OpenCode vs Claude Code 2026: Cost, Models and Which to Use

Short answer: the OpenCode software costs nothing, so your bill is the model you choose. Claude Code costs $20 a month on Pro and $100 to $200 on Max, and it runs only Anthropic's Claude models. For a flat price on Claude, pick Claude Code. For model choice and per-token billing, pick OpenCode.

Most comparisons stop at the sticker price, and here the sticker misleads. On a Claude plan, Claude Code runs under usage limits that Anthropic sells as multiples of Pro usage, and no token allowance is published. OpenCode charges nothing for the software and passes the model's price through to you. So this page prices one month of agent work both ways, using the list prices each company published on October 10, 2026.

Toolradar data: the AI coding ranking evaluates 156 tools, updated October 2026. Both products have a listing there: Claude Code and OpenCode. For the wider field, start with AI for developers and the best AI coding assistants guide.

OpenCode vs Claude Code at a glance

What each one costs

Claude Code is included in the Claude Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans. These are the list prices on claude.com/pricing as of October 10, 2026. The Claude Code review covers the product itself, and the Claude Code pricing guide goes deeper on the plan grid.

Team seats add a per-seat price, and Team Premium gives each seat five times Standard's usage. Claude Code can also run on a Console account, which bills usage as pay-as-you-go API credits. That is the route OpenCode takes when you bring your own key.

OpenCode's options are a free download and several ways to pay for models, all listed on opencode.ai:

Two details change the real bill. Zen passes card fees through at cost, and its homepage shows a $1.23 fee on the starting balance. An auto top-up runs when the balance reaches $5, and you can set monthly spend limits. Go's limits are request estimates per five hours plus a monthly dollar amount, not token counts, so a Go plan cannot be converted into a per-token price.

One month of agent work, priced both ways

We priced one developer's workload at list rates: 20 million input tokens and 2 million output tokens in a month, with no prompt caching. Anthropic's pricing page lists lower rates for cached input, so an agent that re-reads the same files pays less than these numbers. The table leaves caching out so that every row is priced the same way.

Each row is input tokens times the input price, plus output tokens times the output price. Sonnet 5.5 comes to 20 × $2 + 2 × $10 = $60.

Three things follow. At this volume, Sonnet 5.5 billed per token costs $60, below the Max 5x plan, while Opus 5.5 at $120 costs more than Max 5x. Pro's $20 pays for about 6.7 million input and 0.67 million output tokens of Sonnet 5.5 at list rates, using a 10-to-1 input-to-output mix (10 million input plus 1 million output costs $30). The cheapest model in the table, Haiku 5.5 at $3.00, costs under a sixth of Pro's price, which is the cost case for OpenCode in one line.

The flat rows are not comparable token for token, because Anthropic publishes no token allowance for Pro or Max. The Sonnet and Opus rows are per-token bills, paid through the API or Zen, and they are not a substitute for a Claude plan, because the plan does not work inside OpenCode. The table says nothing about answer quality. Dupple has no test lab, so this page prices models and does not rank them.

Can OpenCode use my Claude subscription?

Not as a login. OpenCode's homepage lists two subscription logins, GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT Plus or Pro, and no Claude subscription. Its Zen docs describe bringing your own API keys, billed by the provider.

Anthropic's rule comes from its own Claude Code legal and compliance page. Subscription sign-in is "intended exclusively" for purchasers of Claude Free, Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans, and it is "designed to support ordinary use of Claude Code and other native Anthropic applications." Developers building products must use API key authentication, and third-party developers may not route requests through Free, Pro or Max plan credentials on behalf of their users. The same page confirms that you can sign in to the unmodified Claude Code program with your own subscription.

In practice, a Claude model in OpenCode is a metered API bill, and a Max plan does not cover it. Anthropic's terms set this, and they change, so check the legal page before you rely on it.

