Claude Pricing 2026: Free vs Pro vs Max vs Team, and How Startups Get It Free

Every Claude plan Anthropic sells in 2026, what each one actually includes, the per-token API rates behind them, and the one route that gets a startup all of it for free.

Free $0 Chat, web search, code execution

Pro $20/mo $17 annual · includes Claude Code

Max $100–200/mo 5x or 20x Pro usage

Startups Free API credits via Claude for Startups

Claude plans and prices (September 2026)

Prices are what Anthropic lists on claude.com/pricing for US customers before tax. Annual billing is available on Pro and Team and works out to roughly two months free.

Plan	Monthly	Annual (per month)	Who it's for	What you get
Free	$0	$0	Trying Claude, light personal use	Chat on web, desktop and mobile, code generation, web search, memory, file creation, code execution, connectors, extended thinking. Usage-capped.
Pro	$20	$17	Individuals who use Claude daily	Everything in Free plus more usage, Claude Code, Claude Cowork, Claude Design, Claude Science, unlimited projects, Research, additional models, Microsoft 365 integration.
Max 5x	$100	—	Heavy Claude Code users, solo builders	Everything in Pro with 5x the usage, higher output limits, early access to new features, priority during peak traffic.
Max 20x	$200	—	All-day agentic coding	Same as Max 5x with 20x Pro usage. The plan most full-time Claude Code users end up on.
Team (Standard seat)	$25 / seat	$20 / seat	Teams of 2–150	All Claude features with enhanced usage, SSO, central billing, admin controls, enterprise search, compliance features, and no default training on your content.
Team (Premium seat)	$125 / seat	$100 / seat	Engineers on a Team plan	A Standard seat with Max-class usage for Claude Code. Mix Standard and Premium seats on one bill.
Enterprise	$20 / seat + usage	Custom	Larger orgs, regulated industries	Team features plus SCIM, audit logs, Compliance API, custom data retention, IP allowlisting, HIPAA-ready offering. Self-serve and sales-assisted.

Anthropic also sells an Education plan for institutions (campus-wide access for students, faculty and staff at discounted rates, with API credits included). There is no individual student discount on Pro; see our Claude student discount guide for what students can actually get.

Which Claude plan should you pick?

The honest split is about how much you use Claude Code. Chat alone rarely justifies more than Pro. Agentic coding burns through usage quickly, and that is where the Max tiers earn their price.

Free is enough if…

You want to chat, draft, and occasionally generate code. The Free plan now includes web search, memory, file creation and code execution, which used to be paid-only. What you lose is volume: the usage cap resets on a rolling window and you will hit it on a busy afternoon.

Pro is enough if…

You use Claude every day and want Claude Code in the terminal without paying by the token. At $20 a month (or $17 annual), Pro is cheaper than a single day of heavy API usage. The catch is the usage limit: Pro's allowance is shared between chat and Claude Code, and a long refactoring session can exhaust it before lunch.

Max is worth it if…

Claude Code is part of your daily workflow. Anthropic's own cost data puts API-billed Claude Code at around $13 per developer per active day and $150–$250 per developer per month, with 90% of users staying under $30 a day. If you are anywhere near that, Max 5x at $100 is cheaper than the API and Max 20x at $200 removes the ceiling for most people.

Team is worth it if…

You have two or more people and want one bill, SSO, and the guarantee that your conversations are not used for training by default. Premium seats at $125 (or $100 annually) give engineers the same usage as Max so you do not need separate personal subscriptions.

The startup answer

If you are building a product on Claude, the plan comparison above is the wrong frame. What you want is API credits, and Anthropic gives them to early-stage startups. Skip to how startups get Claude free.

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Claude API pricing per model

API access is billed per million tokens (MTok) and is separate from the subscription plans. As a rough guide, one million tokens is about 750,000 English words. Prices from Anthropic's pricing docs.

Model	Input / MTok	Output / MTok	Cache read	Batch (50% off)	Best for
Claude Fable 5.1	$10	$50	$0.25	$5 / $25	Hardest reasoning and agentic tasks
Claude Opus 5	$5	$25	$0.50	$2.50 / $12.50	Complex multi-step work, architecture
Claude Opus 4.8 / 4.7 / 4.6	$5	$25	$0.50	$2.50 / $12.50	Previous Opus generations, same price
Claude Sonnet 5	$2	$10	$0.20	$1 / $5	Most production workloads
Claude Sonnet 4.6 / 4.5	$3	$15	$0.30	$1.50 / $7.50	Older Sonnet, now pricier than Sonnet 5
Claude Haiku 4.5	$1	$5	$0.10	$0.50 / $2.50	High-volume, latency-sensitive tasks

Three things that change the bill more than the headline rate:

Prompt caching. Cache reads cost 10% of the input price (2.5% on Fable 5.1). A 5-minute cache write costs 1.25x input and a 1-hour write 2x, so caching pays for itself after one or two reads.
Batch API. Anything that can wait gets 50% off input and output. It stacks with caching.
Tokenizer. Claude 4.7 and later use a tokenizer that produces roughly 30% more tokens for the same text. Sonnet 5 at $2/$10 is still cheaper than Sonnet 4.6 at $3/$15 after that, but compare on real workloads, not list price.

Sonnet 5's $2/$10 launched as introductory pricing and Anthropic has confirmed it is now the standard price. The 1M-token context window on 4.6+ models is billed at standard rates with no long-context surcharge.

What Claude Code costs on each plan

Claude Code, Anthropic's terminal coding agent, is the reason most people upgrade. It is included in Pro, Max, Team Premium seats, and Enterprise. On the Free plan it is not available.

