A coding assistant fires hundreds of small completions a day per developer. Each is cheap, but they add up — and the model choice swings the bill 20×. Enter your team's usage to see the API cost per developer and per month, and whether building beats a flat per-seat tool.
—per developer
—per year
—completions/mo
Cost per developer by model
Same usage, every model ranked cheapest first. Compare to a ~$10-19/seat flat tool.
| Model | Per dev / mo | Team / mo |
|---|
⚠️ Reference prices (July 2026). Real autocomplete sends a lot of file context as input (often 1-4k tokens) and short outputs — input dominates, so prompt size and model choice are the big levers. Off-the-shelf tools (Copilot, Cursor) bundle infra at a flat per-seat price. ·
Report outdated price →✓ Last verified: 2026-07-15· Source: official provider pricing page· Auto-monitored — report change →
Build vs buy
The trade-off is simple: a flat per-seat tool is predictable; a raw API can be cheaper for light use or much pricier for heavy autocomplete on a frontier model. Input dominates because every completion ships file context, so a smaller model and tighter context window are the biggest savings. Estimate a single call on the LLM token cost calculator, cache the repeated system prompt with prompt caching, and compare whole-app spend on the AI app cost estimator. This calculator models per-completion autocomplete usage — for full agentic tasks (Claude Code, Cursor Agent Mode, Codex) where one task can burn 400K-2M cumulative tokens, see the AI coding agent subscription vs API calculator instead, or the Copilot premium request calculator for GitHub's model-multiplier billing.
Frequently asked questions
What does an AI coding assistant cost per developer?
A self-hosted coding assistant on an LLM API typically runs a few dollars to ~$20 per developer per month, depending on how many completions they trigger and the model. Heavy users on a frontier model cost far more than light users on a small model. Off-the-shelf tools like GitHub Copilot charge a flat ~$10-19/user instead.
Is it cheaper to build or buy a coding assistant?
For light usage, a small model via API can undercut a flat per-seat subscription. For heavy autocomplete on a frontier model, a flat subscription is often cheaper and more predictable. This calculator shows your API cost per developer so you can compare.