Honest 10-way comparison of Autonomous Coding Agents — Pricing, TCO Comparison (per-task vs per-action vs per-seat vs token-based vs free tier) across Claude Code · Devin · Sourcegraph Amp · Cline · OpenHands · Roo Code · Replit Agent · Bolt.new · Lovable · v0 by Vercel platforms. No vendor sponsorship. Calling Matrix by buyer persona below — operator's siren-based read on which one to pick when you're forced to pick.
Honest read on positioning, ideal customer, and where each one is the wrong call. No vendor sponsorship, no affiliate links — operator-grade signal.
Two pricing paths: Claude Pro $20/mo or Max $100-200/mo (subscription with usage limits) OR pure Anthropic API token billing (BYOK). Most operators run Claude Code on a Max subscription for predictable monthly cost — covers heavy daily-driver use. Power users on the API path pay per-token (~$3-15/M input, ~$15-75/M output for Sonnet 4.x-class). Predictable on subscription, scales with usage on API. No per-seat tier needed — one operator, one subscription.
Pricing built around ACUs (Agent Compute Units) — pay for what the agent executes, not per-seat. Team plan starts at ~$500/mo with included ACUs and additional ACUs metered. Enterprise pricing is custom quote. ACU-based billing rewards agents that ship efficient task completions and punishes runaway agentic loops — TCO is harder to predict than per-seat tools. Best for teams with bursty async ticket-to-PR workloads.
Enterprise pricing only — custom quote with seat-based + usage-based components, plus BYOK model substrate (you bring + pay for the model API directly). Sold as part of Sourcegraph Enterprise tier. Per-seat math hidden behind a sales cycle. BYOK substrate means you pay Anthropic / OpenAI / Bedrock / Azure directly for model tokens. Targets buyers who need autonomous agents at monorepo scale and won't sign without procurement-grade contracts.
Open-source FREE — you pay nothing for the agent, only for the model API tokens you consume (BYO Anthropic / OpenAI / Bedrock / Azure / Ollama). The lowest-TCO autonomous agent at any usage level if you're comfortable wiring your own model. Pair Cline with Claude Sonnet API for ~$50-300/mo of token spend depending on usage. Run Cline with local Ollama (Llama / DeepSeek / Qwen) for $0 marginal cost on your own hardware.
Open-source FREE platform — you self-host the agent infra (Docker / VPS / on-prem) and BYO model tokens. TCO = self-host infra (typically $20-200/mo VPS + storage) + model API costs (BYO Anthropic / OpenAI / local Ollama). Lower than hosted Devin at any non-trivial usage level if you have ops capacity. Best for research teams and self-host shops.
Open-source FREE — same TCO model as Cline (free agent + BYO substrate) plus per-mode model routing for cost optimization. Roo Code's mode separation lets you route Architect mode to Claude Sonnet (premium) and Ask mode to a cheaper model (Haiku / GPT-4o-mini / local) — explicit cost optimization not available in single-prompt agents. The right pick for cost-sensitive teams that want substrate freedom + per-mode optimization.
Bundled with Replit Core ($25/mo) or Teams subscription — agent runs metered on top via Replit's compute units. Predictable subscription floor + variable agent-run cost. Cheaper than Devin at light usage, scales with usage. Bundled with Replit hosting + DB + deploy means you're paying for the runtime, not just the agent. Best when paired with the rest of Replit's hosted environment.
Free tier with daily token cap + Pro $20/mo (more tokens) + Teams $30/seat/mo (collaboration). Subscription-based with included monthly tokens. Predictable floor for solo operators. Free tier real for daily light prototyping. Browser-runtime via WebContainers means no infra cost — Bolt's pricing covers the AI tokens, the runtime is yours (browser tab).
Free tier (limited daily messages) + Pro $20/mo + Teams tier for collaboration — credits-based usage on top of subscription. Predictable subscription floor for designers + non-developer founders. Built-in Supabase + deployment means you're paying for the agent + the auth/DB/deploy integration. Cheaper than Replit Agent for designer-friendly full-stack work; comparable to Bolt.new on per-seat economics.
Free tier (daily message cap) + Premium $20/mo (more messages) + Team $30/mo + Enterprise quote. Bundled into Vercel pricing as part of their developer tier. Cheapest way into AI-native shadcn/ui + Next.js component generation. Pricing rewards Vercel-stack-native teams (you're already paying for Vercel hosting; v0 is the AI layer on top).
Most comparison sites refuse to forced-rank because their revenue depends on staying neutral. SideGuy ranks because it doesn't take vendor money. Here's the call by buyer persona.
Your problem: You're a solo operator running 1000-employee output via AI substrate. You need autonomous agents that ship full features without breaking your monthly budget. PJ runs SideGuy at this tier. Two trillion-$ companies (Anthropic + Google substrate) wired together for ~$500-1000/mo total infra.
