ec708ba943
Complete companion repo for "Your First Hour with Claude Code" article. Includes step-by-step prompts, example output, troubleshooting, and cost guide. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
44 lines
1.6 KiB
Markdown
44 lines
1.6 KiB
Markdown
# What Claude Code Costs
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## Subscription Plans
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| Plan | Price | Best For |
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|------|-------|----------|
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| **Pro** | $20/month | Trying Claude Code, casual use, learning |
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| **Max 5x** | $100/month | Regular daily use, side projects |
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| **Max 20x** | $200/month | Heavy professional use, full workdays |
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All plans include access to Claude Code in terminal, VS Code, desktop app, and browser.
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## Which Plan to Start With
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**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.
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## API Access (Alternative)
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If you prefer pay-per-use instead of a subscription:
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- Average cost: about $6 per day for typical use
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- 90% of users spend less than $12 per day
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- You pay for exactly what you use, nothing when idle
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- Requires setting up an Anthropic API key
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The subscription is simpler and almost always cheaper for regular use. API access makes more sense for automation and CI/CD pipelines.
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## What Uses More Tokens (and Costs More)
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- Long sessions without clearing context
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- Reading very large files
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- Running many tools in a row (complex multi-file changes)
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- Using Opus model instead of Sonnet for every task
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## What Uses Less
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- Starting fresh sessions for new tasks (`/clear`)
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- Giving clear, specific prompts
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- Using Sonnet for routine tasks (rename, format, simple bugs)
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- Keeping CLAUDE.md concise (under 200 lines)
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## Bottom Line
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For this guide, any plan works. Pro is the safest way to start. You can upgrade later if you use it daily.
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