# Claude Cowork price: the plans, the limits, and an open-source bill

> Claude Cowork costs $17 a month on Pro and $100 on Max, and each of those prices is a floor: with usage credits on, the work bills again at standard API rates past a plan's limits. Kortix is the open-source CompanyOS, and it bills a team for the work, with members free; that is my pick, and I work on Kortix's marketing, so weigh that accordingly.

URL: https://claudecoworkalternative.com/claude-cowork-pricing

## What each Claude plan charges for Cowork

Cowork has no price of its own. A paid Claude plan carries it, so the first invoice says more about which plan a person bought than about the work they handed over. The prices below come from Anthropic's own plan pages, read on 29 October 2026.

Pro is $17 a month with the annual bill ($200 up front) or $20 billed monthly, and Cowork is included in it ([Claude pricing](https://claude.com/pricing)). Max is $100 for 5x Pro's usage and Ultra is $200 for 10x Pro's weekly usage, both billed monthly, and Cowork is included in each. Ultra also arrives with $200 a month of monthly API credits, up from $100 on Max, a line that turns out to matter less than it looks.

Team runs 2 to 150 people. A standard seat is $20 a month billed annually or $25 monthly; a premium seat is $100 a month annually or $125 monthly, and Cowork sits in both seat types. A Team plan pools up to $500 a month of API credits across its seats.

Enterprise sells one seat type at US$20 a seat a month billed annually, with a 20-seat minimum self-serve and 50 seats sales-assisted. Access is all the seat buys ([Enterprise plan](https://support.claude.com/en/articles/9797531-what-is-the-enterprise-plan)).

Four prices, four units: a person, a usage multiple, a seat tier, a contract. None of them is the cost of the work. Each one is where the bill starts, which is why two teams on the same plan can finish a quarter thousands of dollars apart. The free question has its own answer on this site: [is Claude Cowork free](/is-claude-cowork-free).

## The four plans beside the open-source rate card

Kortix puts one meter on the work; Claude charges for access first and, with usage credits on, meters what runs past the plan's limits. Figures read 29 October 2026.

| | Kortix (recommended) | Claude Cowork on Pro, Max and Ultra | Claude Cowork Team | Claude Cowork Enterprise |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| What one person costs a month | $0; credits from $50 a month | Pro $17 annual, $20 monthly; Max $100; Ultra $200 | Standard $20 or $25; premium $100 or $125 | US$20 a seat, billed annually |
| What the price includes | Every feature, 500 free credits, one project, your keys | Cowork in all three; $100 API credits on Max, $200 on Ultra | Cowork both seats; up to $500 pooled credits | Access to Claude, Claude Code and Cowork only |
| What one more person costs | $0; the credit pool does not change | A second subscription at the plan price | $20 to $125 a month, by seat type | US$20 a month, after a 20-seat floor |
| What happens at the limit | A stopped computer uses no compute; its files are billed as storage. | With credits on, requests move to standard API rates | Owner-bought credits bill a member at API rates | No seat limit on usage-based plans; tokens metered; admins cap spend |
| Open source | Yes | No | No | No |

Prices read from kortix.com/pricing, claude.com/pricing and Anthropic's Enterprise plan article on 29 October 2026.

## Where the bill goes after the limit

Anthropic's paid individual plans carry two limits, and neither comes with a published number. There is a session limit that resets every five hours and a weekly limit; Anthropic publishes no token figure for either ([usage credits](https://support.claude.com/en/articles/12429409-manage-usage-credits-for-paid-claude-plans)). A buyer cannot compute the ceiling in advance, only watch it arrive.

What happens at that ceiling is documented. With usage credits on, requests do not stop at the plan's limit: they switch to standard API rates and keep going until the monthly spend limit or the balance runs out. The session limit still resets every five hours, and the hours spent past it stay bought.

The monthly API credits that come with Max and Ultra do not absorb this. Anthropic states the rule plainly: monthly API credits don't apply to usage credits in Claude, Claude Code, or Claude Cowork ([same article](https://support.claude.com/en/articles/12429409-manage-usage-credits-for-paid-claude-plans)). The $100 a month on Max and the $200 on Ultra therefore sit outside the Cowork overflow rather than paying it, and the overflow arrives as a separate charge on the card.

Team works the same way once an owner switches it on. Team owners can buy usage credits, so a member who hits a seat's limit carries on at standard API rates ([Team and Enterprise usage](https://support.claude.com/en/articles/12005970-manage-usage-credits-for-team-and-seat-based-enterprise-plans)).

