Claude Max and Team API credits: how the free $100–$500 a month works

Since October 7, 2026, Claude Max and Team subscriptions come with monthly API credits for building on Anthropic's developer platform. Max 5x subscribers get $100 a month, Max 20x subscribers get $200, and Team plans get up to $500 a month, pooled. The credits are separate from your chat and Claude Code usage limits, they don't cover interactive Claude Code, and they expire every billing cycle.

This story is based on Anthropic's API documentation, its Help Center article on the credits, claude.com/pricing and the October 7 release notes, checked October 12, 2026.

The short version

• Who gets them: Max 5x, Max 20x and Team (including discounted Nonprofit and Scientists Team plans). Free, Pro and Enterprise don't.
• How much: $100 (Max 5x), $200 (Max 20x), or $20 per Standard seat and $100 per Premium seat on Team, pooled and capped at $500.
• How to claim: link one Claude Console organization from claude.ai billing settings. New subscribers wait seven days.
• What they cover: Claude API, Message Batches, Claude Managed Agents, the Claude Agent SDK and the Console Playground.
• What they don't: interactive Claude Code, extra usage in the Claude apps, and Claude on Bedrock, Google Cloud or Microsoft Foundry.
• Expiry: at the end of each billing cycle. No rollover.

How much do you get?

Last verified: October 12, 2026 (Anthropic's credits documentation and claude.com/pricing)

Anthropic gives a worked example: a team with three Standard seats and two Premium seats receives $260 a month. Adding a Premium seat raises the next month's credit to $360. The pool is recalculated from the seat count at each deposit.

How do I claim the credits?

According to Anthropic's Help Center article:

1. On claude.ai in a browser, go to Settings › Billing (Max) or Organization settings › Billing (Team). If you subscribed through the iOS or Android app, you still claim on the web.
2. In the API credits section, select Link organization.
3. Choose an existing Claude Console organization or create one. Sign in to the Console with the same email you use on claude.ai.
4. Review the Supplemental Credit Terms and confirm.
5. Check the balance in the Console under Settings › Billing, where the credit appears as promotional credit with its expiry date.

You need to be the Max subscriber or a Team Owner or Primary Owner, plus Owner, Admin or Billing in the Console organization. No card is needed. Anthropic said the rollout would take "a few days," and new subscribers can claim after seven days.

Each plan links to one Console organization, and each organization can receive credits from only one plan. You can't change the link yourself; you have to contact support.

What can you use the credits on?

The credits work on "any available Claude model" on Anthropic's own platform. That includes Claude Haiku 5.5, which launched the same day and costs $0.10 per million input tokens for prompts up to 100,000 tokens (see our Haiku 5.5 story).

Last verified: October 12, 2026

Can I use the API credits with Claude Code?

Mostly no, with one narrow exception, and Anthropic's two pages word it differently.

The developer documentation simply lists Claude Code as "No." It adds that if an organization holds only these credits and sends a request they don't cover, "such as a Claude Code session," Claude Code shows: Credit balance too low · Add funds.

The Help Center FAQ is more specific. It says the credits cover "claude -p and the Claude Agent SDK when you run them yourself with an API key" from the linked Console organization. When you're signed in with your Claude plan instead, claude -p and Agent SDK runs draw on your plan's usage limits. Runs started by the Claude Code GitHub Action, an IDE extension or the Claude desktop app count as Claude Code usage, so the credits don't cover them.

In practice: the credits are for your own apps, scripts and agents. If you're building one, our guide to building your first agent with the Claude Agent SDK is a good place to spend them. They don't top up your Claude Code allowance.

When do the credits expire?

• Monthly. "Unused credits expire at the end of each billing cycle (or monthly for annual plans) and don't roll over."
• Spending order. Included credits are spent first, then any credits you've bought. Auto-reload looks only at your purchased balance.
• When they run out. If the organization has purchased credits or auto-reload, usage continues on those. If not, API requests stop until the next deposit. Usage is never charged to your Claude plan.
• Shared balance. Every API key and workspace in the linked organization draws from the same balance. To cap a project, give it its own workspace with a spend limit.
• Plan changes. Cancel or downgrade and new credits stop; existing ones last until they expire.

Linking also bumps your API rate-limit tier. The documentation says linked organizations "move up to at least the Start tier," or at least the Build tier if their monthly credits exceed $200. The credits themselves don't count toward reaching higher tiers.

Also on October 7: Sonnet 5.5 cache reads halved

The same release notes cut the price of prompt-cache reads on Claude Sonnet 5.5 from $0.20 to $0.10 per million tokens, or 0.05 times the base input price instead of 0.1 times. Cache writes and all other Sonnet 5.5 prices are unchanged ($2 input, $10 output). Anthropic's Haiku 5.5 launch page says the change cuts Sonnet 5.5 costs by "around 20%" on most agentic tasks, which is Anthropic's own estimate. Sonnet 5.5's own September 28 launch page still shows the old $0.20 rate; the pricing page shows $0.10. For why cache pricing matters so much to agent bills, see token pricing isn't the story.

Why it matters

For developers, the credits make Max or Team more than a chat plan. But they only work on Anthropic's own platform, vanish each cycle and don't stretch your Claude Code usage. For how plan limits work, see our Claude app explainer; for model prices, see which Claude model you should use. Startups have a separate offer: Anthropic's startup program.

What's confirmed, reported and uncertain

• Confirmed (Anthropic): amounts, eligibility, claim steps, covered products, expiry, rate-tier change and the Sonnet 5.5 cache-read cut.
• Inconsistent wording: the developer docs list Claude Code as not covered, while the Help Center says claude -p with a linked-org API key is covered. Anthropic hasn't reconciled the two pages.
• Uncertain: whether the credits are a permanent plan feature or a promotion. Anthropic's pages don't set an end date.