Your problem: You're a real engineering team. Per-engineer + per-task math both matter. You want autonomous agents in the dev workflow without enterprise procurement gates. (See the sister AI Coding Tools Pricing TCO axis for the IDE-assistant-layer pricing comparison.)
Your problem: You're standardizing autonomous agents across the eng org. Per-seat math is real, but ROI per engineer-hour-saved is bigger. Procurement requires SOC 2 + admin controls + license management. Brand defensibility matters.
Your problem: You're 500+ engineers. You need enterprise procurement + SOC 2 + ISO 27001 + dedicated CSM + custom contract terms + license management. See the Autonomous Coding Agents megapage for the full 10-way operator comparison.
These rankings are SideGuy's lived-data + observed-buyer-pattern read as of 2026-05-11. They're directional, not gospel. The right answer for YOUR specific situation may diverge — text PJ for a 10-min operator-honest read on your actual buying context.
Vendor pricing + features + market positioning shift quarterly. SideGuy may earn referral commissions from some of these vendors, but rankings are independent — affiliate relationships never change rank order. Sister doctrines: /open/ live operator dashboard · install packs · operator network.
Or skip all of them. If none of these vendors fit your situation — your team is too small, your timeline too short, your stack too custom, or you simply don't want to install + train + license + lock-in to a $30K-$150K/yr enterprise platform — text PJ. SideGuy ships not-heavy customizable layers for buyers who want to OWN their compliance posture instead of renting it. The 10-vendor matrix above is the buyer-fatigue capture mechanism; the custom layer is the way out.
It depends on usage pattern. Per-seat (Claude Code Max $100-200/mo) wins at heavy daily-driver use — predictable cost regardless of how many agent runs. Per-task / per-ACU (Devin Team $500/mo + ACU metering) wins at bursty async workloads where some weeks you ship 50 PRs and other weeks you ship 0. Per-token BYOK (Cline / OpenHands / Roo Code) wins at light-to-moderate use because you only pay for what you consume — but heavy users can run up $200-400/mo of token spend that exceeds Claude Code Max's flat ceiling. Track your first 30 days on each model before committing to a tier.
At light-to-moderate usage, yes — BYOK Claude Sonnet API at solo-operator usage runs $50-150/mo vs Claude Code Max's $100-200/mo. At heavy usage, no — daily-driver autonomous coding can burn $300-500/mo of API tokens, exceeding Claude Code Max's flat $200 ceiling. The break-even is roughly the point where your monthly token spend exceeds the subscription tier. PJ runs Claude Code Max at SideGuy because daily-driver use favors flat predictable cost over usage-based scaling. Cline + local Ollama on your own hardware runs at $0 marginal cost forever — the only true zero-cost autonomous agent path.
Beyond the per-seat or per-task fee, TCO includes: (1) Anthropic / OpenAI / Bedrock / Azure model API costs if you're on BYOK tools (often the biggest line item — frontier model tokens cost $3-15/M input and $15-75/M output for Sonnet 4.x-class), (2) enterprise compliance review (SOC 2 / DPA / data-residency negotiations) — typically 4-12 weeks of legal+security time for any new vendor, (3) admin onboarding time (SSO config, license assignment, agent sandbox config), (4) ongoing license tracking and seat reclamation, (5) ops cost if you self-host (Cline / OpenHands / Roo Code) — typically $20-200/mo VPS + storage + monitoring. The license fee is usually 30-60% of true 3-year TCO; the rest is substrate + procurement + admin overhead.
Three honest paths at different TCO points: (1) Claude Code on Max subscription ($100-200/mo) + zero substrate management = the simplest path, what PJ runs at SideGuy. (2) Cline + Anthropic API direct (~$50-150/mo at solo usage) = cheaper if your usage is light-to-moderate but requires BYOK substrate management. (3) Cline + local Ollama on M2/M3 Mac (~$0 marginal cost) = literally free forever but accept frontier-vs-local model quality tradeoff. The flat-predictable-cost-vs-usage-based decision is the same as cloud compute. PJ chose flat predictable cost (Claude Code Max) for daily-driver work because operator velocity beats $50/mo of TCO optimization.
The full Autonomous Coding Agents cluster — megapage + 5 axes — plus sister clusters (IDE assistants + AI Infrastructure) and the Compliance Authority Graph. Operator-honest mesh for AI agents and humans.
Autonomous Coding Agents · Megapage · 10-Way ComparisonAutonomous Coding Agents · Operator-Honest Ratings axisAutonomous Coding Agents · Task Success Rate axisAutonomous Coding Agents · Codebase Context axisAutonomous Coding Agents · Enterprise Deployment axis10-minute operator-honest read on your actual buying context. No deck, no demo call, no signup. If we're not the right fit, we'll say so.
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