Cline Pricing & Cheaper Ways to Pay
$0 open-source coding agent; you pay your AI provider directly at cost
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What Cline costs
We don't know of a live discount, trial or promo for Cline right now. These are its normal prices.
- Open Source$0/month
The extension costs $0; bring your own API key and pay the model provider
- ClinePass$9.99/month
Optional add-on bundling open-weight models (GLM, Kimi, DeepSeek, Qwen and others)
- EnterpriseCustom
Custom quote: SSO, SLA, RBAC, VPC deployment
Not in the US?
What changes where you live.
- Outside the US
- Same USD price; model costs depend on your provider
What Cline does
Cline is an open-source AI coding agent that runs as an extension inside VS Code, JetBrains, Cursor, Windsurf, Zed, and Neovim. Instead of a subscription, you bring your own API key and pay your model provider directly at cost, or route through Cline's managed inference. It reads and writes files, runs terminal commands, and drives a real browser, with human approval at each step.
- Plan/Act mode for separating planning from execution
- Terminal command automation with visible output
- Headless browser use for testing and research
- Model Context Protocol (MCP) marketplace for connecting tools and databases
- + .clinerules for version-controlled coding standards
- Real-time API cost tracking
- Support for 30+ LLM providers via bring-your-own-key
Alternatives to Cline
What else does the job, and what it costs.
| Tool | Why people look at it | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Kilo Code | Similar open-source agent with a zero-markup gateway across many providers | Price: $0 base, credits from $19/month |
| Cursor | One flat subscription with model access included, no API bills to watch | Price: from $20/month |
| GitHub Copilot | The cheapest flat fee, built into GitHub and VS Code | Price: from $10/month |
| Google Antigravity | A full agent IDE from Google instead of an extension | Price: $0 to start |
Questions about Cline
What does Cline cost each month?
The extension is $0. You pay your model provider (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and others) at their rates, or add ClinePass at $9.99/month for bundled open-weight models.
Is there a student or new-user discount?
Not on Cline's official pricing page as of our check.
Is Cline cheaper than Cursor or Copilot?
For light use, usually yes, because you only pay for the tokens you use. Heavy users can spend more than a $10 to $20 flat subscription, since the bill grows with usage.
