TL;DR
Augment changed pricing for its AI coding assistant, moving from a message-count model to a credit-based system tied to AI usage. Early adopters say the new system can be more than ten times costlier and some developers are leaving.
What happened
Augment, the startup behind Augment Code, has replaced its message-based pricing with a credits system that the company says better reflects actual AI processing costs. The change follows an earlier price overhaul about six months ago; the startup introduced message limits in May after originally offering a free community tier and paid plans with unlimited chats. CEO Matt McClernan said the message abstraction did not map to backend compute costs and that the previous model was "not sustainable." Under the new approach, credits are allocated to requests based on processing work. Users who compared their recent message counts to credited usage reported dramatic increases — one user said 31 messages translated to 40,982 credits, implying a charge more than ten times higher. Some developers say they will stop using the product; Augment says heavy users will likely feel the biggest impact and framed the move as aligning with an industry shift to usage-based pricing.
Why it matters
- Developers and small teams may face sharply higher bills for AI-assisted coding workflows.
- Startups offering AI features must balance user expectations against the real compute costs of large models.
- Pricing changes can accelerate churn among early adopters who helped test and stabilize services.
- A shift to usage-based billing highlights the importance of cost-aware prompt engineering and model selection.
Key facts
- Augment launched in April 2024 and sells an AI product called Augment Code.
- Co-founders named in the source are Igor Ostrovsky and Guy Gur-Ari; Eric Schmidt is listed as an investor.
- Notable product features include a Memories capability and a 200K context window for handling large codebases.
- Original pricing included a free community plan and paid tiers (previously $30/user-month and $60 enterprise) with unlimited chats and completions.
- In early May the company moved to message-based limits: free users 50 messages; $50 dev plan 600 messages; $100 professional 1,500; $250 max 4,500 messages.
- The free community tier later disappeared and was replaced by an indie plan offering 125 messages for $20/month.
- CEO Matt McClernan said the message model "isn't sustainable" and cited a user costing the company "approaching $15,000 per month."
- A user reported that 31 messages corresponded to 40,982 credits under the new model, which they calculated as more than a tenfold price increase.
What to watch next
- Whether Augment will revise or offer transitional pricing after user feedback — not confirmed in the source.
- Customer churn among individual developers and small teams as billing changes take effect — not confirmed in the source.
- If competitors continue moving to similar usage-based models and how that affects developer tool economics — not confirmed in the source.
Quick glossary
- Usage-based pricing: A billing model where customers pay according to their actual consumption of a service, such as compute or API calls.
- Credits: A unit used by some vendors to measure and charge for processing work; the mapping from credits to user actions varies by provider.
- Context window: The amount of input data (tokens) an AI model can consider at once, which affects how much of a codebase or conversation it can attend to.
- Agentic AI programming: AI-driven features that can perform multi-step tasks autonomously, such as generating an application from specifications.
Reader FAQ
Why did Augment change its pricing?
The CEO said the message-count model did not reflect the backend compute required for different prompts and was "not sustainable."
Will everyone see a price increase?
Not confirmed in the source; the CEO said the heaviest users will likely feel the change most, and early reports show some users facing large increases.
Is the free community plan still available?
No. The source says the original free community plan was removed and later replaced by an indie plan with a paid message allowance.
Are refunds or credits being offered to affected users?
Not confirmed in the source.
AI + ML 25 AI startup Augment scraps 'unsustainable' pricing, users say new model is 10x worse Second huge increase in six months sees some devs heading for the exit…
Sources
- AI startup Augment scraps 'unsustainable' pricing, users say new model is 10x worse
- Augment Code's pricing is changing on October 20, 2025
- Augment hikes price for AI code editor, users protest
- AI Pricing: What's the True AI Cost for Businesses in 2025?
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