Claude Code Subscription: Pro, Max, Ultra or API Key?

If you are looking for a Claude Code subscription, the short answer is that Anthropic does not sell one. Claude Code, the terminal coding agent, is included in the paid Claude plans you would buy for chat, and it can also run on a pay-as-you-go API key. Which option is cheaper depends on how many hours a day you let it work. This guide compares every way to pay for Claude Code, with the prices and limits Anthropic lists as of 4 November 2026.

Which Claude plans include Claude Code?

Anthropic’s pricing page says it plainly: Claude Code is included in all paid plans. The difference between plans is how much you can use it before you hit a limit.

Prices exclude tax and can differ when you subscribe through the iOS or Android app. Only Pro and Team can be billed yearly; Max and Ultra are monthly only. Source: claude.com/pricing.

Max and Ultra: the new names for Max 5x and Max 20x

At the end of October 2026 Anthropic renamed its two top plans. Max 5x is now simply Max, and Max 20x is now Ultra. Existing subscribers moved over automatically at the same price, according to Anthropic’s Ultra plan help article. Many guides still use the old names, and some still describe the $200 plan as “20x Pro”. Today Anthropic describes Ultra as 10x the weekly usage of Pro, with no five-hour session limit once your account is verified.

Team and Enterprise

Team is for groups of 2 to 150 people, and Claude Code is included with every Team seat. Premium seats suit developers who use Claude Code heavily. Enterprise pairs a low seat fee with usage billed at API rates, so a company pays for what its developers actually use.

Is Claude Code still included in Claude Pro?

Yes. In April 2026 some new visitors saw a pricing page that listed Claude Code as unavailable on Pro, and the story spread as “Claude Code removed from Pro”. Anthropic’s head of growth called it a small test on about 2% of new sign-ups that did not affect existing subscribers, and the pricing page and docs were changed back within days. Today the pricing table shows Claude Code on Pro, and Anthropic’s FAQ states that it is included in all paid plans.

The real question is whether Pro is enough. For a few focused sessions a week it usually is. If you let Claude Code read large repositories or run long agent tasks every day, you will meet the five-hour limit often, and that is when Max or an API key starts to make sense.

How Claude Code usage limits work

Anthropic does not publish a fixed number of prompts per plan. Instead, it measures usage in two windows, explained in its usage limits article:

• Five-hour sessions. A session starts with your first message and the allowance resets in full five hours later.
• Weekly limits. A second cap covers all models and resets at a fixed time each week.
• One shared pool. Claude Code, the Claude website, the desktop app and the mobile apps all draw from the same allowance. A long chat in the browser leaves less for coding.

Bigger tasks use more of the allowance: reading whole folders, long conversations and the most capable models all cost more per message than a short question.

Which models Claude Code uses on each plan

On Pro, Max, Ultra, Team and Enterprise, Claude Code now defaults to Opus 5.5, according to the model configuration docs. You can switch to Sonnet 5.5 or Haiku 5.5 for lighter work. Fable 5.1, Anthropic’s most capable model, is treated differently: on Pro and Team Standard seats it is paid from usage credits only, while Max, Ultra and Team Premium include it for up to half of the weekly limit. Fast mode for Opus 5.5 is always paid from usage credits.

What happens when you reach the limit

When you hit a limit, Claude Code can finish the response it is working on and then stops. From there you have four options:

1. Wait for the five-hour or weekly reset.
2. Turn on usage credits: prepaid credit billed at standard API rates, with a monthly spending cap you set.
3. Upgrade, from Pro to Max or from Max to Ultra.
4. Sign in with a Claude Console account or an API key and pay per token.

Running Claude Code on an API key

Claude Code does not need a subscription at all. Sign in with a Claude Console account or set an API key, and every request is billed per token at Anthropic’s API prices:

Claude Code reuses a lot of context between turns, so cache reads keep the bill lower than these list prices suggest. Anthropic’s cost guide reports an average of around $13 per developer per active day and $150 to $250 per developer per month across enterprise teams, with 90% of users staying below $30 per active day.

Claude Code subscription or API key: which costs less?

Compare Anthropic’s average API spend with the plan prices and a pattern appears. A developer who uses Claude Code most working days would spend $150 to $250 a month on the API, which is more than Max and close to Ultra. A developer who opens it twice a week would spend far less than $100.

• A few sessions a week, mostly chat: Pro at $20, or $17 billed yearly.
• Daily coding, several hours a day: Max at $100, which gives 5x the Pro allowance.
• Agents running most of the day, or several projects at once: Ultra at $200.
• Bursty work, scripts and CI, or no card for a monthly plan: an API key, where you only pay for the tokens you use.
• A company team: Team Premium seats for heavy users and Standard seats for everyone else.

Comparing other coding assistants as well? Our guide to ChatGPT pricing covers the plans that include OpenAI’s Codex, and our list of ChatGPT alternatives compares Claude with the other main assistants.

Paying for Claude Code without a credit card

Anthropic bills its plans and API credits to a card. If you cannot use one, or you only need Claude Code for a short project, AITopUp sells a Claude API key as a prepaid token pack paid in USDT or other crypto. At the time of writing, packs start at $2.99 for 10M tokens valid for one day and go up to 1B tokens valid for 30 days.

Be clear about what it is: the key works through a third-party gateway that is compatible with the Anthropic API format. It is not a key issued by Anthropic. One key can call Fable 5.1, Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5 and Haiku 5.5, and you point Claude Code at it with a custom base URL from the setup instructions. Tokens are counted for both input and output, unused tokens expire with the pack, and the key comes with a one-day warranty. Because requests pass through the gateway, check your company’s rules before using it on private code.

For OpenAI’s coding models there is the same option as a Codex API key, and if you prefer an editor to a terminal, Cursor plans are available too.

How to set up Claude Code

Claude Code runs on macOS 13 or later, Windows 10 (1809) or later, and most current Linux distributions, with at least 4 GB of RAM. The setup guide recommends the native installer, which updates itself:

# macOS, Linux or WSL
curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

# Windows PowerShell
irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex

You can also install it with Homebrew (brew install --cask claude-code) or with npm (npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code, which needs Node.js 22 or later).

1. With a subscription: run claude in your project folder and sign in with your Claude Pro, Max, Ultra, Team or Enterprise account in the browser.
2. With an Anthropic API key: sign in with your Claude Console account when Claude Code asks, or set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY.
3. With a gateway key: set the base URL and key from your setup instructions as environment variables, then run claude.
4. For CI: claude setup-token creates a long-lived token that bills your subscription instead of the API.

Which Claude Code plan should you choose?

Start with Pro if you are trying Claude Code for the first time: it costs $20 a month, runs Opus 5.5 by default and shows you quickly how fast you use the allowance. Move to Max when you hit the five-hour limit every day, and to Ultra only when Max runs out before the week ends. If your use is irregular, or you would rather not commit to a monthly plan, an API key keeps the cost tied to the work you actually do.