20/mo (light use)
100-200/mo (heavy use)
metered (brrrt use)Other than that, API + custom UI seems better since you're paying for the usage instead of competing with other flat-fee users for what seem to be overprovisioned resources (claude.ai was always throwing https 500 or 'sorry we're too busy' errors for me until I switched to API).
Not sure if it's cheaper though - I never checked.
It's insane how bad the first party chat apps are though. That's reason enough to use the API.
incorrect, you can pay per API call instead if you want.
> Pro and Max plan subscribers have access to use Claude Code directly in the terminal.
Claude Code can spend from your API balance, but you still need a subscription to authenticate with the @anthropic-ai/claude-code tool.
Or has that changed and it's not being communicated well here?
https://www.anthropic.com/claude-code explains you can pay per token or pay monthly.
they are definitely not doing a good job on the release - that page doesn't mention Pro including it, and it's not actually available on Pro yet for half a dozen posters on this thread.
I remember needing a subscription just to authenticate with the Claude Code tool (at least when it came out) even though it spends from my API balance kinda felt like a scam.
I wonder how the pricing works out between using Opus in Claude Code pay-as-you-go vs the $100/mo plan. All I remember is easily spending $25 in a Claude Code session if I let the context stay too big. So maybe the sub isn't a bad deal.
- the real-world performance of Claude makes it seem like a grift.
- the real-world pricing of Claude seems to confirm this.
Completely changes the way I think about coding now.
Them can you have it overflow to API credits once it hits the 5 hours max?
Anyone else have success logging in with Pro? (It says Max or PayAsYouGo).
I'm in Canada, maybe this is US-only at first?
Aider might be less polished but at least it keeps an .md file with the chat history. That's why I am back to Aider + claude-opus-4.
Maybe just ask it to save off the contents of the session as it goes?
p.s. claude keeps trying to charge my card for subscription and wouldn't let me cancel it. Now on the basic plan some of the older projects aren't accessible so they've totally lost me. Online tons of horror stories people getting banned while unable to cancel their membership.
Turned out to be a blessing as it led me to discovering augmentcode.com which I'm now using. It's a monthly usage cap but has a unique context engine where it indexes your entire code base which gives its agents access to a lot more content about your code base which helps when adding features to match your existing implementations without needing to explicitly feed it context in every agent message. It still uses Claude Sonnet 4 [1] under the hood so the results are great.
Blows me away what AI agents are capable of these days, it's especially nice when they end up creating new Tailwind UIs (Vue) that's better looking than what I was even thinking about creating.
[1] https://www.augmentcode.com/blog/claude-sonnet-4-the-best-mo...
> Pro ($20/month): Average users can send approximately 45 messages with Claude every 5 hours, OR send approximately 10-40 prompts with Claude Code every 5 hours > Model access: Pro plan subscribers can access Sonnet 4, but won’t be able to use Opus 4 with Claude Code
Most importantly no Opus 4. Still a great nice to have!
Your mileage may vary dramatically, but I don't think I would subscribe to Pro just for this. It's a "nice to have" on top of my existing Pro subscription whose services are the bulk of the value I'm paying for.
For doing 'boring' day to day things in python I find them more or less the same. For doing non-trivial things in Rust, Opus is much better. Sonnet is much more prone to producing garbage that is just completely wrong in those cases. However I find Gemini 2.5 Pro better than both for harder programming problems.
Is someone from Anthropic reading this? Is it possible to downgrade Teams plan to an individual Max plan and keep all the projects?
you can just use claude code with anthropic API pricing, so I'd suggest you just try it and see if it's better for you personally or not.
what a weird reply. whether the monthly plan makes sense depends on 1) whether it does useful things for you 2) whether you'd otherwise spend more than $20/month in API credits (which is low single digit hours of it churning away, in my experience).
You can use https://github.com/eyaltoledano/claude-task-master via mcp or eg https://github.com/Helmi/claude-simone
Claude Code can now be used with your Max subscription from the Claude app or billed based on API usage through your Console account.
Select login method:
1. Claude account with Max subscription
Starting at $100/mo - Best value, predictable pricing
2. Anthropic Console account
API usage billing
edit: they changed it back, and it's actually working now :D
bluelightning2k•1d ago
I much prefer the price, and pricing model, of Windsurf (although Claude 4 not being an option is odd)
trashburger•1d ago