Discount with code applied — 50% off Pro or Max for 6 months
COMPARE · ZEST VS SPAN
Sources last reviewed
Span records agent traces through hooks in Claude Code, Cursor, Codex CLI and other agents, and prices its platform at $45 a contributor a month, billed annually.[1][2] Zest reads the same kind of session data through a plugin each engineer adds, priced per workspace.
A Span trace holds “prompts sent, MCP calls made, files edited, skills used, and the tokens spent”, joined to the pull request it produced.[3] Span adds allocation, capitalization, R&D tax credits and surveys;[4] Zest adds a daily standup per engineer.
Zest gets you:
Free for 3 seats · No credit card
Winding / Teams Last 30 days 
Zest
| Member | AI | PRs/wk | AI Task | Plan | Impl | Last Standup | AI Stack |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22.8/wk | 28 min ago | ||||||
| 15.8/wk | 12 min ago | ||||||
| 4/wk | Aug 14 | ||||||
| — | 2 hours ago |
Demo setups use current model families. The pairings above are the combinations benchmarked by Artificial Analysis; rankings measure performance, not popularity.
Illustrative daily trends · Other totals: last 30 days. Build Hours: this week, model-estimated activity including overlap; not engineer hours.
USED BY ENGINEERING TEAMS AT
AT A GLANCE
 Zest | Span | |
|---|---|---|
| What one agent session records | The model, tokens, estimated cost, skills and MCP tools of each session, and the pull request it led to. | “Prompts sent, MCP calls made, files edited, skills used, and the tokens spent”, joined to the PR it produced; prompts stay visible to their author only.[3] |
| Coding agents it reads | Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, GitHub Copilot Chat, Grok Build and Hermes. | Claude Code, Cursor, Codex CLI, Copilot CLI and VS Code chat; Linux is in beta.[1][3] |
| Setup | An admin installs the Zest GitHub App; each engineer adds the plugin or extension to their agent. | IT installs Span's agent on each laptop through MDM (Jamf, Intune and others), or engineers self-install.[3] |
| Software capitalization | No: Zest has no capitalization or allocation reports. | Yes: Engineering allocation, software capitalization and R&D tax credits.[4] |
| Cost for 5 engineers | $49/mo for 5 engineers: one Pro workspace, seats included. | $225/mo for 5 engineers: Span at $45 a contributor a month, billed annually.[2] |
| Cost for 20 engineers | $334/mo for 20 engineers: one Pro workspace, seats included. | $900/mo for 20 engineers: Span at $45 a contributor a month, billed annually.[2] |
Facts from each vendor's own pages and AWS Marketplace listings, dated in the sources below. ✓ listed, – partly, × not listed on the pages we read, which is not proof the product lacks it.
Most of the category reads AI use from Git or from each tool's usage data; Span and Zest read the agent's own record of each session. Span scores each trace for effectiveness and attributes the lines of a pull request to the agent that wrote them, and shows prompt text to its author only. Zest records each session's model, tokens, estimated cost, skills and MCP tools, links it to the pull request it led to, and writes the day's standup from it.
Span's agent is deployed by IT through MDM (Jamf, Intune, Iru, Mosyle and others) or installed by each engineer, and Span turns traces on once it is in place; it suggests a pilot for larger organizations. Zest needs an admin to install the GitHub App, then each engineer adds the plugin or extension to Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Copilot Chat, Grok Build or Hermes.
Span is also a planning and finance tool: engineering allocation, investment mix, software capitalization and R&D tax credits, plus developer experience surveys and an AI readiness survey. It sells one-year contracts and offers a free proof of concept to eligible teams. Zest has none of these; for them, compare Span with Jellyfish and DX.
TRY IT ON YOUR TEAM
Starter is free (3 seats, no credit card). Pro is $49 a month with 5 seats and Max is $149 a month with 10 seats — priced per workspace, not per engineer, with extra seats at $19 a month.
A FEW THINGS TO KNOW
Span's comparison with Jellyfish lists $45 per contributor a month, billed annually; its pricing page asks you to request a quote, and contracts start at a one-year term (checked October 4, 2026).
No. Span offers a no-cost proof of concept to eligible teams, and people who only view dashboards are free. Zest's Starter plan is free for 3 seats with no credit card.
