Claude Code pricing and limits, explained

Is Claude Code free?

The program is free — install it from npm or the native installer and nothing is charged. What is not free is the model behind it: every turn is an API call, billed per token, or drawn from a Claude Pro/Max allowance. There is no free tier of Claude Code usage, and a Claude.ai free account does not unlock it. People asking "how to use Claude Code for free" usually end up at one of three answers: a subscription they already pay for, a small API balance, or a gateway that sells the same usage below face value.

How much is Claude Code?

Three price tags depending on the route. Claude Pro is $20 a month and Max $100 or $200 a month, each with a rolling usage cap that agentic sessions reach quickly. On the API there is no monthly fee: a focused hour on the Sonnet tier typically costs a few dollars at list price, and Opus roughly two and a half times that — a long autonomous refactor without /compact can cost more than a day of a subscription. On this gateway the same API usage is bought at 7.69× face value ($13 for $100 of usage), or as a flat-rate unlimited plan from $1 for the period.

How the meter runs

Claude Code is stateless between turns. Turn ten sends turns one to nine plus every file it read and every tool result — so input tokens dominate, and they grow with the session. Subagents each carry their own context, and an agent that reads a large file re-sends that file on every subsequent turn until you compact. A single ambitious refactor can cost several dollars at list price on a frontier model.

Three ways to pay

1. Anthropic API (pay per token)

Set an Anthropic console key and every call bills at the model's list rate. Precise, unlimited by budget, and the most expensive per token.

2. Claude Pro or Max subscription

Sign in with /login and Claude Code draws on the subscription's usage allowance instead of an API balance. The allowance is a rolling cap, and Max exists in tiers precisely because Claude Code users exhaust Pro. It is a good fit for moderate daily use, and a frustrating one for long autonomous sessions, where the cap arrives mid-task.

3. This gateway

Same models, same API, billed against a balance you bought below face value: $13 of payment becomes $100 of usage at list rates, i.e. 87% off. For heavy use there are flat-rate unlimited plans with no per-token billing at all:

Plan	Duration	Price
Unlimited 1 Hour	1 hour	$1
Unlimited 24 Hours	24 hours	$10
Unlimited 1 Week	1 week	$49
Unlimited 15 Days	15 days	$89

All unlimited plans →

Point Claude Code at it with ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://aiprimetech.io and a gateway key. Nothing else in your setup changes — /compact, subagents, MCP, skills and hooks all keep working.

Rate limits

Three limits apply at once: requests per minute, tokens per minute and concurrent requests. Claude Code trips the third one first, because streaming responses hold a slot for their whole duration and subagents run in parallel. A 429 means back off; a 529 means the model is saturated for everyone. The errors guide covers both. New gateway accounts start with conservative concurrency that is raised on request.

Cutting the bill without changing tools

• Run /compact at every change of direction; run /clear between unrelated tasks.
• Keep the default on the Sonnet tier and switch to Opus only for the hard step (/model).
• Write a good CLAUDE.md so the agent stops re-discovering the project every session.
• Use --allowedTools in scripts so it never burns turns asking for permission.
• Check /cost before a long task and decide whether the session is worth compacting first.

Frequently asked questions

AI Prime Tech is an independent API gateway and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Anthropic. “Claude” and “Claude Code” are trademarks of Anthropic. Claude Code features described here follow Anthropic’s public documentation at the time of writing and change frequently; prices and model lists on this page are read from this gateway’s live settings.