Is Claude Free? Free Plan, Claude Code, and API
October 27, 2026
Yes, Claude is free to use. Anthropic offers a Free plan that works on the web, the desktop app and the iOS and Android apps, with no card required. It covers everyday chat, web search, file uploads, code execution and a few of Anthropic's newer tools. What it doesn't cover is just as clear: Claude Code is not included on the Free plan, and the Claude API is billed separately no matter which plan you're on.
Here's the short version, checked against Anthropic's pricing page on October 27, 2026:
- Claude (the chat app): free, with usage limits that reset every five hours.
- Claude Code: free to install, but it needs a paid plan or a pay-as-you-go API account to run.
- Claude API: never part of a chat plan. You pay per token through the Console.
- Paid plans: Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise add more usage, more models and more tools.
The rest of this post goes surface by surface, so you can see exactly where "free" stops.
What the Free Claude plan includes
The Free plan is a real working account, not a demo. Anthropic's pricing table marks these as included on Free:
| Free plan feature | What it gets you |
|---|---|
| Chat on web, iOS, Android and Desktop | One account, synced across every app |
| Web search | Claude can look things up mid-conversation |
| Create and edit files with code execution | Claude runs code to analyse uploads and build spreadsheets, documents and charts |
| Artifacts, memory, skills and connectors | Interactive outputs, context that carries across chats, reusable instructions, links to your other apps |
| Claude Design, Slides and Docs | Included, drawing on the same usage limits |
| Desktop extensions, voice mode, incognito chats | All included |
| Projects | Up to 5 |
On models, Free gets Sonnet and Haiku. Opus is marked for Pro and above.
So if your question is "is Claude AI free for normal questions, writing help and file analysis," the answer is a plain yes.
How the free usage limit works
Anthropic doesn't publish a fixed message count for Free. Its getting-started guide says the Free plan has "a session-based usage limit that will reset every five hours," and that the number of messages you can send varies with demand.
What uses that allowance up faster: long conversations, big file uploads, tool use and heavier models. Anthropic lists these factors in its usage limit best practices. Starting a fresh chat for a new task, rather than continuing a 60-message thread, is the simplest way to stretch it.
What the Free plan leaves out
The pricing table marks these No on Free and Yes from Pro up:
- Claude Code
- Research
- Claude in Chrome
- Claude for Microsoft 365 and Claude for Microsoft Outlook
- Claude Science and Claude Dashboards (beta)
- Opus models
- Usage credits, which let paid users keep working after a limit at standard API rates
None of these are trials or teasers on Free. They're simply off.
Is Claude Code free?
The software is free to install. Using it is not free on the Free plan.
Anthropic's Claude Code setup docs are direct: "Claude Code requires a Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise, or Console account. The free claude.ai plan does not include Claude Code access." The pricing page's FAQ says the same thing from the other side: Claude Code "is included in all paid plans."
That leaves you three ways to run it:
| How you sign in | How you pay | Good fit for |
|---|---|---|
| Pro or Max subscription | Flat monthly fee; Claude Code shares your plan's usage limits | Most individuals |
| Team or Enterprise seat | Your organisation pays per seat | Work accounts |
| Console (API) account | Pay-as-you-go per token | Occasional use, or heavy use past plan limits |
On a subscription, Anthropic's guide to using Claude Code with Pro or Max notes that the limits "are shared across Claude and Claude Code." A long coding session and your chat history draw from one pool.
One trap catches a lot of people. If the ANTHROPIC_API_KEY environment variable is set on your machine, Claude Code can use that key instead of your subscription, and the work gets billed to your API account. If you meant to use your plan, unset the variable and sign in again.
The same rule holds in the desktop app. Its Code tab is Claude Code, so it asks a free account to upgrade. We covered the app-specific details in Is Claude Desktop free?.
Is the Claude API free?
No. The API is a separate product with separate billing, and it's the part of "is Claude free" that confuses people most.
Anthropic's help article on why API usage is billed separately puts it in one line: "A paid Claude subscription enhances your chat experience, and the Claude API is billed separately." You get API keys from the Claude Console, prepay for usage, and pay per million input and output tokens at the rates on the API pricing page. The rate depends on the model.
