Cline Pricing (2026): Free, ClinePass and API Costs
Cline itself is free. The VS Code and JetBrains extensions, the CLI and the desktop app are open-source software with no subscription. What you pay for is the AI model, in one of four ways:
- Your own API key: pay Anthropic, OpenAI, Google or another provider at their normal rates. Cline is not part of that bill.
- Cline credits: pay as you go through a Cline account across more than 100 models; Cline says it sells inference at cost.
- ClinePass: $9.99 a month for a set of open-weight coding models, with Cline saying you get 2 to 5 times the usage of standard API rates.
- A plan you already have: connect Claude Pro or Max through the Claude Code provider, or a ChatGPT plan through OpenAI Codex sign-in.
Companies that need SSO, central billing and admin controls buy Enterprise, priced by sales. Prices are in US dollars and were checked on 25 September 2026.
Prices checked 25 September 2026 on Cline's official pricing page. Prices are in US dollars unless stated and can change at any time.
Cline plans and prices
Open Source
- VS Code and JetBrains extensions, CLI and desktop app (beta)
- Bring your own key from 30+ providers, or run local models
- Plan and Act modes, checkpoints, rules and skills
- MCP marketplace and multi-root workspaces
- Community support
- No AI usage included: you pay a model provider, Cline credits or ClinePass
- No SLA or admin controls
Cline credits (usage billing)
- Sign in once with Google, GitHub or email
- More than 100 models from one balance
- Usage shown in Cline settings
- Occasional free-model promotions
- Requires a Cline account and topped-up credits
- Free-model promotions are time-limited and capped
ClinePass
- Open-weight models including Kimi K3, GLM-5.3, DeepSeek V4 Pro, Qwen3.8 Max and MiniMax M3
- 2 to 5 times the usage of standard API rates, according to Cline
- Works in the Cline IDE extensions and CLI, and through the Cline API
- Usage capped over a rolling 5-hour window, a week and a month
- No Claude, GPT or Gemini models
- Cline notes an additional processing fee may apply
- Models can be withdrawn for capacity reasons
Enterprise
- SSO, OIDC and SCIM provisioning
- Role-based access control and team dashboard
- Central billing and limits on which inference providers people use
- Authentication logs and OpenTelemetry export
- VPC, on-premises or air-gapped deployment, SLA and dedicated support
- Price only through sales
- Inference is still paid to your model providers
Is there a free plan?
The free, open-source version is the full product for individuals: the VS Code and JetBrains extensions, the CLI, the desktop app, Plan and Act modes, checkpoints, rules, skills and the MCP marketplace. It includes no AI usage. To pay nothing at all, run a local model through Ollama or LM Studio, or use Cline's rotating free-model promotions, which have a usage cap and may use your prompts to improve those models. Team features such as SSO and role-based access need Enterprise.
What you will actually pay
Worked examples using the published prices above.
| Scenario | Cost | How we got there |
|---|---|---|
| Solo developer on ClinePass for a year | $119.88/year | $9.99 x 12 = $119.88. Covers ClinePass open-weight models only; any Claude or GPT use is billed separately. |
| A heavy day on Claude Opus 5.5 with your own Anthropic key | About $18 before caching | Illustration using Anthropic's list prices: 3 million input tokens x $4 = $12, plus 0.3 million output tokens x $20 = $6, total $18. Cached input costs $0.20 per million tokens, so caching can cut this a lot. |
| The same day on Claude Sonnet 5 | About $9 before caching | 3 million x $2 = $6, plus 0.3 million x $10 = $3, total $9: half the Opus 5.5 cost for the same token volume. |
| Team of 5, each on ClinePass | $49.95/month ($599.40/year) | 5 x $9.99 = $49.95 a month; x 12 = $599.40 a year. Enterprise, if you need SSO and central billing, is priced separately. |
Cline pricing compared with rivals
| Tool | Paid plans from | Free plan | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cline | ClinePass $9.99/month; Cline credits pay as you go; Enterprise on request | Yes: the software is free; you pay for model usage | The tool on this page |
| Claude Code | $20/month (Claude Pro; $17 billed yearly) | No, Claude Free does not include Claude Code | Top of our coding ranking; a flat plan instead of per-token bills. You can also plug the same plan into Cline. |
| GitHub Copilot | $10/month Pro | Yes, 2,000 completions and limited chat and agent use a month | Unlimited inline completions on paid plans, which Cline does not offer. |
| Cursor | $20/month Pro | Yes, Hobby with limited Agent requests | Polished AI editor with monthly usage pools; Teams costs $40 per user. |
| OpenAI Codex | $0 (ChatGPT Free); $8/month Go; $20/month Plus | Yes, on ChatGPT Free | Open-source CLI bundled with every ChatGPT plan. |
| Augment Code | $20/month flat (Standard, up to 50 seats) | No | Includes $20 of usage, billed at API list prices plus a 40% service fee. |
| Google Antigravity | $0 | Yes, unlimited Tab completions and basic weekly agent limits | Free agentic IDE; higher limits with Google AI Pro or Ultra. |
Cline is excellent value if you already pay for model access or are happy with cheaper models. The agent costs nothing, so a developer with a Claude plan, a ChatGPT plan, company cloud credits or a local model gets a capable agent for no extra money. ClinePass at $9.99 is a low-cost way to run strong open-weight models such as Kimi K3 inside a full agent.
The value drops if you want frontier models for hours a day on pay-per-token pricing. In our illustration, one heavy day on Claude Opus 5.5 costs about $18, close to a month of Claude Pro. Heavy users are usually better off on a flat plan such as Claude Code with Claude Max, or by connecting that same plan to Cline. For teams, get an Enterprise quote and compare it with per-seat plans such as GitHub Copilot Business before you commit.
