Cline Enterprise Pricing and the Security Controls to Budget Beside It
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Cline's client costs nothing and its Enterprise plan has no public price, so the number that matters for a budget is inference usage plus the work of making an autonomous coding agent safe. On the vendor pricing page, read on November 6, 2026, there are two plans: Open Source, listed as free, and Enterprise, listed as custom. Rates change, so confirm them with the vendor before you sign.
What each Cline plan includes
| Plan | Listed price | What the page says it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Open Source | Free client, pay for inference | VS Code extension, CLI, client-side architecture, inference at cost or with your own key, MCP Marketplace, multi-root workspaces, community support |
| Enterprise | Custom, contact sales | Everything above plus JetBrains extension, SSO, SLA, dedicated support, centralized billing, role based access control, a limit on inference providers, team dashboard, authentication logs |
The page lists advanced configuration management and fine grained permissioning as coming soon, and its FAQ mentions OIDC, SCIM, audit logs, VPC deployment and OpenTelemetry for Enterprise without saying which plan card they belong to. The page states no per-seat price, no inference rate and no markup, so a quote is the only way to get those numbers.
How Cline usage is paid
With the open source plan you pay the model provider only, either at cost through Cline or with your own key. That means the bill follows how much work you hand to the agent, not how many engineers you have. A looping task or a large repository read many times can cost more than a month of casual use, so size it from a pilot rather than a demo.
A practical way to size it is to run two or three weeks with a small group on real tickets, record the tokens each task used, and multiply by the work you expect agents to take on. Teams that want that figure tracked against other spend can look at expense tracking built for small teams.
The security costs that sit outside the plan price
A free client or an Enterprise contract buys the product. It does not buy the work of making an autonomous agent safe to hand credentials. Budget these lines separately.
| Cost line | Who pays it | Typical shape |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor and provider review | Security and procurement | Training, retention and data processing terms for Cline and for every model provider you allow. Hours, not dollars |
| Scoped service accounts for MCP servers | Platform team | One account per integration, narrow scopes, no personal tokens |
| Branch protection and review rules | Engineering | Required reviews on every repository the agent can push to |
| Logging and attribution | Platform team | Authentication logs are listed. Confirm whether tool calls are recorded as well |
| Control on high-impact actions | Security | Rules and approval for deploys, payments, access grants and bulk changes |
The first four are mostly staff time and are worth doing whatever you buy. The last is a purchase decision, and it depends on what the agent can reach. The full review of what Cline publishes, and where each control stops, is on Cline enterprise security.
A budgeting checklist before you sign
- Get a written Enterprise quote with the SSO protocol, SCIM, log contents and support terms listed.
- Run a pilot and record inference spend per task.
- Set a spend limit slightly above the pilot figure and review it monthly.
- Limit providers to ones your data agreements cover.
- Decide whether auto-approve is allowed, and for which actions.
- List the production actions an agent may take. If the list is not empty, price a per call control for those paths, as covered on tool permissions.
How much does Cline cost for a team?
The Cline client is free. A team pays for model inference, either at cost through Cline or directly to a provider with its own key. Enterprise is priced by quote, and the pricing page lists no seat price. Plan for usage that scales with how many tasks agents take on.
Is Cline really free?
The open source client has no subscription or seat fee on the pricing page, but inference is a real cost. A company handling private code should also budget administration time, and Enterprise for single sign-on, provider limits and a team dashboard.
Does Cline Enterprise include security features?
The pricing page lists SSO, role based access control, a limit on inference providers, a team dashboard and authentication logs. It does not list SOC 2 or per call approval for tools. Those are the items to ask for in writing, or to cover with a gateway in front of the tools Cline calls.
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