On a subscription (Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise) your Claude Code usage draws from the plan's allowance, which resets on a rolling five-hour window and a weekly window. You never see a per-token bill. When you hit the limit you wait, or turn on usage credits to keep going at API rates.
On the API (Claude Console, Bedrock, Vertex AI, Microsoft Foundry) you pay the per-token rates above. Anthropic's enterprise data: about $13 per developer per active day, $150–$250 per developer per month.

The practical rule: one developer using Claude Code a few hours a day is cheaper on Max 5x ($100) than on the API. A team is cheaper on Team Premium seats. A product that calls Claude on behalf of users is an API workload and should be on startup credits. We break this down further in Claude Code pricing.

For founders

How startups get Claude free

Anthropic runs Claude for Startups, a self-serve program that gives early-stage companies free Claude API credits, its highest rate limits, and early access to model launches. The application is a short form on claude.com: a Claude Console account, a company email, your website, and a sentence or two on what you are building. Anthropic says it takes about two minutes.

See eligibility & how to apply Apply

The fine print

To qualify you need to be an early-stage founder or startup, founded within the last four years, and not have received Anthropic startup credits before. Startups with equity funding from institutional investors, or backed by an Anthropic partner VC or accelerator, qualify for the larger credit allocations. Partner-referred startups have reported allocations of $25,000 and up.

Two limits worth knowing before you apply. The credits apply only to the first-party Claude API through the Claude Console, not to Bedrock, Vertex AI or Foundry. And when the credits run out, standard API pricing kicks in automatically with no migration, so build your cost model on the table above from day one.

Claude for Startups

Up to $100,000

$25,000 to $100,000+ in Claude API credits (partner tier)
Priority rate limits and early access to new models
Access to Claude Code, Claude API, Managed Agents and Cowork

Step by step: applying for Claude startup credits

The whole process is faster than most cloud programs. Have these ready and the form takes minutes.

1

Create a Claude Console account on your company domain

Sign up at platform.claude.com with a work email, not Gmail. The startup application is tied to this organization and the credits land here.
2

Check the two hard requirements

Your company must have been founded within the last four years and must not have received Anthropic startup credits before. Neither is negotiable.
3

Line up your investor or accelerator, if you have one

Institutional funding or a partner VC / accelerator unlocks the higher credit tier and priority rate limits. If your investor has an Anthropic perk, ask them for the referral link first. Our Anthropic program page lists common rejection reasons.
4

Submit the form

Go to claude.com/programs/startups and click Join the program. Describe what you are building with Claude specifically. "We use AI" is the most common reason applications get a smaller allocation.
5

Plan your burn before the credits arrive

Credits expire, so route production traffic through the Console API, turn on prompt caching, and batch anything that can wait. Our Claude for Startups application guide covers how to make the credits last.

Free vs Pro vs startup credits: the math

For a two-person startup building a Claude-powered product and using Claude Code daily, here is what a year costs on each route.

Route	Year-one cost	What it covers	Where it breaks
Free plan	$0	Chat and light prototyping	No Claude Code. Usage cap hits within an hour of real work.
Pro x2	$408 (annual)	Claude Code for both founders	Product API calls are billed separately at per-token rates.
Max 20x x2	$4,800	Effectively unlimited Claude Code	Still no API credits for the product itself.
Team, 2 Premium seats	$2,400 (annual)	Claude Code plus SSO and no-training guarantee	Same gap: product usage is API billing.
Claude for Startups credits	$0 for the product API	Production API usage, priority rate limits, plus Claude Code access	Credits expire and only cover the first-party API. Pair with Pro or Max for personal Claude Code use.

The right stack for most funded startups: Claude for Startups credits for the product, one Max or Team Premium seat per engineer for Claude Code. Cloud credits from AWS Activate, Google Cloud or Microsoft for Startups can also cover Claude when you run it through Bedrock, Vertex or Foundry, which the Anthropic credits do not.

Questions founders ask

How much does Claude cost per month?

Claude Free is $0. Claude Pro is $20 a month, or $17 a month billed annually. Claude Max is $100 a month for 5x Pro usage or $200 a month for 20x. Team seats are $25 a month ($20 annually) for Standard and $125 ($100 annually) for Premium. Enterprise is $20 a seat plus usage.

Is Claude Pro worth $20?

If you use Claude daily or want Claude Code without API billing, yes. Pro costs less than two days of typical API-billed Claude Code usage. If you only chat occasionally, the Free plan now includes web search, memory and code execution and is enough.

What is the difference between Claude Pro and Max?

Max includes everything in Pro with 5x (at $100/month) or 20x (at $200/month) the usage allowance, higher output limits, early access to new features and priority during peak traffic. The extra usage is the point: Max exists for people who exhaust Pro's allowance with Claude Code.

Does Claude Pro include Claude Code?

Yes. Claude Code is included on Pro, Max, Team Premium seats and Enterprise. It is not available on the Free plan. On a subscription, Claude Code usage draws from your plan allowance rather than being billed per token.

How much does the Claude API cost?

Per million tokens: Haiku 4.5 is $1 input / $5 output, Sonnet 5 is $2 / $10, Opus 5 and Opus 4.x are $5 / $25, and Fable 5.1 is $10 / $50. Prompt caching reads cost 10% of the input price and the Batch API takes 50% off everything.

Can startups get Claude for free?

Yes. Claude for Startups gives companies founded within the last four years free Claude API credits, priority rate limits and early access, with larger allocations for VC-backed teams. Apply through the two-minute form at claude.com/programs/startups. The credits cover the first-party API only, not Bedrock or Vertex AI.

Is there a Claude student discount?

Not on individual Pro subscriptions. Anthropic sells an Education plan to institutions, and students at participating universities get Claude through their school. Our Claude student discount guide covers the routes that actually work.