Manage costs effectively

Learn how to track and optimize token usage and costs when using Claude Code.

Claude Code consumes tokens for each interaction. The average cost is $6 per developer per day, with daily costs remaining below $12 for 90% of users.

For team usage, Claude Code charges by API token consumption. On average, Claude Code costs ~$100-200/developer per month with Sonnet 4 though there is large variance depending on how many instances users are running and whether they’re using it in automation.

Track your costs

• Use /cost to see current session usage
• Anthropic Console users:
  • Check historical usage in the Anthropic Console (requires Admin or Billing role)
  • Set workspace spend limits for the Claude Code workspace (requires Admin role)
• Pro and Max plan users: Usage is included in your subscription

Managing costs for teams

When using Anthropic API, you can limit the total Claude Code workspace spend. To configure, follow these instructions. Admins can view cost and usage reporting by following these instructions.

On Bedrock and Vertex, Claude Code does not send metrics from your cloud. In order to get cost metrics, several large enterprises reported using LiteLLM, which is an open-source tool that helps companies track spend by key. This project is unaffiliated with Anthropic and we have not audited its security.

Rate limit recommendations

When setting up Claude Code for teams, consider these Token Per Minute (TPM) per-user recommendations based on your organization size:

Team size	TPM per user
1-5 users	200k-300k
5-20 users	100k-150k
20-50 users	50k-75k
50-100 users	25k-35k
100-500 users	15k-20k
500+ users	10k-15k

For example, if you have 200 users, you might request 20k TPM for each user, or 4 million total TPM (200*20,000 = 4 million).

The TPM per user decreases as team size grows because we expect fewer users to use Claude Code concurrently in larger organizations. These rate limits apply at the organization level, not per individual user, which means individual users can temporarily consume more than their calculated share when others aren’t actively using the service.

If you anticipate scenarios with unusually high concurrent usage (such as live training sessions with large groups), you may need higher TPM allocations per user.

Reduce token usage

• Compact conversations:

  • Claude uses auto-compact by default when context exceeds 95% capacity

  • Toggle auto-compact: Run /config and navigate to “Auto-compact enabled”

  • Use /compact manually when context gets large

  • Add custom instructions: /compact Focus on code samples and API usage

  • Customize compaction by adding to CLAUDE.md:

    # Summary instructions
    
    When you are using compact, please focus on test output and code changes
    

• Write specific queries: Avoid vague requests that trigger unnecessary scanning

• Break down complex tasks: Split large tasks into focused interactions

• Clear history between tasks: Use /clear to reset context

Costs can vary significantly based on:

• Size of codebase being analyzed
• Complexity of queries
• Number of files being searched or modified
• Length of conversation history
• Frequency of compacting conversations
• Background processes (haiku generation, conversation summarization)

Background token usage

Claude Code uses tokens for some background functionality even when idle:

• Haiku generation: Small creative messages that appear while you type (approximately 1 cent per day)
• Conversation summarization: Background jobs that summarize previous conversations for the claude --resume feature
• Command processing: Some commands like /cost may generate requests to check status

These background processes consume a small amount of tokens (typically under $0.04 per session) even without active interaction.

For team deployments, we recommend starting with a small pilot group to establish usage patterns before wider rollout.