Comment by charlesabarnes
5 hours ago
> Second, this week, we’ll roll out a new monthly API credit to all Max and Team subscribers for use on the Claude Platform. Max 5x users will get $100 in credits per month, Max 20x users will get $200, and Team subscribers will receive up to $500, pooled across their users
This is a very big benefit for me. I can now ship actual ai enhanced features behind my subscription without paying extra or fully relying on on-device models. I do worry that this is to soften the blow for user-unfriendly changes
This is them sneaking in taking the Claude Agent SDK (claude -p) off of subscription plans through the back door along with a model release. They previously wanted to do this in June, but backpedaled after huge backlash:
https://support.claude.com/en/articles/15036540-use-the-clau...
I hope people notice again that this is happening this time around.
Being forced through the non-OSS Claude Code with all of its quirks and issues is... such an exhausting use of force by Anthropic.
To the extent that you _can_ choose to disable telemetry and training on your traces in CC, it's not all that obvious what they gain by crippling your ability to use the subscription with other – better – tools.
It's also remarkable that it's coincident with OpenAI adding "Sign in with OpenAI", so that you can use your tokens with other tools.
Sorry that that help center article was misleading; we’ve updated it to clarify that `claude -p` has not been removed from subscriptions as part of this change!
That's super encouraging to hear, thank you for the clarification! I'd edit my original comment, but the edit window has unfortunately run out on it. Should be OK, though, since the help desk page is now explicit about it.
They changed this from earlier today... It's still very confusing.
The page does not say anything about changing the way Agent SDK bills. I just tested Agent SDK and nothing has changed (yet).
You might be right and they will change this in the future, but that's speculative
> Claude Max and Team plans now include monthly API credits, which cover the Claude Agent SDK, the Claude API, and Claude Managed Agents.
This text has replaced the entirety of the page called "Use the Claude Agent SDK with your Claude plan."
4 replies →
Those mfers. I'm using this for work! I use my work teams plan with pi so I can do all kinds of custom workflows that I can't in Claude Code. Time to convince management I need OpenAI instead.
Time to convince management (and yourself) to build some skills. :)
1 reply →
Even after the June changes there was some allowance to use agent SDK on the pro plan. This will move me to codex tomorrow if agent SDK is really blocked on pro
How credits work with `claude -p` is a common question. we're updating the faq now to make sure it's more clear
Update: We just updated the docs to clarify how API credits can be used w/ claude -p: https://support.claude.com/en/articles/15036540-use-the-clau...
Nothing is being removed as part of this!
*For now. If a company were to degrade something, it shouldn't be so obvious that the "goodwill" was just a reallocation. Just a good strategy. For example, it allows them to claim that they're "just going from 150% to 125% usage allowance, which is still more than 100%".
These are api tokens, you can build a business with them using any harness.
Yes, but they're wildly lower in value than the corresponding subscription usage.
Do we know if claude -p is now drawing from this API usage?
How credits work with `claude -p` is a common question we're seeing. we're updating the faq now to make sure it's more clear. Will share updated docs soon
Update: We just updated the docs to clarify how API credits can be used w/ claude -p: https://support.claude.com/en/articles/15036540-use-the-clau...
Not yet, as of version 2.1.293. But I suspect this is coming next.
That's what the Agent SDK is, according to this help page:
https://code.claude.com/docs/en/headless
So, as written, yes.
This is literally for you to get tangled in their api and when they stop giving you the allowance they hope you will just continue to pay
Nah, it's pretty trivial to switch providers (especially with Claude's help, ha).
This is more to encourage people to try out adding AI into their product, which is a totally different flow and experience from using AI to build the product.
Or to discourage people from using cheap subscription tokens as part of automated workflows
What does "tangled in their api" mean? Switching is pretty easy.
Not really, you have to fiddle with generating api keys and setting environment variables. Meanwhile with Anthropic it will just start charging you API prices for the tokens you are generating without even a single warning.
2 replies →
That's an old tactic for an old world. You only need, what, half an hour with your agent of choice to write you out of that?
This is massive. So on top of the regular usage, we now have USD 200,- to freely use via the API however we please, even resell? That is a statement, even knowing that inference does not cost them nearly as much as they charge, this is very developer-friendly. Does some minor de-risking for testing concepts. Terms seem to be reasonable [0].
Of course, they don't do this out of pure kindness, but I really struggle to see a negative for subscribers already using a Claude Max subscription, especially given changing to another model is essentially frictionless via OpenRouter.
Compared with "Sign in via OpenAI" which they just announced, this is far less lock-in for anyone hosting services but less interesting for users of said services. With Anthropics approach, you can just use the allowance on your users however you see fit along with any other models and once it's used up, you can still just decide not to use their models for the remainder. With users bringing their tokens meanwhile, there is less flexibility in terms of switching for you, though might be cheaper for users.
Both interesting, each approaching this from a very different direction, each having their own trade-offs. On the OpenAI front, will be interesting whether developers can set specific temp, reasoning budgets, etc. for such "provided tokens" or whether OpenAI exposes that only via the actual API.
[0] https://www.anthropic.com/legal/credit-terms
OpenAI will probably add this to their plans within a week
With OpenAI you can just use Oauth and get a token to use your subscription.
Anthropic isn't even close to being this useful.
Biggest reason for an OAI subscription instead of Ant imo.
Biggest loss is that Ant models look like they are genuinely better.
1 reply →