AI Coding Plan Calculator
Pick a starting point, nudge two sliders, and get the cheapest Claude, Codex, Cursor, or Copilot plan that won't rate-limit you mid-session - with the real dollar math next to it.
How do you use AI for coding?
Which model do you mostly run?
Opus costs about 2× Sonnet per token at API list prices.
How heavy is your usage?
Your scenario lives in the URL - copy it to share.
Cursor Ultra
Cursor
Power user running parallel agents in Cursor. Competes directly with Claude Max 20×.
Comfortable headroom for heavy days.
Every plan that runs your model
sorted cheapest first · bar = monthly price$10/mo with unlimited inline completions + $15 of AI Credits ($10 base + $5 flex) for chat/agent.
- ·On heavy days you exceed the 5h window by 2700%.
$19/seat. SAML SSO, IP indemnity, no training on your code.
- ·On heavy days you exceed the 5h window by 1393%.
Sonnet, Opus + Haiku via web and Claude Code. Limits not numerically published.
- ·Limit numbers are community-measured; the vendor does not publish exact caps.
- ·On heavy days you exceed the 5h window by 6300%.
Two included pools: Cursor models (Grok, Composer) and other models at API price. No more 500-request quota.
- ·Limit numbers are community-measured; the vendor does not publish exact caps.
- ·On heavy days you exceed the 5h window by 1020%.
$70 of AI Credits, unlimited completions, Opus 5.5 + GPT-6.1 Sol + Spark.
- ·On heavy days you exceed the 5h window by 647%.
Per-seat. SAML/OIDC SSO, usage analytics; pooled usage and audit logs on Enterprise.
- ·Limit numbers are community-measured; the vendor does not publish exact caps.
- ·On heavy days you exceed the 5h window by 460%.
3× Pro's Agent limits, both usage pools; on-demand at API rates after that.
- ·Limit numbers are community-measured; the vendor does not publish exact caps.
- ·On heavy days you exceed the 5h window by 273%.
5× Pro per 5-hour session. One weekly limit across all models; Fable included within 50% of it.
- ·Limit numbers are community-measured; the vendor does not publish exact caps.
- ·Weekly cap is the binding constraint here (18% of demand).
20× Pro. Full Opus access, gated by the weekly all-models limit.
- ·Limit numbers are community-measured; the vendor does not publish exact caps.
- ·Weekly cap is the binding constraint here (73% of demand).
20× Pro's Agent limits, plus priority access to new features.
Pay-per-token API: Claude Sonnet 5.5
At 50% cache hit rate, the raw API works out to $96/month on Claude Sonnet 5.5. That's cheaper than Cursor Ultra ($200) - consider the API.
View sources & methodology
Plan prices and per-model API rates come from each vendor's official pricing page (linked below). Rate-limit caps are tricky: Anthropic publishes only “5× / 20× Pro” multipliers, so the numeric token caps we display are triangulated from community reports (Reddit r/ClaudeAI, faros.ai engineering blog, The Register's coverage of Anthropic's March 2026 limit changes). Plans flagged Estimated caps are exactly those. OpenAI switched Codex to token-credit metering on April 2, 2026 - Plus and Business “messages per 5h” figures are official ranges; Pro plans currently have no five-hour limit. Exact token allotments are not yet on the rate card. Cursor moved from request quotas to dollar-denominated API credits in June 2025.
Burn rates combine vendor docs and community-measured per-hour token consumption. Prompt caching savings - 90–95% off cached input on both Anthropic and OpenAI - are documented in their respective API docs.
Data verified 2026-10-07. Anthropic does not publish numeric 5-hour caps - their figures are triangulated from r/ClaudeAI and engineering blog reports. OpenAI switched Codex to token-credit metering on April 2, 2026. Cursor's plans include usage in two pools: Cursor's own models, and other models at API price. To know your actual burn on any plan, install SessionWatcher.
After the calculator · measure the real thing
If Codex is your cheapest fit, verify it against your actual menu-bar usage.
The calculator estimates plan fit from your inputs. SessionWatcher shows what Codex actually consumed today: live usage, 5-hour window, plan-dependent weekly/monthly secondary limit, and cost, so you can avoid upgrading too early or getting locked out mid-session.
Free 7-day trial, no credit card.
For Mac (macOS 14+). Codex and everything in Pro are included. Nothing is charged when it ends.
Prices go up Nov 1, midnight Paris time. Prices go up Nov 1
How this calculator works
We multiply your daily message volume by realistic per-message token estimates (~4,800 tokens for a Claude Code turn, much higher for long agent runs), then compare against each plan's published 5-hour rolling window. The cheapest plan that gives you 25% headroom wins.
Why not just buy the biggest plan?
Because most developers pay for capacity they never use. SessionWatcher data shows the median Claude Code user burns under 40% of their plan's daily budget - that's $120/month wasted on Max 20× for someone who'd fit on Max 5×.
What the calculator can't tell you
Your actual usage. Self-reported message counts are notoriously off, and Claude Code agent runs consume 10–20× a normal message. The only way to know is to measure. That's what SessionWatcher does.
SessionWatcher
Stop guessing your plan. Track real usage in your menu bar.
Native app for the Mac menu bar and the Windows taskbar. Track Claude, Codex and 18 more tools' usage, costs, and rate limits in real time.
“Fast, simple, and does exactly what it should. Definitely worth it.”
@nicojerome on GitHub
Prices go up Nov 1, midnight Paris time. Prices go up Nov 1
macOS 14+. Free for 7 days, no credit card.
For Mac (macOS 14+). The trial unlocks all of Pro: every tool and every Pro feature. Nothing is charged when it ends.
