LIVETracking 971 AI models from 268 providers.
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Stack · Coding agent

Coding agent stack

The complete recipe · model, agent, provider, and monthly cost · for running a production coding agent. Three tiers: frontier, mainstream, and budget.

Tiers3
TypeStack recipe
Updated2026-04
All pricingCompare models
What this page is
Coding agents loop. A single pull request can drive 10 to 50 LLM calls, and context grows fast. The model choice drives quality. The agent wrapper (Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, Aider) drives developer experience. The provider drives speed and cost. This page pairs all three at three price points. Our cost estimates assume 10M input + 3M output tokens per month, prompt caching on.

Frontier, mainstream, and budget recipes. Pick the row that matches your workload.

Frontier
Best · max quality
Model
Claude Mythos Preview
in $5/M · out $25/M
Tool · Agent
Claude Code
Free with Claude subscription · best integration
Estimate · 10M in · 3M out
~$125/mo
The premium coding stack. Claude Mythos Preview on Anthropic direct with Claude Code delivers the highest SWE-bench Verified scores available. Caching cuts the input spend roughly in half once the system prompt stabilizes.
Mainstream
Mainstream · balanced
Model
Claude Sonnet 4
in $3/M · out $15/M
Tool · Agent
Cursor
$20/mo flat · generous limits
Estimate · 10M in · 3M out
~$75/mo
The default production stack. Sonnet is frontier-adjacent, Cursor is the best IDE agent by user base, and the monthly subscription caps costs. Upgrade to frontier for hard refactors only.
Budget
Budget · open source
Model
DeepSeek V3.2
in $0.28/M · out $0.84/M
Provider
DeepInfra
Tool · Agent
Cline
Free · open source · BYO API key
Estimate · 10M in · 3M out
~$5/mo
The max-savings stack. DeepSeek V3.2 scores well on SWE-bench and HumanEval at a tiny fraction of Claude prices. Cline is a mature free VS Code agent. Total monthly spend under $10 for serious use.

If the defaults do not fit, try these.

Alternative
Qwen3.5 Coder + Aider

Very cheap, strong code-only model, terminal-based agent. Under $3/mo for heavy solo use.

Alternative
GPT-5 + Cline

If your org is OpenAI-first, GPT-5 with Cline is the equivalent of the Sonnet + Cursor stack.

Alternative
Gemini 2.5 Pro + Continue

Strong 1M context for whole-codebase analysis. Continue is a free IDE agent.

Turn on prompt caching, keep system prompts stable, route boring tasks (formatting, comment rewrites) to a cheap model like DeepSeek, escalate to Claude or GPT-5 only on hard work.