GitHub Copilot vs Claude Code: AI credits, plans, and what a dollar buys
GitHub Copilot's Pro, Pro+ and Max plans now come with AI credits; Claude Code comes with Claude's plans. How each meters usage, and how a Token Plan compares at the same price.
GitHub Copilot and Claude Code both sell coding-agent usage by subscription, and they meter it very differently. Copilot gives you dollars; Claude gives you windows. Here is each, from the vendors' own pages as of November 4, 2026.
GitHub Copilot
GitHub's billing documentation lists:
| Plan | Price a month | AI credits a month |
|---|---|---|
| Copilot Pro | $10 | 1,500 |
| Copilot Pro+ | $39 | 7,000 |
| Copilot Max | $100 | 20,000 |
One AI credit is $0.01, base credits are used first and a "flex allotment" after, and unused credits don't carry over: the allowance resets on the first of each month. Usage is inside Copilot's own surfaces — the IDE, GitHub.com and Copilot CLI.
Claude Code
Claude Code comes with Claude Pro ($20, or $17 billed annually), Max ($100) and Ultra ($200), rationed in 5-hour and weekly windows that Anthropic describes relative to Pro rather than in tokens or dollars (claude.com/pricing). More in Claude Code pricing.
What $100 buys
| Pay | Get | |
|---|---|---|
| Copilot Max | $100 | $200 of AI credits ($100 base + $100 flex), in Copilot |
| Claude Max | $100 | 5× Pro usage, every 5 hours and every week |
| Token Plan Pro | $100 | $300 of usage at list price, in any tool, no windows |
Copilot's credit pool is one of the most transparent offers in the market, and it is a good deal inside Copilot. A Token Plan's difference is the multiple — 3× — and that the usage works in any agent: Claude Code, Codex, opencode, Cline and the rest.
| Plan | You pay / month | Usage at list price | ≈ tokens on Claude Opus 5.5 | ≈ tokens on Claude Sonnet 5.5 | ≈ tokens on GPT-6.1 Sol |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solo | $20 | $60 | 48M | 96M | 96M |
| Pro | $100 | $300 | 240M | 480M | 480M |
| Max | $200 | $600 | 480M | 960M | 960M |
Token estimates assume coding-agent traffic: 85% cached input, 12% fresh input, 3% output.
Prices on this page come from the model catalog and were current on November 12, 2026.