No. Claude Code is not free. Installing it costs nothing, but Anthropic’s setup docs say plainly: “Claude Code requires a Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise, or Console account. The free claude.ai plan does not include Claude Code access.” The pricing page agrees: the Free column reads “No” on the Claude Code row, and Pro is the first plan marked “Claude Code included.”
Claude Code is Anthropic’s agentic coding tool: it reads your codebase, edits files and runs commands from your terminal or IDE, using Claude models billed to your Claude plan or API account.
What’s free and what you pay
| Route | Cost | The cap | What you pay past it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Free plan | $0 | Chat, web search, artifacts. No Claude Code | Upgrade to Pro |
| Claude Pro | $17/month billed yearly ($200 up front), or $20 monthly | Five-hour session limit plus a weekly limit, shared between chat and Claude Code | Usage credits at standard API rates, or Max |
| Claude Max | From $100/month | 5x or 20x Pro’s usage per five-hour session | Usage credits, or a higher Max tier |
| Console (API key) | Pay as you go | Your prepaid balance | Standard API rates per token |
| Guest pass from a Max subscriber | $0 for 7 days | Pro plan, card required, converts to paid unless canceled | Pro price |
| Claude Code on a non-Anthropic model | $0 with a local or free model | The model’s own quality and limits | Nothing, but it is not Claude |
What Claude Free includes today
The Free plan, checked on claude.com/pricing on October 22, 2026, covers chat on web, desktop and mobile, web search, file creation with code execution, memory, connectors, artifacts, and up to five projects. It runs Sonnet and Haiku; Opus is a paid feature.
What it does not cover is the one thing this page is about. In the comparison table, “Claude Code” is “No” for Free and “Yes” for Pro, Max 5x and Max 20x. The pricing FAQ states it as a rule: “Claude Code is included in all paid plans.”
So if you install Claude Code and log in with a free claude.ai account, you will not get a working session. You need a paid plan, a Console account with credits, or a model you point it at yourself.
Is there a Claude Code free trial?
There is no public, self-serve free trial. The only trial on Anthropic’s own pages is the guest pass.
According to the guest pass help article, eligible Max subscribers get a limited number of passes, and each gives the recipient “Seven days of free access to Claude’s Pro plan, which includes Claude Code.” The terms are strict:
- You need an invite. Only eligible Max subscribers can send passes, and they run out.
- You must be new. Recipients “must not have a previous Claude subscription history (on any Claude product).”
- You enter a card. The trial “will automatically convert to a paid Pro plan at the end of the free trial period unless the recipient cancels before then.”
If a friend on Max offers you a pass, it is the cleanest way to try Claude Code with Claude for a week at $0. Set a reminder to cancel.
What about free API credits? Anthropic’s Console help article says that to use the API you “add usage credits to your organization’s balance” and “enter your payment details and fund your account.” It mentions no sign-up grant. Startup credits are not an easy route either: the Claude Startups page says “our current cohort is now full, and we’re not accepting new applications right now.”
Where the paid plans stop
Pro. Pro is the cheapest way to run Claude Code with Claude. The pricing page lists it at $17 per month “with annual subscription discount ($200 billed up front)” or “$20 if billed monthly.” Claude Code works in the terminal and, per Anthropic’s Pro and Max help article, in VS Code, Cursor and other VS Code forks, and JetBrains IDEs.
The limit is shared. “Both Pro and Max plans have a five-hour session limit and a weekly limit,” and “these limits are shared across Claude and Claude Code.” A long chat in the morning leaves less room for coding in the afternoon. Anthropic publishes no fixed message count; the FAQ only says Pro gives “at least 5x more usage per 5-hour session than Free.”
Past the limit. On a paid plan you can wait for the reset, turn on usage credits billed at standard API rates, or move up to Max. Watch one detail: if an ANTHROPIC_API_KEY variable is set in your shell, the help article warns that Claude Code uses it “instead of your Claude subscription,” which means API charges instead of included usage.
Max. Max starts at $100 per month and adds 5x or 20x Pro’s usage. It now includes $100 to $200 a month in API credits, but the help article is explicit that “Monthly API credits included with Max plans can’t be used in Claude Code or the Claude apps.”
