Cost Calculators → Cost Scenarios
AI Coding Assistant — Cost Per Developer
Monthly LLM API cost for one developer using an AI coding assistant (not Claude Code — inline IDE assistant).
Low estimate
$320/mo
Mid estimate
$450/mo
High estimate
$680/mo
Assumptions
- 1 developer, 22 working days/month
- 120 completions/day (light inline assistant)
- Avg completion: 300 token context, 150 token suggestion
- Plus 20 longer tasks (explain/refactor): 2k in, 800 out each
Base model: Claude Sonnet 5 — $3/M input · $15/M output · 2026-08-19
Cost breakdown by component
Inline completions70%
Longer tasks (explain/refactor)30%
How to cut this cost by 50%+
Route completions to Flash/Haiku
Inline completions don't need frontier models — Gemini Flash at $0.075/M is 40× cheaper
60-70% savings
Cache shared context
File headers, boilerplate context repeated across completions
15-20% savings
Calculate for your exact workload
These are estimates based on typical patterns. Enter your specific token counts and volume for a precise calculation.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does an AI coding assistant cost per developer?
Roughly $300-700/month per developer on Claude Sonnet 5 at typical usage. The biggest cost driver is inline completions volume. Routing completions to a cheaper model (Gemini Flash, Haiku) reduces this by 60-70%.
Pricing verified 2026-08-20. All figures are estimates with stated assumptions. See methodology.