What changed
On 8 October 2026, ClaudeDevs said monthly Claude Platform credits are available on Max and Team and can be used on any Claude model. The Help Center and Platform docs state the same Max amounts. The credits apply to any Claude model available on the Claude Platform. The covered products are the Messages API, Message Batches, the Console Playground, Claude Managed Agents, and the Agent SDK.
A Team Standard seat includes $20 of monthly credit, and a Premium seat includes $100 of monthly credit. Seat credits pool into one balance capped at $500. Nonprofit and Scientists plans use those same per-seat credit amounts. Three Standard seats and two Premium seats are the Help Center's example: $260 of credit, from the seats on the plan when the grant is deposited. Credits arrive shortly after payment, and monthly on annual plans. Unused credit expires at the end of the cycle, monthly on annual plans, and included credit is spent before purchased credits. Usage limits in Claude, Claude Code, and Claude Cowork stay the same. The credit skips interactive Claude Code in the terminal, IDE, desktop, and web; extra usage in Claude, Claude Code, and Claude Cowork; and Claude on Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud Vertex AI, and Microsoft Foundry.
| Plan | Monthly credit |
|---|---|
| Max 5x | $100 |
| Max 20x | $200 |
| Team Standard seat | $20 per seat |
| Team Premium seat | $100 per seat |
| Nonprofit and Scientists Team | Same per-seat credit amounts |
Who can claim
An active Max or Team plan in good standing qualifies, including discounted Nonprofit and Scientists plans. Web, iOS, and Android subscriptions qualify, and the claim itself is on claude.ai in a browser. Free, Pro, and Enterprise plans are ineligible. No payment method is required on Claude Platform to claim or use the credit.
New subscribers can claim after seven days on an eligible plan. The Help Center is also rolling the offer out over a few days, so the billing section can be missing at first. Someone already past seven days on Max or Team claims when that section appears. If it is still missing after the rollout and seven days on the plan, confirm the plan and the required role, then contact support.
How to claim and spend
Open Settings > Billing as the Max subscriber, or Organization settings > Billing as a Team Primary Owner or Owner. One Team owner claims the pooled credit for the whole team. Choose Link organization, review the Supplemental Credit Terms, and link or create one Console organization. The Console role must be Owner, Admin, or Billing. One plan links to one organization, and each organization takes credits from only one plan. Changing the link later means contacting support, so pick the organization you will build in. The Help Center says to use the same email on the Console as on claude.ai, and to retry a few hours later if linking errors. The grant shows in Promotional credits under Console Settings > Billing, with the amount and the expiry. Every API key in that organization shares the balance. A workspace spend limit can cap a project or a teammate.
Self-run claude -p is a non-interactive Claude Code run started with an API key from the linked organization. That run and the Agent SDK use the credit, which the Help Center bills as Agent SDK usage. Signing in with a Claude plan instead draws on plan limits. The GitHub Action, IDE extensions, and the desktop app count as Claude Code even when the command includes -p, so the credit skips those runs.
ClaudeDevs calls Managed Agents the quickest start and names the Claude Code command /claude-api managed-agents-onboard. The changelog lists that command on two lines and does not attach a version number. One line sets up a Managed Agents pattern a page describes as ant apply files. The other builds a Console quickstart template, such as deep-researcher, with the ant CLI. Those lines name ant apply and the ant CLI without a further description. ClaudeDevs says the credits also apply in third-party harnesses that accept a Claude API key. The Help Center and Platform docs describe covered use as the Claude API, the Console Playground, Claude Managed Agents, and the Agent SDK on a key from the linked organization.
Limits that remain
If the organization has no other credits, API requests stop until the next grant, and usage is never charged to the Claude plan. Purchased credits, auto-reload, or invoicing through Anthropic sales can continue the work. Auto-reload follows only the purchased balance and can reload while included credits remain. When the balance is empty, Platform docs show this API error: "Your credit balance is too low to access the Anthropic API. Please go to Plans & Billing to upgrade or purchase credits." A different line appears when the organization holds only these credits and sends a request they do not cover. Platform docs use a Claude Code session as that example, and Claude Code then displays: "Credit balance too low · Add funds: https://platform.claude.com/settings/billing".
A cancel, an ineligible downgrade, or a refund stops new grants. Credits already issued stay usable until they expire. An upgrade from Max 5x to Max 20x adds prorated credit right away, then $200 each cycle. Platform docs say a Google Play upgrade receives that $200 later, by the next renewal at the latest. Moving from Max to Team ends the Max link. A Team Owner or Primary Owner can claim after the Team plan has been active for seven days. Seats added to a Team plan count on the next month's grant. Removed seats keep counting toward the current credit until renewal, after which the grant can fall. Adding one Premium seat to the Help Center's $260 example raises the next cycle to $360, still under the $500 cap. Usage paid with these credits counts toward the organization's monthly spend cap. That cap resets on the first of the calendar month, while the credits follow the billing cycle.
Linking an eligible plan moves the organization to at least the Start tier. If monthly credits are over $200, it moves to at least the Build tier. These credits do not otherwise change the usage tier, and they do not count toward a higher tier. The credit pages name Start and Build and do not say what those tiers include. The June Agent SDK credit is a separate offer, and the Help Center says that earlier credit is unavailable. Platform docs say the Message Batches API costs 50 percent less for work that does not need an immediate response, and they also suggest prompt caching for repeated context.
Source
Also from
Sources and editorial approach
Sources for this article are the ClaudeDevs post of 8 October 2026, the Claude Help Center article on monthly API credits for Max and Team plans, the Claude Platform page on API credits for subscribers, and the Claude Code changelog notes for /claude-api managed-agents-onboard, as those pages stood on 8 October 2026. Dollar amounts, eligibility, and exclusions follow the Help Center and Platform pages. The ranking of Managed Agents as the quickest start, and the line about third-party harnesses, are ClaudeDevs's wording. The changelog entries do not name a Claude Code version. The credit pages name the Start and Build tiers and do not describe what they include. No credit was claimed and no API call was sent.