Cline vs Magic — Pricing, Plans, and Verified Costs (2026)
Cline starts at Free. Magic uses custom pricing — request a quote to compare.
How pricing works
These two tools don't price the same way, so the headline numbers below aren't directly comparable until you plug in your own volume.
- Cline (Per Usage) — Cline bills purely on usage. There is no fixed per-seat fee, so the monthly cost depends entirely on how much you consume.
- Magic (Per Usage) — Magic bills purely on usage. There is no fixed per-seat fee, so the monthly cost depends entirely on how much you consume.
Per-minute, per-credit and per-token rates exclude any downstream model, speech or telephony costs unless the vendor states otherwise.
Open-source autonomous coding agent that runs in VS Code as an extension. Cline itself is free — users bring their own LLM API key (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Groq, OpenRouter, local models via Ollama). Cost is entirely determined by underlying LLM token usage. Popular with developers who want an agent-first coding experience but prefer to pay direct LLM costs rather than a marked-up subscription.
Frontier AI research lab building autonomous coding models with long-context capability (up to 100M tokens claimed). All pricing custom-quoted, enterprise-only. Partnered with Google Cloud for infrastructure. Focus on enterprise engineering teams that need agent capabilities with massive context windows. No self-serve.
All plans compared
| Tier role | Plan | Cline monthly | Cline annual | Magic monthly | Magic annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free / starter | Cline (extension) / — | Free | Free | — | — |
| Teams | Teams / — | $20 | $20 | — | — |
| Enterprise | Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom |
Tier names differ across vendors. Rows are aligned by tier role, not name. Full tier structures on each tool's page.
What each is best for
Cline is worth it if… developers who already have LLM API access and want an autonomous coding agent without a subscription markup. The BYOK model is the differentiator — typical monthly cost is $5-50 in Claude Sonnet tokens depending on usage, which beats most $20-60/mo subscription tools if you're a light user.
Magic is worth it if… Magic is only worth engaging with if you're a large engineering org that specifically needs an AI agent with a very long context window (repositories >1M lines, or complex multi-repo reasoning). The 100M-token context claim is the differentiator.
Bottom line: Similar positioning, closer to a preference call than a strategic one.
Choose Cline over Magic if…
Choose Cline if…
- You want to pay only for actual usage (per usage, a free entry tier).
- You match the profile Cline is built for: developers who already have LLM API access and want an autonomous coding agent without a subscription markup.
- You need a general-purpose developer & infrastructure option rather than a vertical-specific one.
Choose Magic if…
- You want to pay only for actual usage (per usage, custom pricing).
- You match the profile Magic is built for: only worth engaging with if you're a large engineering org that specifically needs an AI agent with a very long context window (repositories >1M lines, or complex multi-repo reasoning).
- You need a general-purpose developer & infrastructure option rather than a vertical-specific one.
At a glance
| Cline | Magic | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | No | No |
| Entry price | Free | Custom |
| Enterprise available | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing model | Per Usage | Per Usage |
| Last verified | September 20, 2026 | — |
| Full pricing | View full pricing | View full pricing |
Pricing last verified September 20, 2026. Tracked daily.