Zed's Pricing Has Changed: LLM Usage Is Now Token-Based

First things first: we still offer, and always plan to offer, multiple ways to use AI in Zed without paying us.

So what's changing? We're moving Zed AI from prompt-based limits to token-based pricing. For new users, this pricing is live today. For current users, we're providing advance notice and migration will happen over the next three months. We’re also adding GPT-5 (and mini/nano), Gemini 2.5 Pro, and Gemini 2.5 Flash to Zed’s hosted offering, in addition to the Anthropic models already available.

Why? We want our pricing to reflect the real cost of running AI. Token-agnostic prompt structures obscure the cost and are rife with misaligned incentives. This change lets us invest sustainably in the editor features that make Zed fast and reliable. Our short-term revenue growth strategy is to sell enterprise features to businesses, and our long term vision is to earn money by fundamentally improving how developers collaborate. We have to charge for AI features which we get charged for, but it's never been our plan to build a business on LLM token math.

What's Changing

A Wealth of Alternatives

Your Zed Pro bill may go up or down based on how you use AI. That's why we're giving Zed Pro customers 3 months notice before migration to the new pricing structure, and we have invested heavily in alternative options for using AI in Zed:

• Bring your own API keys, direct with LLM providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, Grok, and many more
• Use local models like Ollama
• Access third-party agents through ACP, like Gemini CLI and Claude Code (more coming soon!)
• Spend through GitHub Copilot, OpenRouter, AWS Bedrock, and other LLM payment hubs

You can also disable AI in Zed entirely if you prefer to keep your editor free of AI features.

Why We're Making Changes

Current pricing is too expensive for Zed. LLM bills have become our biggest expense, and more paying customers translates to more money lost. We could spend more resources trying to find the right "unlimited" price point that would balance out costs, but it's much simpler to switch to the obvious pricing model of charging based on what providers charge us. This lets us keep our focus where it belongs: building the world's best code editor.

Prompt-based pricing is decoupled from user value. In our current system, asking Sonnet to fix a typo costs the same as a complex multi-file refactor. Token-based pricing means you pay for what you actually use, plus a 10% markup that covers Zed’s infrastructure, support costs, and the increased rate limits available for Zed Pro users compared to average BYOK users.

Better incentive alignment, reduced complexity. With token-based pricing, you can add as much or as little context as you want. The only limit is the cost you decide is worth it, not an arbitrary prompt cap. We ourselves would get confused about when “burn mode” was needed, and what usage should or shouldn’t cost a prompt. It also simplifies the addition of new models to Zed Pro: we plan to maintain “list price + 10%” for any new model we add to Zed’s hosted offering.

Subsidize with specificity. Our old free plan subsidized inference without a concrete goal. Changing our pricing helps us focus resources on targeted programs like discounts for students that are better aligned with Zed’s mission. Every user can still use our 14-day trial to evaluate Zed Pro, even if you trialed Zed Pro in our old pricing structure.

Migration Timeline

If you're an existing customer, you should already have received an email with your specific migration details. Here's the timeline again for reference:

• Pro customers have until December 17, 2025 to migrate, giving you three months to plan ahead. If you decide to cancel Zed Pro, you’ll be moved to our new Free plan on the day your subscription ends. If you'd prefer to migrate earlier to access the new models, email [email protected] and we'll help you switch over.
• Free users will transition to the new Free plan on October 15, 2025. You'll also get a fresh 14-day Pro trial with $20 in token credits to test out our new pricing model, even if you used a Pro trial in the past. You can start this trial any time, starting today. Note that starting this new Pro trial will move you to our new Free plan after its conclusion.
• Trial users are being moved back to our old Free plan today, September 24th. You'll follow the same migration path as Free users above. You will also get a fresh trial that can be started any time.