Last updated: May 2026
Claude Code is Anthropic's AI coding agent. It runs as a CLI tool in your terminal and as a VS Code extension, reads your entire codebase, writes and edits files, runs tests, manages git, and executes multi-step tasks autonomously. Unlike Copilot or Cursor — which assist you while you code — Claude Code is designed to handle tasks end-to-end while you review the result.
No. Claude Code requires a paid Claude subscription. The free Claude plan does not include Claude Code. The minimum plan is Claude Pro at $20/month.
| Plan | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Pro | $20/month ($17/mo annual) | Individual developers, moderate daily use |
| Claude Max 5× | $100/month | Heavy daily users who hit Pro limits |
| Claude Max 20× | $200/month | All-day autonomous coding, large codebases |
| Team Standard | $20/seat/month | Teams of 5+ (does not include Claude Code) |
| Team Premium | $100/seat/month | Teams needing Claude Code + admin controls |
| Enterprise | Custom | Large orgs, compliance, custom limits |
| API (pay-per-token) | From $1/$5 per million tokens | Developers building on top of Claude Code |
Important: Team Standard at $20/seat does not include Claude Code. You need Team Premium at $100/seat for team deployments.
Anthropic briefly tested removing Claude Code from the Pro plan for approximately 2% of new signups in late April 2026. The community response was immediate and negative. Anthropic reversed the change within 24 hours and confirmed Claude Code remains on Pro. As of May 2026, Claude Code is included with every Pro subscription.
Pro ($20/month) covers moderate daily use — code reviews, debugging, focused feature development. For reference from real usage:
Heavy daily users — running parallel subagents, working on large monorepos — regularly hit Pro limits and need Max ($100/month). The average enterprise spend reported by Anthropic is $13 per developer per active day.
Cursor is an in-editor AI assistant — it helps you while you are actively writing code. Claude Code is a terminal-based agent that takes tasks and executes them autonomously. They serve different workflows. Many developers use both: Cursor for active development and tab completions, Claude Code for delegating larger tasks. See Claude Code Rules guide for how to configure Claude Code for your project.
Yes. Claude Code runs as a VS Code extension in addition to its terminal CLI. The VS Code integration lets you run Claude Code commands from inside the editor, see diffs in the editor UI, and use it alongside Cursor's autocomplete features if you run it inside Cursor.
Create a CLAUDE.md file in your project root. Claude Code reads it at the start of every session — build commands, coding standards, architecture notes, and forbidden patterns. You can also use AGENTS.md (same format, shared with GitHub Copilot Coding Agent and Kilo Code). See the Claude Code Rules guide for a full setup walkthrough with templates.
Yes, via Team Premium at $100/seat/month (minimum 5 seats, mix-and-match allowed with Team Standard seats). Team Premium adds SSO, shared usage pools, admin controls, and audit logs on top of full Claude Code access.
Yes. Claude Code works with the Anthropic API on a pay-per-token basis — no subscription required. Sonnet 4.6 starts at $3/million input tokens and $15/million output tokens. Opus 4.7 is $5/$25 per million tokens. This option suits developers building automated workflows or tools on top of Claude Code rather than using it interactively day-to-day.