Every developer using AI coding tools has the same question: "Am I getting my money's worth?"

The sticker prices are all over the map. GitHub Copilot Pro is $10/month. Cursor Pro is $20/month. Claude Code Max ranges from $100 to $200/month. But sticker price tells you almost nothing about what you'll actually spend — because the real costs are hidden in usage-based pricing, overlapping subscriptions, and invisible rate limits.

The Landscape: 84% of Developers Now Use AI Tools

According to the 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, 84% of developers now use or plan to use AI coding tools — up from 76% in 2024 and just 44% in 2023.

What Developers Actually Pay

Individual developers typically spend $120-$3,120+ per year on AI coding tools. The wide range reflects the gap between subscription sticker prices and actual usage-based costs.

The Hidden Costs Nobody Tracks

Context window waste, token cache misses, and redundant API calls add 20-40% to your effective AI spending. Most developers have zero visibility into these costs because each tool has its own isolated billing dashboard.

Track Every Dollar with BurnRate

BurnRate is a free, local-first CLI that tracks your AI coding costs across Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Windsurf, Aider, Cline, and OpenAI Codex — all in one dashboard.

Install: brew install burnrate-dev/tap/burnrate