In 20 seconds
- Claude has a free plan. As of October 23, 2026, Anthropic's pricing page lists Sonnet and Haiku, web search, file creation, memory, connectors, voice mode, up to 5 projects and Claude Docs, Slides and Design for $0. Opus is not included.
- Claude Code isn't free: Anthropic's pricing page lists it as not included on Free, along with Research, Claude in Chrome and Dashboards. It comes with Pro ($20 a month, or $17 billed annually) and Max ($100 or $200).
- Anthropic publishes no message counts. It says Free 'covers everyday questions' on a rolling five-hour limit and that Pro gives 'at least 5x more usage per 5-hour session than Free.'
Steps
Is Claude free? Yes. As of October 23, 2026, Anthropic offers a free Claude plan that anyone can use on the web, desktop and mobile without paying. It includes the Sonnet and Haiku models, web search, memory, connectors and Anthropic's Docs, Slides and Design tools. It leaves out Anthropic's top Opus model, Claude Code and Research, and its usage is capped in ways Anthropic describes but doesn't count. The paid Pro plan costs $20 a month.
This guide is based on Anthropic's pricing page, its help center articles on the Pro and Max plans, usage limits, context windows and Claude Code, and its release notes, checked October 23, 2026. Disclosure: 9to5AI drafts stories with Claude's help (see the AI-use note), which is one more reason this guide sticks to Anthropic's own pages. For a full tour of every plan and feature, see the Claude app, explained.
The short version
- Claude is free to use. Anthropic's pricing page calls the free plan "Free for everyone."
- Free gets Sonnet and Haiku, web search, file creation and code execution, memory, connectors, artifacts, voice mode, up to 5 projects, and Claude Docs, Slides and Design.
- Free doesn't get Opus, Claude Code, Research, Claude in Chrome, Dashboards, Claude for Microsoft 365, Claude Science or usage credits.
- Limits: a rolling five-hour limit. Anthropic says Free "covers everyday questions" and that Pro gives "at least 5x" Free's usage per session.
- Pro costs $20 a month, or $17 a month billed annually ($200 up front). Max costs $100 or $200 a month.
Is Claude AI free to use?
Yes. You can sign up at claude.ai or in the Claude apps and use Claude without a subscription. Anthropic's pricing page lists the free plan at $0 and describes it as "Free for everyone." The pricing page describes it as a plan, not a trial, and gives it no time limit.
What you give up is mainly model choice, a few tools and headroom. The table below shows the line Anthropic draws between Free and Pro.
| Feature | Free | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Models | Sonnet and Haiku | Opus, Sonnet and Haiku; Fable through usage credits |
| Chat on web, desktop and mobile | Yes | Yes |
| Web search, file creation and code execution | Yes | Yes |
| Memory across conversations | Yes | Yes |
| Connectors | Yes | Yes |
| Artifacts; Claude Docs, Slides and Design | Yes | Yes |
| Voice mode | Yes | Yes |
| Projects | Up to 5 | Unlimited |
| Context window | "Up to 1M, varies by model" | "Up to 1M, varies by model" |
| Usage | "Free covers everyday questions" | "At least 5x more usage per 5-hour session than Free," plus a weekly limit |
| Research | No | Yes |
| Claude Code | No | Yes |
| Claude in Chrome | No | Yes |
| Claude Dashboards (beta) | No | Yes |
| Claude for Microsoft 365 | No | Yes |
| Claude Science | No | Yes |
| Usage credits (pay to keep going) | No | Yes |
Table 1Free covers everyday chat and Anthropic's document tools; Opus, Claude Code and Research start at Pro. Source: claude.com/pricing, including its plan comparison table.
Last verified: October 23, 2026 (US prices before tax; data in P33-claude-free-vs-paid.csv)
Anthropic's pricing page doesn't say which versions of Sonnet and Haiku Free users get. As of October 23, 2026, its newest versions are Sonnet 5.5 (released September 28, 2026) and Haiku 5.5 (October 7). The context-window line comes from the pricing page's comparison table; Anthropic's help article on context windows covers only paid plans, where it lists 1M tokens in chat for Sonnet 5.5 and Haiku 5.5.
Are Claude Docs, Slides and Design free?
Yes. The pricing page lists "Claude Design, Slides, and Docs" among the free plan's features. Anthropic took all three out of beta and opened them to every plan, Free included, on October 8, 2026, as our story on that launch reports. Claude Dashboards, which launched in beta the same day, is not on Free.
What are Claude's free plan limits?
Anthropic doesn't publish a number of messages for any plan. What it says:
- Free: "Free covers everyday questions." Limits reset on a rolling five-hour window, per the pricing page.
