The real cost of Kilo Code in 2026

Kilo Code's pricing is more complicated than "free and open source." The VS Code extension is Apache 2.0. You can install it, read the source, fork it. No tricks there.

But the real cost of Kilo Code shows up once you start using it for actual work.

How does Kilo Code pricing actually work?

Kilo Code has four separate cost components. Most people only see the first one.

The extension: free. BYOK supported. You bring your own API key from OpenAI, Anthropic, whoever. No charge from Kilo for that.

Kilo Gateway credits: $19 to $199 a month depending on the tier (Starter, Pro, Expert). Annual plans give you a 50% bonus; on monthly plans the loyalty bonus ramps toward 40% with continuous subscription. The catch: base credits expire a year from purchase, so unused balance is not yours forever.

KiloClaw: $55 a month for Kilo's cloud agent (Standard tier), $51 a month on a 6-month commit ($306 upfront). It launched at $49 a month, dropped to $25 for early adopters, ran at $9 during beta, and settled at $55 after exiting beta in May 2026. The agent handles email, calendar, browser automation. It is not a coding tool. AI inference is billed on top.

Teams: $15 per user per month for analytics and centralized billing. No credits included.

So a solo developer on the Pro credit tier with KiloClaw and no team plan is paying $58 a month before inference. That is $696 a year for a "free" tool.

What do Kilo Code users actually spend?

We pulled numbers from public GitHub issues, Trustpilot reviews, and Kilo's own pricing page. Here is what the range looks like.

Bodega One Code Personal is free for personal use (TBD one-time for commercial). Even light Kilo users would save $120-$588 in year one alone.

What billing problems have Kilo Code users reported?

Pricing gets more complicated when the tool charges you for things you did not do.

$74 credit drain with no usage. A user opened a GitHub issue (#1557) after their balance dropped from $74.50 to $0.03. They were not using the extension at the time. The issue was closed as "not planned" and handled privately over email. No public explanation.

$7.59 infinite loop on a simple code review. A 340-line TypeScript file triggered an agent loop that read the same files four times, ballooned the context from 140K to 262K tokens, and generated 8.5 million tokens total (GitHub #3767). Expected cost: about $0.10. Actual cost: $7.59. The user got a refund, but the root cause was not fixed. The "max cost" safety feature exists but is off by default.

Double billing with your own API keys. Users bringing their own keys reported that Kilo credits were still being drained. The extension silently switched providers to Kilo's hosted Sonnet, burning credits on top of the user's own API costs (GitHub #1388). One person saw their $5 free credit vanish in a single day.

$15 charge with no confirmation. Clicking a reload button in the UI withdrew $15 from a credit card without any prompt or confirmation dialog (GitHub #259). No itemized billing history existed at the time.

What does the Kilo Code Terms of Service say?

We read the Terms of Service. A few things stood out.

• All fees non-refundable. The ToS says "all Fees are non-cancellable and non-refundable, except as required by law."
• Pricing can change at any time. Kilo "reserves the right to determine pricing" and can modify fees with "prior advance notice." Continued use equals acceptance.
• Credits expire. After one year from purchase or when you delete your account.
• Broad data license. Anything you upload gets a "perpetual, irrevocable, fully-paid, royalty-free" license for Kilo to use.
• Service can disappear. Kilo "may modify or discontinue all or any portion of the Service at any time" with "no liability."

Compare that to buying a desktop app. You pay. You own it. Nobody can reach in and change what you paid for.

The honest comparison

Kilo Code does some things well. The extension supports 500+ models. Orchestrator mode is useful. JetBrains support matters if you live in IntelliJ. The community is growing.

But the business model is a credit system wrapped around a free extension. You are paying for inference through a middleman that claims zero markup. Maybe that is true. Maybe it will stay true. The Terms of Service say they can change it whenever they want.

Kilo Code is a good extension. But "free" is a starting price, not a total cost.

What is a free alternative to Kilo Code?

Bodega One Code is free for Personal use (TBD one-time for commercial). It is a standalone Electron app with a Monaco editor, AI chat, and an autonomous coding agent. You bring your own LLM. Local models through Ollama or LM Studio. Cloud providers through your own API keys. No credits. No inference middleman. No monthly bill.

The Quality Enforcement Layer runs three verification levels on every code change. Air-gap mode keeps your code on your machine with nine independent enforcement layers.

Beta is free and open to everyone at bodegaone.ai/download. Full launch coming later this year.

Sources

• Kilo Code pricing page (Starter, Pro, and Expert credit tiers; KiloClaw $55/mo standard, $51 on the 6-month Commit plan): kilo.ai/pricing
• Kilo Code Terms of Service (non-refundable fees, one-year credit expiry, broad upload data license, discontinue-at-any-time clause): kilo.ai/terms
• Kilo Code billing incidents, public GitHub issues on the Kilo Code repository: #1557 ($74 credit drain), #3767 ($7.59 agent loop), #1388 (bring-your-own-key double billing), and #259 ($15 charge with no confirmation).
• Bodega One Code pricing (free for personal use, TBD one-time for commercial): bodegaone.ai/pricing

Kilo Code pricing verified March 2026 from kilo.ai/pricing and kilo.ai/terms. GitHub issue numbers are public and can be verified on the Kilo Code repository. Check kilo.ai for current rates.