Is Claude Code free? What does it actually cost?

No — Claude Code is paid, but the entry tier is approachable. The cost has two parts:

• Claude Pro subscription: $20/mo. This unlocks Claude Code access in the IDE/CLI plus a baseline message allowance.
• Metered API usage: beyond the included allowance, you pay per token (currently ~$3 per million input tokens and ~$15 per million output tokens for Sonnet, ~$15/$75 for Opus).

Real-world bills:

• Solo dev, 4 – 6 hours/day Claude Code use: $25 – $80/mo all-in
• Small team (5 devs), heavy daily use: $300 – $700/mo for the whole team
• Agency, 15 devs + CI workflows + sub-agents: $1,000 – $2,500/mo

Compare to Copilot ($19/mo flat per seat, no metering) or Cursor ($20/mo + their own model API on top, similar metered model). Claude Code is rarely the cheapest, but it’s usually the highest-leverage on a per-hour-saved basis.