The coding agent cost war is really a control problem
Every coding agent — Cline, Roo, Cursor, Claude Code, Codex — bills differently, and all of them can spend beyond the editor. The winner isn't the cheapest model; it's the team that controls the spend.
Read any thread about coding agents and you'll find a pricing comparison — tokens per model, seats per tool. The comparison misses the point. The bill isn't decided by the rate card; it's decided by what the agent does.
Every agent can spend beyond the editor
Cline and Roo call tools freely in autonomous loops. Cursor and Claude Code consume usage fast in agentic sessions. Codex triggers actions. Each of them can buy compute, hit paid APIs, or trigger payments — spend no seat price captures. Cline, Roo Code, and the rest all wire to the same control.
The control, not the rate
The teams that win the cost war don't chase the cheapest model — they put a spend policy in front of every agent: a cap, an allowlist, a velocity limit. The model choice matters 10%; the control matters 90%.
The math
A retry loop multiplies any rate card. A velocity limit stops the loop. That's the entire war, in one sentence.