Cheapest coding agent in 2026: free and low-cost options

  1. 1
    Open ReasonSign in on the web, or in the Mac app.
  2. 2
    Settings › ModelsConnect the plans you already pay for.
  3. 3
    In the composerGive Reason the branch and what's next.

Use Reason on the web, or in the Mac app.

Free, cheap, and what you already pay for.

The cheapest coding agents cost nothing up front: opencode, Aider, Cline and Kilo Code are free and open source, so you pay only your model provider (or nothing with a local model), and Codex in ChatGPT Free, GitHub Copilot Free, Google Antigravity, Devin and Jules all have $0 plans with tight limits. The cheapest paid plans are ChatGPT Go and Cursor Plus at $8 a month and Copilot Pro at $10, and if you already pay for AI subscriptions, an agent that runs on the ones you have avoids paying twice.

Use the subscriptions you already pay for in Reason

  1. Open Reason on the web or the Mac app

    Sign in at reasonmachines.com, or download the Reason app for macOS from reasonmachines.com/download. Both open the same Sessions. Sending work to Reason needs a Pro or Max plan.

  2. Connect the plans you already pay for

    In Settings › Models, under Subscriptions, connect ChatGPT (Plus, Pro or Business), Claude (Pro or Max), Grok (SuperGrok or X Premium+) or GitHub Copilot, and add API keys if you have them. Work on those accounts is billed by their provider, not in Reason credits.

  3. Pick the model per task

    In the composer, choose the model for each Session: a smaller model for routine fixes, a larger one for hard changes. Each Session shows the model and account it ran on.

  4. Keep going at a limit

    When the account a turn runs on hits its limit, Reason moves the turn to your other connected accounts for that provider, then to Reason credits if your workspace can pay, and says so in the conversation.

Coding agents by price

AgentFree optionLowest paid priceWhat to know
opencodeFree, MIT; free models for a limited timeOpenCode Go $10 a month75+ providers and local models; Go has five-hour, weekly and monthly dollar limits
AiderFree, Apache-2.0None; you pay your model providerTerminal pair programming with almost any LLM, local ones included
ClineFree for individual developersNone; you pay for inferenceBring your own key, or local models through Ollama and LM Studio
Kilo CodeFree and open sourceTeams $15 per user; Kilo Pass $19 a monthGateway at provider rates; usage billed separately
CodexChatGPT Free, desktop app, subject to rolloutChatGPT Go $8; Plus $20 a monthPlus adds the CLI, IDE extension, web and iOS
GitHub CopilotFree: 2,000 completions a month, auto model onlyPro $10 a monthAll plans include Copilot CLI
Google Antigravity$0 a month with basic weekly rate limitsGoogle AI ProGoogle's agentic coding app
CursorFree: limited agent requestsPlus $8 a month, Grok models onlyOther vendors' models are billed separately
DevinFree: light quota, limited modelsPro $20 a monthAllowances refresh daily and weekly
Jules15 tasks a day freeGoogle AI ProPaid plans for personal Google accounts
Claude CodeNoneClaude Pro $20 a month ($17 billed annually)Or API billing; Anthropic says about $13 per developer per active day on average

From each vendor's pricing page, docs or license, checked Nov 2, 2026; US list prices.

Free isn't free once you count the model

Open-source agents are free to run, but the model isn't: you pay your provider per token, or run a local model, which costs nothing per token but limits quality to what your hardware can run. $0 plans from Codex, Copilot, Antigravity, Devin and Jules are real but small, and meant for trying the product.

What a task really costs depends on the model, how many tokens the agent spends, and whether it finishes. Compare agents on the same task, on your own repository, rather than on list price alone.

Reason: all your AI subscriptions in one coding agent

Use the subscriptions you already pay for (ChatGPT Plus/Pro/Business, Claude Pro/Max, SuperGrok or X Premium+, GitHub Copilot) or your own API keys in one coding agent. Hit your limit? Reason keeps going on your other connected accounts or Reason credits.

Reason isn't the lowest-priced agent on this page: Pro is $50 a month with 1,250 credits a week, and Max is $200 with 5,000; a credit is $0.04. Work on your own connected subscriptions or API keys is billed by that provider, not in Reason credits, so you don't pay twice for a plan you already have.

On cost: in Reason's published benchmark on GPT-6 Astra at xhigh effort, with the same tasks and graders, Reason 1.1 scored 65.1 against Codex's 62.5 on Coding Agent Index v1.5, at 22% lower cost per solved task. That's Reason's benchmark of its own harness, with the runner published to reproduce it.

Sources (checked Nov 2, 2026)

Questions

What is the cheapest coding agent?

The free, open-source ones: opencode, Aider, Cline and Kilo Code cost nothing to use, and you pay only your model provider, or nothing with a local model. Among hosted plans, Codex in ChatGPT Free, Copilot Free, Antigravity, Devin and Jules have $0 tiers.

Is there a free coding agent?

Yes. opencode (MIT), Aider (Apache-2.0) and Cline are free and open source, and Codex, Copilot, Antigravity, Devin and Jules have free plans with small limits.

Are bring-your-own-key agents really free?

The agent is; the model isn't. You pay your provider per token, or run a local model, which is free per token but depends on your hardware.

What is the cheapest paid coding plan?

ChatGPT Go and Cursor Plus are $8 a month (Go runs Codex in the desktop app; Cursor Plus is Grok models only), GitHub Copilot Pro is $10, and OpenCode Go is $10.

Is Claude Code free?

No. It comes with Claude Pro at $20 a month ($17 billed annually) and higher plans, or bills the API by token.

Is Reason the cheapest coding agent?

No. Reason's plans start at $50 a month. It saves money when you already pay for AI subscriptions, because it runs on them instead of charging for that usage again, and in its own benchmark it cost 22% less per solved task than Codex on the same model.

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