Pricing
Kiro Pricing in 2026: Credits, Plans and What a Spec Really Costs
Kiro has five plans from Free (50 credits) to Power ($200), and every model burns credits at its own rate. Here's what a credit buys, checked and dated.
10 min read
Kiro plans, upgrade rules, models and the startup offer checked Nov 4, 2026 on its pricing and startups pages and in its billing and models docs; student offer and add-on rules checked Nov 1, 2026. This page has no affiliate links (how we work).
Kiro’s price list is the easy part: five plans, $0 to $200 a month, every paid plan at exactly $0.02 a credit. The hard part is the question everyone types into Google: how many credits does a spec eat? Kiro’s answer is that a spec task “typically cost[s] more than 1 credit”. That’s it. That’s the number. So here’s everything Kiro does publish, plus the arithmetic.
One thing changed on Nov 1, 2026: the old $20 first-upgrade credit is gone for new upgrades. Your first upgrade from Free gets the rest of the month free plus 500 trial credits, and every upgrade is prorated to the second. Details below. We haven’t tested Kiro; everything here comes from Kiro’s own pages.
TL;DR: which Kiro plan, by situation
- Curious: Free, 50 credits a month. Qwen3 Coder Next at 0.05x stretches them.
- Daily coding with Claude Sonnet: Pro, $20 for 1,000 credits. Sonnet runs at 1.3x Auto.
- Running out on Pro: add-on credits are $0.04 each. Past 500 extra a month, Pro+ ($40, 2,000) is cheaper.
- Opus or GPT-5.6 Sol all day: Pro Max ($100, 5,000) or Power ($200, 10,000).
- First upgrade ever: the rest of that month on Pro is free, plus 500 trial credits that last 12 months.
- Students or startups: both have free-credit programs, below.
Kiro plans compared
All USD per user per month.
| Plan | Price | Credits | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 50 | Trying it out |
| Pro | $20 | 1,000 | Daily solo use |
| Pro+ | $40 | 2,000 | Heavy Sonnet use |
| Pro Max | $100 | 5,000 | Opus or GPT work |
| Power | $200 | 10,000 | All-day agents |
Source: Kiro pricing, checked Nov 4, 2026. “Best for” is our read of the credit counts, not Kiro’s labels. For other tools, see AI coding tools compared.
No volume discount: a bigger plan buys more credits, not cheaper ones.
Paid plans are processed “on the 1st day of each calendar month”, prices exclude tax, and there’s no annual price (not published, checked Nov 4, 2026).
Student and startup offers
Students: “Eligible university students get 1,000 credits per month free for one year” (Kiro students page, checked Nov 1, 2026). That’s Pro’s credit count at $0. The page lists the eligible schools, so check yours before you plan around it.
Does Kiro have a startup program?
Yes. “For a limited time only, early stage to Series A startups globally can apply for up to 1-year’s worth of free Kiro Pro+” in three tiers: Starter (up to 2 Kiro users), Growth (up to 10) and Scale (up to 30) (Kiro startups page, checked Nov 4, 2026). The fine print, from the same page:
- Credit amounts per tier: not published.
- Not for AWS Activate holders. Startups “with active AWS Activate Credits are not eligible”.
- IAM Identity Center only. Startup credits “are not available when logging in with AWS Builder ID or social logins”.
- Credits expire “one year after date of issuance”, then “you’ll automatically switch to standard Kiro Pro+ billing”.
How Kiro credits work
Per Kiro’s pricing page (checked Nov 4, 2026):
- Fractional metering. “the least number of credits a task can consume is 0.01 credits.”
- Everything counts. Vibe mode, spec mode, spec refinement, task execution and agent hook execution all consume credits. A hook that fires on every save spends credits every time.
- One pool everywhere. “Credits are consumed regardless of which interface the work runs on (IDE, CLI, or web).”
- No rollover. “Unused credits do not roll over to the next month.”
The full credit explainer is in Kiro credits, and resets, the missing daily cap and what happens at zero are in Kiro usage limits.
So what does a spec cost? Kiro doesn’t publish a number, and we won’t invent one. Refinement and every task are metered separately, and each task “typically” costs more than 1 credit, so a ten-task spec likely runs past 10 credits on Auto, before the model multiplier.
