Roo Code API costs too high / too many tokens
Roo Code is a Cline fork, so it inherits Cline's cost profile: whole files read into context and Plan/Act loops that re-send the growing conversation every step. Daily-driver use on frontier models commonly lands at $60–200+/month per-token. The tactical fixes are context discipline and cheaper models for routine steps; the structural fix is a subscription-style backend — Claude subscription sign-in, a coding-plan quota, or a flat-rate endpoint.
Everything that's true of Cline's costs is true of Roo's — the fork changed the UX and modes, not the token economics. The biggest single lever is still file selection: one huge file mentioned across a long task can dominate the whole task's cost.
Roo Code speaks to any OpenAI-compatible provider: set the base URL to https://api.stdcmpt.com/v1, model standardcompute, and Roo runs on a flat monthly price (from $19/mo) with smart routing sending routine steps to budget models and hard ones to frontier models — no token meter, no 5-hour or weekly windows. Guide: /integrations/roo-code.
Recent Roo builds support Claude subscription sign-in, so Claude models bill against your Pro/Max plan instead of an API key. The plan's limits come with it — the rolling 5-hour session window and weekly caps apply exactly as in Claude Code, and heavy agentic use hits them early.
Depends on the models you need. Open-weight models: a GLM coding plan or similar subscription quota is hard to beat on price. Claude specifically: subscription sign-in inside the plan windows. Frontier models all day with no windows: a flat-rate OpenAI-compatible endpoint is the fixed-cost option.
No — same fork family, same cost dynamics. Both pass raw API pricing through, so the bill depends on your models, context habits, and backend, not on which of the two you run.