Models and where each one runs

OpenCode connects to 75 or more providers through Models.dev, including local models, according to its homepage. Claude Code runs Anthropic's Claude models only. That difference drives most of the price gap. On OpenCode you can run a model at $0.14 per million input tokens next to one at $4 per million, and you choose per task. Claude Code keeps the whole workflow inside one vendor's lineup. If you are weighing the Cursor side of the same question, our Claude Code vs Cursor comparison and the Cursor pricing page cover it.

Claude Code runs in the terminal, as an extension for VS Code and JetBrains, in the Claude desktop app, on the web and on iOS and Android, and inside GitHub and Slack. OpenCode runs as a terminal interface, a desktop app and an IDE extension. Its homepage also says it loads the right language servers for the model automatically and runs several agents in parallel on one project.

Privacy and terms

OpenCode says it does not store any of your code or context data, and it presents that as a design for privacy-sensitive environments. The model provider still receives each prompt, so that provider's policy governs what happens to the data. According to Anthropic's Claude Code legal page, Consumer Terms apply to Free, Pro and Max users, and Commercial Terms apply to Team, Enterprise and API users.

Which one to use

• Claude at a flat price, mostly in the terminal: Claude Code on Pro for light use, Max 5x for daily work. Usage limits apply. The how to use Claude Code guide covers the setup that makes a flat plan go further.
• Model choice or per-token billing: OpenCode with your own API key, or Zen. Your bill follows the model, so check the scenario table first.
• The cheapest working setup, if the model fits the task: OpenCode with Claude Haiku 5.5 or DeepSeek V4 Flash, the two cheapest rows in the table, or the Go plan if its request estimates cover your work.
• You already pay for ChatGPT Plus or Pro, or GitHub Copilot: check whether OpenCode's login covers your use. GitHub's plans page lists Copilot Pro at $10 a month and Pro+ at $39 a month, and our GitHub Copilot pricing and GitHub Copilot review cover the product. For the OpenAI side, see the OpenAI Codex review.

Gotchas

• The Zen balance is prepaid. Card fees are passed through at cost, and the homepage example shows a $1.23 fee on the starting balance.
• Haiku 5.5 costs more above 100K-token prompts. Zen lists $0.50 input and $2.50 output for prompts over 100K tokens. The scenario uses the lower tier, so long agent sessions cost more than the table shows.
• Team seats add up. Five Team Standard seats cost $125 a month billed monthly, or $100 billed annually.
• Caching lowers the Claude bill. The scenario table leaves it out on purpose, so treat those figures as a ceiling.

FAQ

Is OpenCode free?

Yes. The software is free and MIT licensed. You pay for the model, either through a Zen balance billed per request, the Go plan, or your own API key billed by the provider.

Is OpenCode cheaper than Claude Code?

It depends on the model. At 20 million input and 2 million output tokens a month, Claude Haiku 5.5 costs $3.00 and Sonnet 5.5 costs $60 at list rates. Pro and Max 5x are flat monthly plans, but they only work inside Claude Code.

Can I use my Claude Pro or Max subscription in OpenCode?

No. OpenCode lists GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT Plus or Pro logins, and Anthropic's legal page says Pro and Max credentials are for its own applications. A Claude model in OpenCode is billed per token through an API key.

Does OpenCode support Claude models?

Yes, through an API key or Zen. Zen lists Claude Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5 and Haiku 5.5 at the same input and output prices as Anthropic's pricing page.

Which costs less for a team of five?

Five Claude Code Team Standard seats cost $125 a month billed monthly, or $100 billed annually. OpenCode has no seat fee, so a team using it pays only for model usage. The scenario table prices one developer's month.

How we checked the prices

We checked the prices on October 10, 2026, on opencode.ai, its Zen and Go pages, claude.com/pricing and the Claude Code product page, Anthropic's Claude Code legal and compliance page, GitHub's Copilot plans page, and the MIT license in OpenCode's repository. The arithmetic uses list rates and no caching, and each row shows its inputs. No model was run for quality, because Dupple has no test lab.

Cite this: Devshot, "OpenCode vs Claude Code 2026: Cost, Models and Which to Use", October 2026.

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