Console pay-as-you-go. You can skip subscriptions and log Claude Code into a funded Console account. You pay per token, which suits light or bursty use and punishes long agent sessions. If you are deciding between a plan and a key, our guide to cheaper models that end up costing more covers why per-token math can mislead.
How to use Claude Code for free (without Claude)
Claude Code talks to whatever endpoint ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL points at. Point it at a server that speaks Anthropic’s API and serves another model, and the agent runs with no Anthropic bill.
The cheapest version is a local model through Ollama. Ollama’s Claude Code guide sets three variables and starts a session:
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=ollama
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=""
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434
claude --model qwen3.5
Ollama recommends a context window of 64k or more for real repositories. Gateways such as OpenRouter work the same way with their own key.
Be clear about what you get. This is Claude Code’s interface, tools and permission flow driving someone else’s model. It is not Claude Code with Claude. OpenRouter’s own docs warn that “Claude Code is optimized for Anthropic models and may not work correctly with other providers,” and Ollama notes that hosted web search and some advanced tool controls are not fully supported.
Two traps:
- Setting the base URL alone is not enough. Anthropic’s LLM gateway docs note that without a gateway credential, “a saved claude.ai login remains the active credential, so its usage limits and billing apply.” Set the token too.
- Small local models struggle. Agent loops need long context and reliable tool calling. Expect more retries than with a frontier model.
A $0 agent that is not Claude Code: OpenCode
If the goal is a free coding agent rather than Claude Code specifically, OpenCode is simpler. The OpenCode Zen docs list more than ten models priced “Free” today, including GLM-5.3-Flash Free, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash Free and MiniMax M3.1 Flash Free, each “free on OpenCode for a limited time.”
In an earlier session on October 16, 2026, OpenCode 1.19.2 on opencode/deepseek-v4.1-flash-free finished a write-and-run task in 32 seconds with no sign-in. The limit: the free tier only answers OpenCode itself. Calling the same model from your own script returned HTTP 403 FreeTierError. Our DeepSeek V4.1 Flash free guide has the details, and free AI API keys covers routes you can call from code.
Use Claude Code on Pro when you want Claude models and can live with a shared weekly limit. Use OpenCode on a free model when cost is the constraint and the task is small and well defined.
Where Sharkly fits
Sharkly does not make Claude Code free. It runs the Claude Code, Codex or OpenCode you already have as assignable Agents on your own Computers, so you can hand a task on a board to an agent and review what comes back.
Per the Sharkly pricing page, Free covers organizations of up to 10 people, and Team is $7 per person billed yearly after that. “Guests, Agents, and Computers do not occupy seats.” On tokens: “Sharkly does not sell tokens.” A Claude Code Agent still uses the Pro, Max or Console account on that Computer; an OpenCode Agent on a free model costs nothing in tokens. Sharkly pricing explained has the full breakdown.
If you already run more than one coding agent, run them through Sharkly and keep each one on the plan it already has.
FAQ
Is Claude Code free? No. Claude Code is free to install, but Anthropic’s docs say “the free claude.ai plan does not include Claude Code access.” You need Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise, or a funded Console account.
Does Claude Code have a free tier? No. Claude’s Free plan covers chat, not Claude Code. Pro, at $17 per month billed yearly or $20 monthly, is the cheapest plan that includes it.
Is there a Claude Code free trial? Only by invitation. Eligible Max subscribers can send guest passes that give a new user seven days of Pro, Claude Code included. You enter a card, and it converts to paid unless you cancel.
How can I use Claude Code for free? Point it at a model you don’t pay Anthropic for, such as a local Ollama model, by setting ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL and a matching token. It works, but it is no longer Claude doing the work.
Do new Console accounts get free API credits? Anthropic’s help article describes adding paid credits to start and mentions no sign-up grant. The startup program is closed to new applications.
Can I use my Max plan’s API credits in Claude Code? No. Anthropic says those monthly API credits “can’t be used in Claude Code or the Claude apps.”