Model multipliers: why Opus costs 2x Auto
Kiro’s own example: “a task that costs 10 credits on Auto would cost 20 credits on Opus 5.5, 22 credits on Opus 5, 0.6 credits at Haiku 5.5’s 0.06x rate for a request up to 100K tokens, or 0.5 credits on Qwen3 Coder Next” (Kiro models docs, checked Nov 4, 2026). Model selection “is only available for chat experience”.
| Model | Multiplier | Plans |
|---|---|---|
| Auto | 1.0x | All |
| Qwen3 Coder Next | 0.05x | All |
| MiniMax M2.1 | 0.15x | All |
| DeepSeek 3.2, MiniMax M2.5 | 0.25x | All |
| GLM-5 | 0.5x | All |
| Claude Sonnet 4.5 / 4.0 | 1.3x | All |
| Claude Haiku 5.5 | 0.06x | Paid |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 0.4x | Paid |
| GPT-5.6 Luna | 0.6x | Paid |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 / 5 / 4.6 | 1.3x | Paid |
| Claude Opus 5.5 | 2.0x | Paid |
| GPT-5.6 Terra, Claude Opus 5 / 4.8 / 4.7 / 4.6 / 4.5 | 2.2x | Paid |
| Kimi K3 | 2.4x | Paid |
| GPT-5.6 Sol | 4.4x | Paid |
| Claude Fable 5.1 | 6x | Enterprise |
Source: Kiro models docs, checked Nov 4, 2026. “Paid” means Pro and up. Fable 5.1 is Enterprise-only, enabled by admins, with inference in US East only.
Fine-print traps, per the same docs:
- GPT-5.6 over 272K tokens bills at double: Sol 8.8x, Terra 4.4x, Luna 1.2x.
- Claude Haiku 5.5 over 100K tokens jumps from 0.06x to 0.3x, five times the listed rate.
What a Pro plan’s 1,000 credits buy in Auto-equivalent work (plain division of Kiro’s numbers):
- Claude Opus 5.5 (2.0x): 500.
- GPT-5.6 Sol (4.4x): about 227, or about 114 past 272K tokens.
- Qwen3 Coder Next (0.05x): 20,000.
Add-on credits and upgrades
Add-ons: $0.04 per credit, “billed immediately when you buy a pack”, in packs “from $5 (125 credits) to $100”. Unlike plan credits, “Unused add-on credits roll over and expire 12 months from the date of purchase” (Kiro pricing, checked Nov 4, 2026). Free can’t buy them.
That’s double the in-plan $0.02, so:
- On Pro, needing 500 more: 500 add-ons cost $20, so you’ve paid $40 for 1,500 credits. Pro+ is $40 for 2,000. Past 500 extra a month, upgrade.
- On Pro+, needing 1,500 more: $60 in add-ons takes you to $100 for 3,500 credits. Pro Max is $100 for 5,000. Past 1,500 extra, upgrade.
How does upgrading Kiro mid-month work?
Since Nov 1, 2026, per Kiro’s billing docs (checked Nov 4, 2026):
- Prorated to the second, fee and credits. “Prorated fee = (seconds remaining / total seconds in month) × monthly plan fee”, and the same formula applies to plan credits. A mid-month upgrade no longer hands you a full month of credits.
- First upgrade from Free: “the rest of that month on Pro is free, and you get 500 trial credits on any paid plan (Pro, Pro+, Pro Max, or Power)”. Trial credits are used after plan credits and expire 12 months after you receive them.
- Starting bigger: “you pay only the difference between your plan’s prorated price and the prorated Pro price”.
- Later upgrades: prorated, “without a second free month”. Add-on credits you already bought stay in your balance.
- Downgrades take effect the following month, at the full current-month fee.
Kiro’s worked example, a first upgrade at 00:00 UTC on day 15 of a 30-day month:
| Plan | You pay | Plan credits | Total credits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pro | $0 | 533 | 1,033 |
| Pro+ | $10.67 | 1,067 | 1,567 |
| Pro Max | $42.67 | 2,667 | 3,167 |
| Power | $96.00 | 5,333 | 5,833 |
Source: Kiro billing docs, checked Nov 4, 2026. Totals include the 500 trial credits.
Upgraded before Nov 1? “If you upgraded before November 1, you keep the $20 discount and your unused credits” (Kiro pricing, checked Nov 4, 2026).
Double-price add-ons are normal. Pairing them with “Unused credits do not roll over” is what stings: under-use and you lose credits, over-use and you pay double. You win only by guessing your month exactly, and Kiro won’t tell you what a spec costs.
Paid plan but Kiro won’t open after an update? That’s a crash, not a credit problem: see Kiro error code 21 for the startup fix.
Enterprise and GovCloud
- Enterprise: “Admins can enable overages” at $0.04 a credit, billed at month-end, and “Overages are disabled by default”. Seat pricing is not published.
- AWS GovCloud (US): “approximately 20% higher than standard commercial region pricing”, with no Free tier in GovCloud or Enterprise. Dollar figures are not published.
