost lever Claude Code does not have.
You already pay for Claude Pro or Max
Claude Code, or Cline on its Claude Code provider
Your plan already covers Claude Code. Cline can use the same plan through the Claude CLI if you prefer its interface, but you give up token streaming and some prompt caching, and the usage still counts against the same limits.
A platform team with a Bedrock or Vertex contract
Cline Enterprise, priced against Claude Enterprise
Cline Enterprise runs on inference you already negotiated. Claude Enterprise charges a seat fee and bills all usage at API rates. Both end up metered, so compare the governance you need, not the sticker.
You want finished pull requests, not a pair session
A repo agent on a flat bill
Both tools sell time at the keyboard. If the job is a described task returned as a reviewed pull request on GitHub or GitLab, with no key and no meter to manage, that is a different purchase.
Cline Enterprise vs Claude Team and Enterprise
For a single developer the decision is a meter. For a team it is governance plus a meter, and the two vendors package them in opposite ways.
Cline Enterprise is a custom quote for the control layer only: SSO, role-based access, limits on which inference providers developers may use, a team dashboard, authentication logs, centralized billing and OpenTelemetry export to tools like Datadog or Grafana. Inference runs on a contract you already have with AWS, Google, Microsoft, Anthropic or OpenAI, at whatever rate you negotiated. There is no seat fee on the open-source version.
Anthropic sells the other shape. Claude Team is sold for 2 to 150 people with capped seats at $25 or $125 a month, which makes the bill predictable and the ceiling real. Claude Enterprise flips to a seat fee that covers access only, with all usage billed at API rates. So a team on Cline Enterprise and a team on Claude Enterprise both end up paying tokens; only Claude Team keeps a cap. We priced that exact decision for an eight-person team in what Claude Code for teams really costs.
Where we fit, and where both tools beat us
The losses first. Cline and Claude Code are both excellent interactive agents. They sit where you already work, they hold a conversation about your code, and they are the right tools for exploratory work where you do not yet know what you want built. Cline's model freedom is something we do not offer, and Claude Code's reach from terminal to CI is broader than ours.
Agentcode is narrower on purpose. You connect a GitHub or GitLab repository, describe a task, and the agent plans it, edits the code, runs your tests and opens a pull request for a person to review. It never merges on its own and never trains on your code. There is no API key to rotate, no quota shared with a chat app, and no invoice that moves with how busy the sprint was: it is $29 a month billed yearly.
If you are comparing meters because the bill is the problem, how the agent runs a task end to end shows what a flat price buys instead.
Cline vs Claude Code: the questions people search
Is Cline better than Claude Code?
Neither is better outright. Cline is better if you want to choose your model, work inside VS Code and approve each action before it runs. Claude Code is better if you code with Claude most days, because its subscription is cheaper than paying per token at that volume, and because it spans the terminal, IDEs, web and CI from one plan.
Does Cline cost money?
The Cline software costs nothing for individual developers, but using it does. Every task calls a model, and you pay for that through your own API key, prepaid Cline credits billed at cost, a $9.99 a month ClinePass for open models, or an existing Claude subscription. Teams that need SSO and central controls buy Cline Enterprise on a custom quote.
How much does Cline cost per month?
Cline costs whatever your model usage costs. On Claude through an API key that is Anthropic's list rate, which Anthropic averages at about $13 per active coding day, or $150 to $250 a month for a regular user. On ClinePass it is a flat $9.99 a month for open models, within 5-hour, weekly and monthly limits.
Is Cline cheaper than Claude Code?
Only if you use Claude lightly or switch to cheaper models. On the same Claude model the tokens cost the same in both tools. At Anthropic's $13 per active day average, metered use passes $100 a month at about eight active days, so a regular user pays less on a Claude Max subscription than on tokens through Cline.
Can I use my Claude Code subscription with Cline?
Yes. Cline has a Claude Code provider that uses the Claude CLI you installed and signed in to, so requests draw on your Pro or Max limits instead of API billing. Cline documents that responses may not stream token by token and that image uploads and prompt caching are limited in this mode.
Does Cline have a subscription?
Yes, one. ClinePass is $9.99 a month and gives 2 to 5 times the usage of standard API rates on a curated set of open coding models such as GLM, Kimi, DeepSeek and Qwen. It does not include Claude or GPT models. Everything else in Cline is pay as you go or bring your own key.
Cline vs Claude Code in VS Code: which is better?
Both run in VS Code. Cline is a VS Code-first agent with Plan and Act modes, checkpoints you can roll back to, and an approval prompt on each tool call. Claude Code's VS Code extension adds inline diffs, plan review and @-mentions to the same agent you would run in the terminal. Choose Cline for step-by-step control, Claude Code for one agent everywhere.
Cline vs Claude Code CLI: what is the difference?
Both now have a command-line version. Claude Code started as a terminal tool and its CLI is the core product. Cline added a CLI and terminal UI that can run headless in automation such as GitHub Actions, using any model provider you configure. The practical split is still model choice against Claude-only depth.
Can Cline use Claude Opus?
Yes. With an Anthropic API key, Cline credits or a provider such as Bedrock or Vertex, Cline can call Claude Opus 5 at Anthropic's rate of $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens. Through the Claude Code provider it uses whichever models your Claude plan allows.
What does Cline Enterprise cost?
Cline does not publish an Enterprise price; it is a custom quote. What you get is SSO, role-based access, limits on which inference providers developers can use, a team dashboard, authentication logs, centralized billing and OpenTelemetry export. Inference runs on your own contract, so model spend is separate from what you pay Cline.
Is Claude Code worth it over a free tool like Cline?
Cline is free software, not free usage, so the comparison is a Claude plan against a token bill. For a developer who codes with Claude most days, Claude Code on Max is usually cheaper. For someone who uses AI a few days a month, or wants cheaper open models for routine work, Cline on pay-as-you-go costs less.
Keep researching
The Claude side in more depth: Claude Code pricing across every plan, how the Claude Code usage limits work and the Claude Code CLI.
Other head-to-heads on the same shortlist: Cursor against Claude Code, Kiro against Claude Code and Agentcode against Cline.
A repo agent with no meter to pick
Connect a GitHub or GitLab repository, describe a task, and review the pull request it opens. Flat $29/mo billed yearly, no API key, no usage cap, and nothing merges without you.