- Pro: "at least 5x more usage per 5-hour session than Free," plus a weekly limit across all models. The Pro help article says weekly limits reset at a fixed time assigned to your account.
- Max: 5x or 20x Pro's usage per five-hour session, plus a weekly limit.
How fast you use up an allowance depends on what you do. Anthropic's usage best-practices article lists conversation length, file attachment size, tools such as web search and Research, and multi-step tasks like running code or creating files among the factors. Project content is cached and counts less when reused. When you hit a limit, the help center says you can "wait for it to reset or upgrade your plan." Free users can't buy usage credits to keep going; Pro and Max users can. Our Claude app explainer covers how the session and weekly limits interact.
Is Claude Code free?
No. Anthropic's pricing page lists Claude Code as not included on the free plan, its FAQ says Claude Code "is included in all paid plans," and its help article on Claude Code with a subscription covers only Pro and Max. There are two other routes:
- Pay as you go with an API key. Claude Code can sign in with an API key from the Claude Console or a cloud provider, billed at standard API rates. That isn't free either.
- Claude for Open Source. Anthropic offers "6 months of free Claude Max 20x" to open-source maintainers and contributors who meet its criteria, such as maintaining packages with 500 or more dependent repositories or having 100 or more merged pull requests in others' repositories in the past 12 months. After six months, accounts return to the free plan unless they had a paid plan before.
On Pro and Max, Anthropic's help center says limits "are shared across Claude and Claude Code," so heavy coding uses up the same allowance as conversations.
How much does Claude Pro cost, and what about Max?
- Pro: $20 a month billed monthly, or $17 a month on an annual plan billed $200 up front. Paying annually costs $40 less a year than 12 monthly payments of $20 (a 9to5AI calculation). Anthropic says Pro is priced "in your local currency where supported," that monthly prices vary by region, and that you should check claude.ai/upgrade or your app store for your price.
- Max: $100 a month for 5x Pro's usage or $200 for 20x, billed monthly only. Max adds higher output limits, priority access at busy times, Fable models within up to 50% of weekly limits, and $100 to $200 a month in API credits for the Claude Platform. Anthropic notes mobile prices may differ.
- Team and Enterprise: Team Standard seats cost $25 a month ($20 billed annually), Premium seats $125 ($100). Enterprise costs $20 a seat a month billed annually, with a 20-seat minimum, plus usage at API rates.
Last verified: October 23, 2026
Students: Anthropic's pricing page lists an Education plan for universities, covering students, faculty and staff at "discounted rates," but it's sold to institutions and has no published price. The pages read for this guide list no individual student discount.
Is Claude Pro worth it?
That depends on what you need Claude for. Anthropic's own pages suggest these dividing lines:
| If you… | Free is enough | Pro adds |
|---|---|---|
| Ask everyday questions, draft emails or summarize short documents | Yes, if you rarely hit the five-hour limit | More room per session |
| Hit the usage limit most days | — | "At least 5x" Free's usage per session, plus usage credits to keep going |
| Want Opus, the model line above Sonnet | — | Opus (Opus 5.5 since September 22, 2026) |
| Want to code with an agent in your terminal or IDE | — | Claude Code |
| Want long, multi-step research reports | — | Research |
| Need more than 5 projects | — | Unlimited projects |
| Want Claude to work in your Chrome browser or on live data dashboards | — | Claude in Chrome and Dashboards (beta) |
| Want to try Claude Duet, Anthropic's proactive agent | — | Duet's waitlist is open to US Pro and Max subscribers |
| Make documents, slides and designs | Yes: Docs, Slides and Design are on Free | Higher limits |
Table 2Pro is mainly about Opus, Claude Code, Research and more headroom; document tools are already free. Source: Anthropic's pricing page and help center; Duet from our Claude Duet explainer.
If Claude is one of several assistants you use, compare what each company's free and $20 plans include before paying. Our Claude vs ChatGPT vs Gemini comparison lines up all three, including which free plans show ads.
What's confirmed and what may change
- Confirmed (Anthropic, October 23, 2026): the free plan's price and features, what it excludes, the Pro and Max prices and billing rules, Claude Code's absence from Free, and the Claude for Open Source offer.
- Not published: message counts for any plan; which Sonnet and Haiku versions Free uses; a Free-specific context figure beyond "up to 1M, varies by model."
- May change: Anthropic says prices and plans are "subject to change at Anthropic's discretion," and that it may apply other limits. Local and mobile prices vary.
About this story
Based on the sources linked below. How we report: Editorial standards.
Sources · 11
Versions covered. Claude Free, Pro and Max plans, per claude.com/pricing and the Claude Help Center as of Oct 23, 2026
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