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Claude API credits are a monthly balance that Anthropic adds to a Claude Console organization for subscribers on its Max, Ultra, and Team plans. Anthropic’s Oct. 7, 2026 release notes announced the benefit, and two Anthropic pages describe it: a Help Center article and a developer documentation page. Claude API credits cover calls made with an API key, not Claude Code or extra usage in the Claude apps. This guide lays out the amounts, the claim steps, what the credits pay for, how they expire, and where Anthropic’s two pages differ.
How much Claude API credit each plan gets
The credit depends on the plan and, for Team, on the seat type. Anthropic’s pages give the following monthly amounts.
| Plan | Monthly Claude API credits |
|---|---|
| Max (5x) | $100 |
| Max (20x), called Ultra on the developer page | $200 |
| Team, Standard seat | $20 per seat |
| Team, Premium seat | $100 per seat |
| Discounted Team plans (Nonprofit, Scientists) | Same as Team |
| Free, Pro, and Enterprise | Not eligible |
Team credits are pooled into a single monthly balance that is capped at $500. Anthropic’s example is a team of three Standard seats and two Premium seats, which receives $260 a month. Adding one Premium seat raises the next month’s Claude API credits to $360. The pool is based on the seats on the plan at the start of each billing month, so a seat added mid-month counts from the following month.
Who can claim Claude API credits
The plan has to be active and in good standing. A new subscriber must wait seven days on an eligible plan before claiming. Plans bought through the Claude app for iOS or Android qualify, but the claim itself is made on claude.ai in a web browser. No payment card is needed on the Claude Platform to claim or use the credits.
| Task | Role required |
|---|---|
| Claim on a Max or Ultra plan | The subscriber on the plan |
| Claim on a Team plan | Primary Owner or Owner |
| Receive credits in a Console organization | Owner, Admin, or Billing role in that organization |
How to claim Claude API credits
Anthropic’s Help Center article lists these steps. The developer page words step two a little differently, and the next section covers that.
- On claude.ai, open Settings and then Billing for a Max or Ultra plan. For a Team plan, open Organization settings and then Billing.
- In the API credits section, select Link organization.
- Choose the Console organization that should receive the credits, or create a new one.
- Review the Supplemental Credit Terms and select Link organization again.
- Open the Billing page in the Claude Console at platform.claude.com/settings/billing and look for the Promotional credits section, which shows each credit amount and its expiry date.
- Create an API key in that organization and send a first request.
Two linking rules apply. Each plan links to one Console organization, and each organization can receive credits from only one plan. A subscriber cannot change the linked organization alone, because Anthropic says that change goes through support. Anthropic also advises signing in to the Console with the same email address used on claude.ai, and waiting a few hours before retrying if an error appears.
What Claude API credits pay for
Claude API credits apply to usage billed through the Claude API and a few related tools. They do not cover Claude Code in its interactive forms, and they do not pay for extra usage inside the Claude apps.
| Product | Covered by Claude API credits |
|---|---|
| Claude API (Messages API and Message Batches API) | Yes |
| Playground in the Claude Console | Yes |
| Claude Managed Agents | Yes |
Claude Agent SDK, including claude -p run with an API key from the linked organization |
Yes |
| Interactive Claude Code in a terminal, IDE, desktop app, or browser | No |
| Claude Code runs started by the GitHub Action, an IDE extension, or the Claude desktop app | No |
| Extra usage in Claude, Claude Code, or Claude Cowork | No |
| Claude on Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud Vertex AI, or Microsoft Foundry | No |
The developer page adds that Claude API credits do not change a plan’s usage limits in Claude or Claude Code. A Max subscriber who burns through the Claude API credits has not used any of the plan’s own allowance, and the reverse is also true. Anthropic says a claude -p or Agent SDK run that is signed in with a Claude plan uses plan limits and not the credits.
How Claude API credits renew, expire, and get spent
| Item | What Anthropic says |
|---|---|
| Timing | Credits arrive each billing cycle, shortly after the plan payment clears; annual plans receive them monthly |
| Rollover | None. Unused credits expire at the end of each billing cycle |
| Spending order | Included credits are spent first, then any purchased credits |
| Auto-reload | Draws only on the purchased balance, and triggers at the set threshold even when included credits remain |
| Sharing | Every API key and workspace in the linked organization draws from one balance |
| Capping one project | Give the project its own workspace and set a spend limit on it |
Credit-paid usage counts toward the organization’s monthly spend cap, which resets on the first of each calendar month. Claude API credits refresh on the billing cycle instead, so the two dates rarely match. Anthropic’s rate-limit rules also say an organization linked to an eligible plan moves up to at least the Start tier, and to at least the Build tier when the monthly credits exceed $200. The credits do not count toward a later tier upgrade.
What happens when the Claude API credits run out
If purchased credits exist, or auto-reload is on, requests continue on that balance. With nothing else available, API requests stop until the next monthly grant, and the usage is never charged to the Claude plan. The API then returns an error that begins “Your credit balance is too low to access the Anthropic API.” To keep going before the next cycle, an owner can buy credits or turn on auto-reload on the Billing page. Organizations invoiced through Anthropic sales are billed normally for anything beyond the credits.
What happens to Claude API credits when a plan changes
| Change | Result |
|---|---|
| Cancel, downgrade to an ineligible plan, or refund | New credits stop; existing credits stay usable until they expire |
| Max 5x to Max 20x (Ultra) | Prorated credits arrive right away, then $200 each cycle |
| Max or Ultra to Team | The personal link ends; a Team Owner can claim after the Team plan has been active for seven days |
| Add Team seats | Counted from the next billing month, within the $500 cap |
| Remove Team seats | The seats stay until renewal |
Where Anthropic’s two pages differ
The Help Center article and the developer page agree on the dollar amounts, but they differ in small ways. The Help Center article lists Max 5x and Max 20x as separate tiers, while the developer page lists Max and Ultra and does not distinguish the two Max sizes. The Help Center steps tell a user to select Link organization and then choose the Console organization. The developer page says to select the organization and accept the terms by linking, with no button name. The Help Center also lists the excluded Claude Code paths in more detail, including runs started by the GitHub Action and the desktop app.
Neither page states which countries qualify, and the developer page points readers to Anthropic’s supported-countries page for that. A subscriber who is eligible but sees no API credits section is told to contact support, and Anthropic says the rollout takes several days.
Jolt Journal’s checklist after claiming
These steps are the Jolt Journal’s own suggestions, built from the facts above, and Anthropic does not list them in this form.
- Note the expiry date in the Promotional credits section, since unused Claude API credits do not roll over.
- Create a separate workspace for each project and set a spend limit, because every key in the organization shares one balance. Anthropic documents workspace spend limits on its developer site.
- Route non-urgent jobs through the Message Batches API, which Anthropic says costs 50% less, and review the Cost page to see where the credits went.
- Keep coding sessions on the plan itself, since Claude API credits cannot pay for interactive Claude Code.
Readers comparing what each AI subscription includes can also see the Jolt Journal’s report on Google AI Plus losing Gemini Pro, and the guide to Grok in Google Workspace covers another assistant that reaches into work apps.
Editor’s take
Claude API credits turn a subscription into a small developer budget, and the useful detail is the separation. The credits pay for API calls and agents built with the SDK, while the plan’s own limits keep governing the Claude apps and Claude Code. A Team owner who plans to share the pool should set workspace limits before handing out keys, and any subscriber should claim within the first billing cycle, because the balance expires each month.
This is general information based on Anthropic’s published pages. Amounts, eligibility, and steps can change, and Anthropic’s own pages have the final word.
