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Claude Code Just Got 5x More Expensive

Claude Code, the terminal-based coding assistant, has increased its pricing by approximately 5x, significantly raising costs for developers who rely on the tool for software development tasks.

Background

- Claude Code is Anthropic's terminal-based coding agent: a developer tool that runs in the command line and can autonomously write, edit, debug, and execute code across a project. - Until recently it charged per "session" (a fixed fee per use), which was relatively cheap for heavy users. Anthropic has now switched it to a per-API-token pricing model — meaning heavy users pay per input/output token consumed, making it roughly 5x more expensive for typical workflows. - This matters because it signals Anthropic is tightening monetization on its most agentic product, and because Claude Code competes directly with similar coding agents from OpenAI (Codex), Cursor, and GitHub Copilot. The shift may alter developer adoption and tooling choices.

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