What popular models cost in Cline
With your own key, you pay each provider's list price. With ClinePass you pay a flat $9.99, and Cline uses reference rates like the ones below to measure your usage against the quota.
| Model | How you pay | Input per 1M tokens | Output per 1M tokens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 5.5 | Anthropic API | $4 | $20 |
| Claude Sonnet 5 | Anthropic API | $2 | $10 |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | Anthropic API | $1 | $5 |
| Kimi K3 | ClinePass reference rate | $3 | $15 |
| GLM-5.3 | ClinePass reference rate | $1.40 | $4.40 |
| DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | ClinePass reference rate | $0.30 | $1.20 |
Anthropic charges $0.20 per million tokens for cached reads on Opus 5.5 and Sonnet 5, which matters for agents that read the same files again and again. See our Kimi K3 and Claude Opus 5.5 pages for more on those models.
Using a Claude or ChatGPT plan instead of API keys
If you already pay for Claude Pro or Max, choose the Claude Code provider in Cline and point it at the Claude command-line tool. Cline then uses your plan's usage limits instead of per-token billing. Cline's docs warn that in this mode responses may not stream word by word, and image uploads and prompt caching are limited.
For ChatGPT plans, choose the OpenAI Codex provider and sign in with your OpenAI account in the browser, with no API key to manage. Either route can make Cline's running cost zero on top of a subscription you already have.
- If you already pay for Claude Pro or Max or a ChatGPT plan, connect it through the Claude Code or OpenAI Codex provider before you buy API credits.
- Use prompt caching where your provider supports it. On Anthropic's API, cached reads of Claude Opus 5.5 cost $0.20 per million tokens instead of $4.
- Send routine work to Claude Sonnet 5 ($2/$10 per million tokens) or a ClinePass model, and save Opus 5.5 for hard bugs.
- Set a monthly spend limit in your API provider's console, so a looping agent cannot run up an open-ended bill.
- Cancel ClinePass before renewal if you only need it for one project; you keep access until the end of the paid month.
Jargon explained
- BYOK (bring your own key)
- You paste an API key from a model provider such as Anthropic or OpenAI into the tool, and that provider bills you directly for what you use.
- Open-weight model
- An AI model whose trained files are published, so anyone can download and run it or buy it cheaply from many hosts. Kimi K3 and GLM-5.3 are examples.
- Checkpoint
- A saved snapshot of your files after each step the agent takes, so you can roll back to that point if something goes wrong.
- MCP (Model Context Protocol)
- An open standard for connecting AI agents to outside tools and data, such as databases, issue trackers or web browsers.
- Tokens
- Small chunks of text (about three-quarters of a word) that AI providers count to measure and charge for usage.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Cline cost?
The software is free. You pay for model usage: your own provider's rates, Cline credits at usage rates, or ClinePass at $9.99 a month for open-weight models. Enterprise is priced by sales.
Is ClinePass worth $9.99 a month?
Yes, if you are happy with open-weight models such as Kimi K3, GLM-5.3 or DeepSeek V4 Pro and use Cline most days. Cline says it gives 2 to 5 times the usage of standard API rates. It does not include Claude, GPT or Gemini, and usage is capped per 5 hours, week and month.
Does Cline add a markup to API prices?
Not when you use your own key: you pay the provider directly and Cline is not in the bill. For Cline credits, Cline's pricing page says inference is sold at cost.
Can I use Cline completely free?
Yes, with a local model through Ollama or LM Studio, or with Cline's limited-time free-model promotions. Local models need capable hardware and often struggle with long agent tasks, and free promotional models may use your prompts for training.
How much does Cline Enterprise cost?
Cline does not publish Enterprise prices; you contact sales. You still pay your own model providers, since Enterprise connects to your existing Bedrock, Vertex, Azure OpenAI or other accounts.
Sources
Every fact on this page comes from public information. Vendor figures are labelled as vendor claims.
- Cline pricing (Cline)
- Cline product site (Cline)
- ClinePass (Cline)
- ClinePass documentation (Cline)
- Cline (usage-billing) provider (Cline)
- Cline free models (Cline)
- Anthropic / Claude Code provider in Cline (Cline)
- OpenAI (Codex) provider in Cline (Cline)
- Plan and Act mode (Cline)
- Checkpoints (Cline)
- Auto Approve and YOLO mode (Cline)
- Subagents (Cline)
- Cline Desktop (Cline)
- Cline Kanban (Cline)
- Cline CLI overview (Cline)
- Cline over ACP (Cline)
- Cline Enterprise overview (Cline)
- Cline telemetry (Cline)
- Cline deprecations (Cline)
- Post-mortem: unauthorized Cline CLI npm publish on February 17, 2026 (Cline)
- Cline raises $32M in Series A and seed funding (Cline)
- Cline (AI agent) (Wikipedia)
- Cline v2.0.0 release (renamed from Claude Dev) (GitHub)
- cline/cline repository (GitHub)
- Cline on the VS Code Marketplace (Microsoft)
- Cline on Open VSX (Eclipse Foundation)
- Cline plugin on the JetBrains Marketplace (JetBrains)
- Cline reviews (Product Hunt)
- Claude plans and API pricing (Anthropic)
- GitHub Copilot plans (GitHub)
- Cursor pricing (Cursor)
- Codex pricing and plan limits (OpenAI)
- openai/codex repository (GitHub)
- Augment Code pricing (Augment Code)
- Google Antigravity pricing (Google)
- Kilo Code pricing (Kilo)
- Anaconda acquires Kilo Code (Anaconda)
- RooCodeInc/Roo-Code repository (archived) (GitHub)
- Terminal-Bench 2.1 leaderboard (Snorkel AI / Terminal-Bench)