Cheapest AI coding assistants, ranked by price (Oct 2026)
18 AI coding assistants we track, ordered by the cheapest plan each vendor sells to an individual. Cursor and Codex tie for cheapest at $8/mo.
Cheapest AI coding assistants
| Tool | Cheapest plan | Price | Free tier | What the cheapest plan includes & source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked by cheapest paid plan | ||||
01Cursor |
Plus Top plan: Ultra $200/mo |
$8/mo | Free tier | Base weekly usage pool for Cursor models, shared across Grok and Cursor; refreshes weekly. Only Grok models; third-party models not available. Absolute pool size not published. Source: cursor.com · checked 2026-10-16 |
02Codex |
Go Top plan: Pro ($100/$200/$500) from $100/mo |
$8/mo | Free tier | GPT-6 Luna at Standard speed in the desktop app (lightweight tasks). Caps not published. Source: developers.openai.com · checked 2026-10-16 |
| Pro Top plan: Max $100/mo |
$10/mo | Free tier | Unlimited completions/next-edit suggestions; $15/month total GitHub AI Credits ($10 base + $5 flex). Chat, agent mode, code review, cloud agent and CLI consume credits. Source: github.com · checked 2026-10-16 | |
04Zed |
Pro | $10/mo | Free tier | Unlimited edit predictions; $5 of tokens included monthly; beyond that billed at API list price +10%. Source: zed.dev · checked 2026-10-16 |
| AI Pro Top plan: AI Ultimate $30/mo |
$10/mo | Free tier | 10 monthly AI credits (1 credit = $1); unlimited completion; Junie, Claude Agent, Codex, Gemini. 30-day free trial. Source: jetbrains.com · checked 2026-10-16 | |
| Kilo Pass | $19/mo | Free tier | Monthly AI credit subscription; up to 50% bonus credits on top of subscribed credits. Source: kilo.ai · checked 2026-10-17 | |
| Via Claude Pro Top plan: Via Claude Max 20x $200/mo |
$20/mo | No free tier | Five-hour session limit and weekly limit, shared with Claude chat (web/desktop/mobile). Usage credits can be enabled to continue past limits. Counts not published. Source: support.claude.com · checked 2026-10-16 | |
08Windsurf |
Pro Top plan: Max $200/mo |
$20/mo | Free tier | 'Increased quotas' incl. frontier models (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, SpaceXAI); free SWE-2 (free in Devin Desktop and CLI through Oct 16, 2026); Devin Cloud access; extra usage at API pricing. Quota size not published. Source: devin.ai · checked 2026-10-17 |
09Replit |
Core Top plan: Pro $100/mo |
$20/mo | Free tier unclear | Up to 30 hours of chat on Free Mode; up to 60 projects on Free Mode; $20 towards more powerful models; unlimited workspaces. Source: replit.com · checked 2026-10-16 |
| Standard Top plan: Business $100/mo |
$20/mo | Free tier unclear | $20/mo of usage across LLM, Context Engine and compute; standard compute; unlimited concurrent sessions. Source: augmentcode.com · checked 2026-10-16 | |
11Kiro |
Pro Top plan: Power $200/mo |
$20/mo | Free tier | 1,000 credits/user/month; add-on credits $0.04/credit. Source: kiro.dev · checked 2026-10-16 |
12Warp |
Build Top plan: Max $200/mo |
$20/mo | Free tier | $20 of agent usage/month at API rates; highest codebase indexing limits. Source: warp.dev · checked 2026-10-16 |
13Amp |
Individual (Megawatt) | $20/mo | Free tier | 45,000 minutes of 'orbin' time'; BYOK / bring your subscriptions; unlimited repositories. Source: ampcode.com · checked 2026-10-16 |
14Lovable |
Pro | $25/mo | Free tier | 100 monthly credits (base tier); credit rollovers; on-demand top-ups; custom domains. Source: lovable.dev · checked 2026-10-16 |
15Bolt.new |
Pro | $25/mo | Free tier | No daily token limit; starts at 10M tokens/month; unused tokens roll over; 100MB uploads; up to 1M web requests. Source: bolt.new · checked 2026-10-16 |
16v0 |
Plus | $30/mo | Free tier | $30 of included monthly credits per user + $2 free daily credits on login; all models. Source: v0.app · checked 2026-10-16 |
| Price not published | ||||
| Enterprise | Not published (contact Tricentis sales) | Free tier unclear | Not published. Source: tabnine.com · checked 2026-10-17 | |
—Qodo |
Pro Team | $0.012/credit, pooled across team; packs of 2,500 / 5,000 / 20,000 credits | Trial only | 2,500 credits ≈ 18 reviews/mo; 5,000 ≈ 36 reviews/mo; 20,000 ≈ 144 reviews/mo (Qodo's estimates). No rate limits; no annual commitment. Source: qodo.ai · checked 2026-10-16 |
How this list is ranked
Sorted by the lowest month-to-month price of each tool's cheapest individual plan (team and per-seat plans are skipped when an individual plan exists). Ties keep the order of our main price table. Price is the only ranking factor: a cheaper plan can come with much tighter limits, so read the limits column before you buy.
We never rank on reviews, affiliate deals or sponsorship. Facts are vendor-stated; "not published" means the vendor doesn't say.
Recent changes in this list
-
plan restructureCursor moves into The X Subscription: new Plus $8 / Premium $30 / Super $100 / Ultra $200 plans with a weekly pool
New customers now buy Cursor as part of The X Subscription (Grok + Cursor + X). Usage moves from two monthly pools to one weekly pool shared with Grok; third-party models (Claude, GPT, Gemini) are no longer included and bill at API list price on Premium and above. Legacy Pro ($20), Pro+ ($60), Ultra ($200) continue for existing subscribers.
-
billing modelGitHub Copilot switches to usage-based GitHub AI Credits; Max plan ($100) launches
Premium requests replaced by AI Credits billed at model API rates. Pro $10 includes $15 total ($10 base + $5 flex), Pro+ $39 includes $70, new Max $100 includes $200. Flex allotments may change over time.
-
billing modelWindsurf drops credits for daily/weekly quotas; adds $200 Max plan
Effective March 19, 2026 (announced March 18): Free/Pro/Teams get auto-refreshing daily and weekly quotas instead of credits; Pro $20, Teams $40/seat, new Max $200.
-
limit changeCursor Pro switches from 500 requests/month to $20 of frontier-model usage at API rates
Cursor later apologized (July 4, 2025) for the unclear rollout and offered refunds for unexpected charges between June 16 and July 4.
Questions people ask
What is the cheapest AI coding assistant?
Cursor: Cursor Plus costs $8/mo. Next cheapest: Codex ($8/mo), GitHub Copilot ($10/mo), Zed ($10/mo). Prices checked 2026-10-16.
Which AI coding assistants have a free plan?
Cursor, Codex, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf, Lovable, Bolt.new, v0, Zed, JetBrains AI, Kiro, Warp, Amp, Kilo Code. Not free: Claude Code (no free plan), Replit (none listed), Tabnine (none listed), Augment Code (none listed), Qodo (trial only).
What is the most expensive individual plan here?
Cursor Ultra at $200/mo.
How current is this ranking?
It is rebuilt from our data every time prices are checked; the last check was 2026-10-16. Every price links to the vendor page it came from.