There's one newer overlap worth knowing. Anthropic's pricing page lists monthly API credits on Max ($100/month on Max 5x, $200/month on Max 20x) and pooled API credits on Team. Pro and Free don't include any. If you're hunting for genuinely free API access, our guide on getting Claude free API access goes through the realistic options.
How much does Claude cost?
If Free isn't enough, here's what Anthropic's pricing page listed on October 27, 2026 for individual plans. Prices exclude tax, and Anthropic's Pro plan article notes that its prices are US prices and vary by region.
| Plan | Price | Billing | Usage vs. the plan below |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | n/a | Baseline |
| Pro | $20 per month billed monthly, or $17 per month on an annual subscription ($200 billed up front) | Monthly or annual | At least 5x Free per 5-hour session |
| Max | From $100 per month (Max 5x at $100, Max 20x at $200) | Monthly only | 5x or 20x Pro |
A few details matter more than the headline numbers:
- Annual billing is a Pro thing. Pro and Team offer it. Max is monthly only, per Anthropic's Max plan article.
- Paid plans add weekly limits on top of the five-hour window. "Max" doesn't mean unlimited.
- Mobile prices can differ. The Max article says its prices are for web subscriptions only.
- Team and Enterprise are priced per seat, with separate seat types, minimums and API-rate usage on Enterprise. They're on the same pricing page under Team & Enterprise.
Anthropic changes plans and prices "at Anthropic's discretion," so treat the pricing page as the source of truth if you're reading this later.
Which Claude option fits what you're doing
| What you want to do | Cheapest option that works |
|---|---|
| Ask questions, draft writing, summarise documents | Free |
| Analyse a spreadsheet or build a chart from a CSV | Free, with code execution on (see can Claude read Excel files) |
| Use Claude Code in a terminal, IDE or the desktop app's Code tab | Pro, or a Console account if you only code now and then |
| Use Opus or Research | Pro |
| Hit limits most days | Max |
| Build an app or script that calls Claude | API, billed per token |
If you're on the fence between Free and Pro, the deciding question is usually Claude Code, not message counts. We work through that in Is Claude Pro worth it?.
Getting more out of free Claude
Free is enough for a lot of real work if you use it deliberately:
- Keep conversations short and focused. Anthropic lists conversation length as one of the things that affects usage, so a fresh chat per task goes further than one endless thread.
- Use Projects for repeat context. Five Projects is enough for your main recurring tasks, so you don't paste the same background every time.
- Batch related questions. Asking three connected questions in one message saves you three rounds of back-and-forth.
- Check Settings > Usage. Anthropic's pricing FAQ says you can see where you stand there at any time.
Where Taku fits
A free Claude account answers questions well. Where people tend to stall is the next step: turning a prompt, skill or Claude Code setup someone shared into something that runs on their own machine. Taku is an AI-native desktop workspace built for that gap. You can mirror a working AI setup and run it without rebuilding the environment first. Taku is in Beta, and the Mac app is available now.
FAQ
Is Claude AI free?
Yes. Claude has a Free plan on web, desktop, iOS and Android. It includes chat, web search, file uploads, code execution, memory, connectors and up to five Projects, with a usage limit that resets every five hours.
Is Claude Code free?
The install is free, but the Free plan doesn't include Claude Code access. You need Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise, or a pay-as-you-go Console account. It also works through Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud and Microsoft Foundry if your organisation uses them.
How much is Claude Pro?
On October 27, 2026, Anthropic listed Pro at $20 per month billed monthly, or $17 per month with an annual subscription billed up front at $200, before tax. Check claude.com/pricing for your region.
Is the Claude desktop app free?
Yes, the app is free to download and the Free plan works in it. Features like the Code tab need a paid plan.
Does a Claude subscription include the API?
Not on Free or Pro. API usage is billed separately through the Console. Max and Team now include a monthly allowance of API credits, per Anthropic's pricing page.
What happens when I hit the free limit?
You wait for the five-hour window to reset, or upgrade. Usage credits, which let you keep going at API rates, are only available on paid plans.