Enterprise skips the switch because there is nothing to switch from. Usage credits do not apply to usage-based Enterprise plans: there is no allowance to run out of, since all usage bills at API rates from the first token. The US$20 seat buys the door, and the first request is already on the meter.

Most price guides stop at the seat prices, which leaves a buyer holding a floor and calling it a budget. Microsoft meters its own Cowork the same way, and [the Copilot Cowork pricing page](/copilot-cowork-pricing) works that meter through.

## Twelve people, priced both ways

Twelve people on Team standard seats, billed annually, cost 12 × $20 = $240 a month, or $2,880 a year, before anyone crosses a session limit. That is the seat line and only the seat line.

Enterprise is the other route off the seat ladder, and twelve people cannot take it. The self-serve minimum is 20 seats, so the smallest usage-based contract runs 20 × $20 × 12 = $4,800 a year, with every token still billed at API rates on top.

The open-source side prices those twelve people from the other end. Members are unlimited and free, and the account shares one credit pool, so a thirteenth person adds no line to the invoice. At $0.01 a credit, the $2,880 the seats would have cost buys 288,000 credits; at 11 credits an hour that is about 26,181 hours of agent computer, spread across as many agents as the team runs ([Kortix pricing](https://kortix.com/pricing)). Run it on Kortix Cloud, in your VPC, or on your own on-prem network; self-host is free; [the self-hosting guide](/self-hosting) takes a first install from there. Kortix is open source: read it, fork it, audit it.

Add the Claude overflow to the $2,880 and the comparison stops being arithmetic. Anthropic publishes no token figure for the session or weekly limit and no average consumption for a team, so the second line is the reader's to estimate from their own usage. What the arithmetic does settle is the shape: a seat plan bills headcount first and work second, and a metered plan bills the work alone.

That shape is the decision rule. Steady demand and half-idle seats favor buying seats. Bursty demand, or a team growing faster than its work, favors the meter, where a quiet month costs only what it used and nothing for the people. The single-pair argument is on [Kortix against Cowork](/claude-cowork-vs-kortix), and the wider field is on [the comparison page](/comparison).

## The Kortix rate card

`kortix/pricing.txt`

```
1 credit buys about 5 minutes of agent computer. 1 credit = $0.01.
11 credits = 1 hour
$200 a month ≈ 1,830 hours
A stopped computer uses no compute.
Members are free and unlimited.
Unlimited members, one shared credit pool
Every tier buys credits at the same rate: 100 credits per dollar.
Pick a tier from $50 a month (5,000 credits) to $50,000 a month (5,000,000 credits).
Unused monthly credits roll over for one month.
```

Source: https://kortix.com/pricing

Kortix Cloud's published credit unit, the hours it buys and the member rule, read from kortix.com/pricing on 29 October 2026.

## Cowork price questions, answered from the vendor's pages

Each figure is dated 29 October 2026 and comes from claude.com/pricing or Anthropic's help center.

### Is Claude Cowork free?

No. Cowork has no free tier: it is part of a paid Claude plan, and Pro is the cheapest of them at $17 a month with the annual bill. The free Claude plan carries none of it. The full answer sits on [the free-tier page](/is-claude-cowork-free).

### Is Claude Cowork worth paying for?

Only if the seat price covers the work. Pro includes Cowork for $17 a month, and that figure is a floor: once the five-hour or weekly limit is spent and usage credits are on, they bill at standard API rates. Count the overflow before signing.

### What is the difference between Claude and Claude Cowork?

Cowork is a capability of Claude, not a separate app: since the merge of 16 September 2026 it sits inside the same product and starts from any conversation. The plans and prices above are Claude's, so Cowork adds no charge of its own.

### How much does Claude cost per month?

Pro $17 annual or $20 monthly; Max $100 at 5x; Ultra $200 at 10x; Team seats $20 to $125; Enterprise US$20 a seat a month, 20 minimum. With usage credits on, Pro and Max bill overflow at API rates; Team, once an owner buys them; usage-based Enterprise, from the first token.

## Start at zero and meter the work

Free is $0 with 500 credits a month, one project, and your own provider key or a connected ChatGPT subscription.

[Try Kortix](https://kortix.com) · [Compare Kortix with Cowork](https://claudecoworkalternative.com/claude-cowork-vs-kortix)

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A guide written by someone who works on Kortix's marketing. My pick is Kortix: open source, one repo, free to self-host.

Revised 2026-11-06

Not affiliated with Anthropic, OpenAI or Microsoft. Claude Cowork, ChatGPT Work and Copilot belong to their owners.

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