Source: Kiro pricing, checked Nov 4, 2026.
Kiro vs Claude Code and Cursor on price
- Claude Code: comes with Claude Pro at $20 a month or $17 a month billed annually ($200 up front), with Max at $100 and Ultra at $200 (formerly Max 20x) (Claude pricing, checked Nov 1, 2026). It has the annual discount Kiro lacks. See Claude Code pricing or Cline vs Claude Code.
- Cursor: Plus is $8 for Cursor’s own models, “without Auto, Cloud Agents, Automations, Bugbot, Origin, or third-party models”; Premium is $30 (Cursor pricing, checked Oct 31, 2026). See Cursor pricing. More in Claude Code alternatives.
Here’s what I’d do
Run one real spec on Free. Your codebase, a task you’d ship. That meter reading beats this whole page.
Time your first upgrade. Credits are prorated to the second, so a first upgrade on the 2nd gets far more plan credits than one on the 28th, and the free Pro month covers either.
Default to Auto. If Opus isn’t clearly better on a task, you’re paying double for vibes.
Upgrade at the breakeven. Past 500 add-ons a month on Pro, take Pro+. Past 1,500 on Pro+, take Pro Max.
Audit your hooks. A hook on every save is a slow leak.
Only need the free tier? Read Is Kiro free?. Choosing a paid tier? Kiro Pro vs Pro+ does the credit math, and Kiro Pro vs Antigravity weighs it against Google’s agent. Also see Kiro vs Cursor, Kiro Pro vs Amazon Q Developer Pro and Kiro Pro vs Codex Plus.
Pro vs Power side by side, including when add-ons beat upgrading: Kiro Pro vs Power.
FAQ
Is Kiro free? Yes, Kiro Free is $0 a month with 50 credits and access to open-weight models and Claude Sonnet 4.5, per kiro.dev on Nov 4, 2026.
How many credits is a spec in Kiro? Kiro doesn’t publish a fixed number; it says a spec task “typically” costs more than 1 credit, and refinement and each task are metered separately.
How does upgrading Kiro mid-month work? Since Nov 1, 2026, fees and credits are prorated to the second, and your first upgrade from Free also gets the rest of the month on Pro free plus 500 trial credits.
Does Kiro still give a $20 credit on the first upgrade? No, the $20 credit was replaced on Nov 1, 2026 by a free rest-of-month on Pro plus 500 trial credits; people who upgraded before Nov 1 keep their $20 discount.
Do Kiro credits roll over? Monthly plan credits don’t roll over, but add-on and trial credits do and expire 12 months after you get them.
Does Kiro have a student discount? Yes, eligible university students get 1,000 credits a month free for one year, per kiro.dev on Nov 1, 2026.
Does Kiro have a startup program? Yes, early-stage to Series A startups can apply for up to one year of free Kiro Pro+ credits, but AWS Activate credit holders aren’t eligible.
Is Kiro connected to AWS? Yes, Kiro Enterprise is billed through AWS, and AWS’s Amazon Q Developer page points IDE plugin users to Kiro ahead of plugin support ending April 30, 2027 (checked Oct 28, 2026).
Sources
- Kiro pricing (plans, first-upgrade free trial banner and FAQ, pre-Nov 1 $20 discount kept, credit definition and rules, IDE/CLI/web credit line, add-ons, Enterprise overage, GovCloud, billing on the 1st, no annual price): https://kiro.dev/pricing/ (verified 2026-11-04)
- Kiro billing docs (proration formula, first upgrade from Free, trial credits, starting on a bigger plan, day-15 example, later upgrades, downgrades, credit reset): https://kiro.dev/docs/billing/ (verified 2026-11-04)
- Kiro models docs (models, multipliers, plan availability, 272K and 100K rules, Fable 5.1 Enterprise): https://kiro.dev/docs/models/ (verified 2026-11-04)
- Kiro startups page (Pro+ credits for early-stage to Series A, tiers, eligibility, expiry): https://kiro.dev/startups/ (verified 2026-11-04)
- Kiro student offer: https://kiro.dev/students/ (verified 2026-11-01)
- Kiro add-on credits doc (Free can’t buy add-ons): https://kiro.dev/docs/billing/add-on-credits/ (verified 2026-11-01)
- Amazon Q Developer end-of-support notice pointing to Kiro: https://aws.amazon.com/q/developer/ (verified 2026-10-28)
- Claude pricing (Pro $20 / $17 annual, Max $100, Ultra $200): https://claude.com/pricing (verified 2026-11-01)
- Cursor pricing (Plus $8, Premium $30): https://cursor.com/pricing (verified 2026-10-31)