Claude Max API Credits: $100 (5x), $200 (20x), and How to Claim
Claude Max and Team plans now come with a monthly allowance of Claude Platform API credits: $100 per month for Max 5x, $200 per month for Max 20x, and per-seat amounts for Team. Anthropic announced this in its Support Center release notes on October 7, 2026. You have to link a Console organization by hand to claim the credits, and they only work for the API and Agent SDK-style use. They do not offset interactive Claude Code usage. Everything below is current as of October 2026; the official help article is the final word.
If you pay for Claude Max mainly to write code, these credits will not give you more Claude Code allowance. Their purpose is to let you run your own apps and agents without adding a separate payment card.
What exactly was announced?
The October 7 release notes say that Max and Team plans now include monthly API credits for running your own apps and agents on Claude Platform. The rollout is staggered over several days, so the option may show up in different accounts at different times. The detailed rules are in help article 17154008.
Credits by plan:
| Plan | Monthly API credits |
|---|---|
| Max 5x | $100 |
| Max 20x | $200 |
| Team Standard seat | $20 per seat |
| Team Premium seat | $100 per seat |
Team credits are combined into one pool, capped at $500 per month, and everyone holding an API key in the same Console organization draws from that balance. Free, Pro and Enterprise plans are not covered.
To compare Max 5x and 20x for Claude Code, see this comparison.
Who can claim, and what are the conditions?
- Your subscription must be active and in good standing.
- You must have been on an eligible plan for at least 7 days.
- No payment method needs to be attached on Claude Platform.
- If you subscribed through the mobile app, open claude.ai in a browser to claim.
How credits carry over when you change plans (upgrade or downgrade) mid-cycle is something to check in the official help article.
How do you claim them?
Following the official steps:
- Max users: open Settings > Billing on claude.ai. For Team, an Owner or Primary Owner opens Organization settings > Billing.
- In the API credits section, choose Link organization.
- Pick an existing Console organization, or create a new one.
- Read the Supplemental Credit Terms and confirm the link.
A few things that trip people up:
- You need the Owner, Admin or Billing role in the target Console organization.
- You can link only one organization, and an organization can receive credits from only one plan. After linking, you cannot switch it yourself; you have to contact support.
- If the option has not appeared yet, it is most likely still rolling out. Check again in a day or two.
Where can the credits be used, and where not?
| Use case | Eligible? |
|---|---|
| Messages API, Message Batches API | Yes |
| Console Playground | Yes |
| Claude Managed Agents | Yes |
| Claude Agent SDK | Yes |
| Interactive Claude Code (terminal, IDE, desktop, web) | No |
| Extra usage in Claude, Claude Code and Cowork | No |
| Claude on Amazon Bedrock, Google Vertex AI, Microsoft Foundry | No |
One detail worth noting: claude -p and the Agent SDK draw down these credits only when they use an API key from the linked Console organization. If you sign in with your Claude account instead, usage still counts against your plan's own usage limits.
How are credits billed?
- They refresh once per billing cycle. Annual plans are also granted monthly.
- They do not roll over. Whatever is left at the end of the cycle is cleared.
- The monthly credits are consumed before any credits you purchased yourself. Once they run out, the organization keeps going on purchased credits or auto-reload if it has them. Otherwise API requests stop until the next grant arrives, and nothing is charged to your Claude plan.
- A Team pool is shared by all keys in the organization, so keep an eye on usage in the Console to avoid one key draining it.
How can you put the credits to use?
The simplest route is to put an API key generated in the Console into your own scripts or agents. One way to stretch the credits is to use caching well; see how to use Claude prompt caching. For pricing on the newer models, see Claude Haiku 5.5 pricing and what changed in Sonnet 5.5.
If requests fail, first check whether there is an official incident on cdnping's Claude availability page and the Anthropic API status page, then compare against the outage statistics.
What if Claude is not available in your region?
These credits belong to Anthropic's official service, so using them means following Anthropic's terms of service and supported-region restrictions. If your region is not supported, start with this explainer on the official policy, and do not try to get around the restriction.
If you need to pay monthly in Chinese yuan (RMB) and switch between several models, AGI Plan is an option. AGI Plan is a commercial partner of cdnping. It is an aggregated gateway, not an official Anthropic channel. Available models and regions are listed at agiplan.dev/models.
