# What Claude Code Costs

## Subscription Plans

| Plan | Price | Best For |
|------|-------|----------|
| **Pro** | $20/month | Trying Claude Code, casual use, learning |
| **Max 5x** | $100/month | Regular daily use, side projects |
| **Max 20x** | $200/month | Heavy professional use, full workdays |

All plans include access to Claude Code in terminal, VS Code, desktop app, and browser.

## Which Plan to Start With

**Pro at $20/month.** It gives you enough usage to complete this entire guide and explore for a few weeks. If you hit usage limits, you will see a message telling you to wait or upgrade. Nothing breaks, nothing gets charged extra.

## API Access (Alternative)

If you prefer pay-per-use instead of a subscription:

- Average cost: about $6 per day for typical use
- 90% of users spend less than $12 per day
- You pay for exactly what you use, nothing when idle
- Requires setting up an Anthropic API key

The subscription is simpler and almost always cheaper for regular use. API access makes more sense for automation and CI/CD pipelines.

## What Uses More Tokens (and Costs More)

- Long sessions without clearing context
- Reading very large files
- Running many tools in a row (complex multi-file changes)
- Using Opus model instead of Sonnet for every task

## What Uses Less

- Starting fresh sessions for new tasks (`/clear`)
- Giving clear, specific prompts
- Using Sonnet for routine tasks (rename, format, simple bugs)
- Keeping CLAUDE.md concise (under 200 lines)

## Bottom Line

For this guide, any plan works. Pro is the safest way to start. You can upgrade later if you use it daily.