AI coding subscriptions compared (July 2026).
Developers now juggle two or three of these subscriptions at once. Here is the whole landscape in one dated, sourced table — and the rule that keeps the juggling sane: the subscriptions are capacity; the process is the part you keep.
The landscape, one table
All figures as of July 2026, from each vendor’s pricing page (linked). Where a vendor doesn’t publish a number, the cell says so.
| Provider | Standard tier | Power tier | Limits model | When you run out |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude (Claude Code) | Pro — $17/mo annual, $20 monthly | Max — $100 (5x) / $200 (20x) | Rolling 5-hour sessions + weekly caps; counts unpublished by design | Wait, upgrade, or opt-in usage credits / API rates |
| ChatGPT (Codex) | Plus — $20/mo (Go — $8) | Pro — from $100, 5x/20x variants | Per-model messages per 5-hour window + weekly cap; token-based credits since Apr 2026 | Buy credits or drop to a lighter model; API at standard rates |
| Google AI (Antigravity) | Pro — reported ~$20/mo; free preview baseline exists | Ultra — $100/mo (5x); 20x variant unpriced publicly | Tier baseline quota; credit bundles 2,500/5,000/20,000; token mapping unpublished | Buy credit bundles or wait for refresh |
| Cursor | Pro — $16/mo billed annually, $20 monthly ($20 usage included) | Pro+ $60 ($70 included) · Ultra $200 ($400 included) | First-party pool (Auto is metered, not unlimited) + frontier usage in dollars at API rates | Opt-in on-demand usage at the same API rates, billed in arrears |
| GitHub Copilot | Pro — $10/mo ($10 in AI Credits) | Pro+ — $39/mo ($39 in credits) | AI Credits consumed by token usage since Jun 2026; no rollover; completions stay free on paid plans | Purchase additional usage at published API rates |
| Windsurf (Cognition) | Pro — $20/mo | Max — $200/mo | Daily + weekly auto-refreshing quotas since the Mar 2026 overhaul | Overage at API pricing |
The pattern behind the table
Three things converged in 2026. Standard tiers clustered at $17–20 and power tiers at $100–200. Metering converged on tokens, under increasingly similar wrappers. And every vendor kept one lever to itself: the quota policy — the same lever that moved against users in the Antigravity quota cuts of early 2026. The conclusion for a team: treat subscriptions as interchangeable capacity, and keep what you can’t afford to re-buy — your process, its enforcement, its audit trail — in a layer you own.
That layer is the point of team.management
team.management is the open-source, MIT-licensed process layer under whichever subscriptions you run: protocols enforce your lifecycle in Claude Code, and AI providers lets Codex and Antigravity join code review through the subscriptions above — no extra API keys, no per-seat fee, nothing to re-buy when the table above changes. Which it will.
FAQ
Why do all these products meter differently?
2026 converged on token-based credits under the hood — OpenAI moved Codex to token metering in April, GitHub Copilot replaced premium requests with AI Credits in June, Google sells credit bundles, Cursor meters frontier models in dollars at API rates. What differs is the wrapper: session windows (Anthropic), per-model message ranges (OpenAI), included-dollar pools (Cursor), monthly credit grants (Copilot), refresh quotas (Windsurf).
What’s the cheapest way to run agents seriously?
As of July 2026, standard tiers sit at $17–20/month almost everywhere (Claude Pro, ChatGPT Plus, Google AI Pro, Cursor Pro, Windsurf Pro), with Copilot Pro at $10 and ChatGPT Go at $8 below them; power tiers land at $100–200 (Claude Max, ChatGPT Pro, Google Ultra, Cursor Ultra, Windsurf Max). The real cost driver isn’t the sticker price — it’s whether the way you work fits the metering. Long daily sessions and burst weekends stress session windows and credit pools differently; check that fit before upgrading.
Where does team.management fit in this landscape?
It’s not a subscription and not a model — it’s the open-source process layer that stays constant while you shuffle providers. Protocols run in Claude Code; Codex and Antigravity join reviews through subscriptions you already pay for. Whichever column you pick from this table next year, the process — and its audit trail — doesn’t change.
Facts and figures on this page are as of July 2026, verified against the sources linked inline. If you’re reading this much later — check the sources.