Everyday seats run from $19 (Copilot Business) to $30 (Cursor Premium) per user a month, and heavy-use seats from $39 to $125. For 20 everyday users and 5 heavy users on annual billing, that is GitHub Copilot $575, Claude Code $900, OpenAI Codex $900, Cursor $1,100 a month. The same team on Claude Code per-token billing would cost about $4,875.
Seat prices for teams
Per user per month, excluding tax. Where one price is shown, the provider doesn't publish an annual rate.
| Tool | Plan | Everyday seat | Heavy-use seat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Code | Claude Team | Standard seat: $20 annual, $25 monthly | Premium seat: $100 annual, $125 monthly |
| Cursor | Cursor Teams | Premium seat: $30 | Super seat: $100 |
| GitHub Copilot | Copilot Business or Enterprise | Business: $19 | Enterprise: $39 |
| OpenAI Codex | ChatGPT Business | Standard seat: $20 annual, $25 monthly | Premium seat: $100 annual, $125 monthly |
OpenAI Codex on ChatGPT Business needs at least 2 seats. Enterprise plans for every tool are priced by sales.
What each seat includes
The seat price buys an allowance. What happens after it runs out is where the bills differ.
Claude Code
Claude Code and Claude chat share each seat's allowance, which resets every 5 hours and every week. A Premium seat has 5x the usage of a Standard seat. Admins can turn on usage credits so developers keep working past the allowance, with spend limits per organization, group or member.
Cursor
Each seat has its own weekly pool for Cursor models. Super has 3.75x the Premium pool; an Ultra seat at $200 has 12.5x. After the pool, usage draws from a prepaid team balance at token rates. Third-party models are billed at API list price plus $0.25 per million tokens.
GitHub Copilot
Business includes 1,900 GitHub AI Credits per user a month and Enterprise 3,900, pooled across the organization. One credit is $0.01. Usage beyond the pool costs $0.01 per credit. Budgets can be set per organization, enterprise or cost center.
OpenAI Codex
Standard seats include ChatGPT and Codex within plan limits. Minimum of 2 seats. After the included limits, eligible usage continues from credits the workspace buys.
A 25-developer example
Take 20 developers who use AI every day and 5 heavy users who run agents for hours. Everyday users get the standard seat and heavy users the higher one.
| Tool | Seats | Annual billing | Monthly billing | Per developer (annual) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Copilot | 20 × $19 + 5 × $39 | $575/mo | $575/mo | $23 |
| Claude Code | 20 × $20 + 5 × $100 | $900/mo | $1,125/mo | $36 |
| OpenAI Codex | 20 × $20 + 5 × $100 | $900/mo | $1,125/mo | $36 |
| Cursor | 20 × $30 + 5 × $100 | $1,100/mo | $1,100/mo | $44 |
Copilot is the cheapest by a wide margin. On annual billing Cursor is the most expensive, because it has no annual discount and its everyday seat is the dearest; on monthly billing Claude Code and Codex cost slightly more. Claude Code and Codex cost the same on paper. Annual billing saves 20% on Claude and ChatGPT seats; Cursor and Copilot don't publish annual rates.
Seats or pay per token?
Claude Code can also run without seats, billed per token through the Claude Console or a cloud provider. Anthropic reports about $13 per developer per active day across enterprise deployments, and under $30 a day for 90% of users (source). At 15 active days a month, the same 25 developers would cost about $4,875 a month, $195 each.
That is several times the seat price, which tells you what seats really are: a usage ceiling at a discount. Per-token billing suits teams with a few very heavy users who keep hitting seat limits, or usage that comes and goes. For steady, everyday use, seats with usage credits for the heaviest developers usually cost less.
Some large companies go further and run open models on their own GPUs. That pays off only at heavy usage and real scale: see when self-hosting AI coding models pays off.
How to choose
- Start from what developers actually use. The best tool is the one your team gets results from; price differences between seats are small next to salaries.
- Size seats by measured usage, not by guess. Give the higher tier to the people who hit limits, and the standard tier to everyone else.
- Measure cost per developer before renewal. For Claude Code, track cost per developer with OpenTelemetry, so seat tiers, overage and model choice rest on real numbers.
Already paying for Copilot? Check which models used your GitHub Copilot AI credits before changing seat plans.
Put your own team into the AI coding tools cost calculator to compare all four tools, per-token billing and self-hosting side by side.
AI coding tool costs: frequently asked questions
Which AI coding tool is cheapest for a team?
By seat price, GitHub Copilot Business at $19 per user a month. For our example team of 20 everyday users and 5 heavy users on annual billing, Copilot comes to $575 a month and Cursor to $1,100. Each seat includes a different amount of usage, so the cheapest seat isn't always the cheapest tool once heavy users pass their allowance.
How much does Claude Code cost for a team?
On the Claude Team plan, Standard seats are $20 annual, $25 monthly and Premium seats, with 5x the usage, are $100 annual, $125 monthly. On per-token billing there are no seats: Anthropic reports about $13 per developer per active day across enterprise deployments.
How much does Cursor cost for a team?
Cursor Teams seats are $30 (Premium) or $100 (Super) per user a month, with an Ultra seat at $200. Each seat has a weekly usage pool; after it, usage draws from a prepaid team balance at token rates.
Is per-token billing cheaper than seats?
Usually not for steady, everyday use. In our example, 25 developers on Claude Code per-token billing at Anthropic's average come to about $4,875 a month, against $900 on Team seats. Per-token billing has no usage ceiling, though, which matters for the heaviest users.
Do these prices include tax?
No. All prices are list prices per user per month, excluding tax, checked against each provider's pricing page on 4 November 2026. Enterprise plans are priced by sales.
Know before you renew
See what each developer actually costs.
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