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Nobody pays you to use Claude, and nobody pays us either.
This is one of the rare cases where the absence is provable rather than assumed. On July 25, 2026 we fetched anthropic.com/affiliates and got a hard 404, the page titled "Not Found". The path anthropic.com/referral answers, but only by quietly falling back to the homepage. And anthropic.com/partners redirects to a page about building products on top of Claude, which is a business partnership, not a scheme that pays a website for sending you. So nothing here pays you, and nothing here pays us. What is left is the other fine print, and there is a great deal of it.
What pays what
| You, for signing up or for referring a friend | Nothing |
|---|---|
| This site, for sending you to Claude | Nothing |
| Anthropic's affiliate page, where a program would live | 404 |
| The Free plan, described as "Free for everyone" | $0 |
| Claude Pro, billed monthly | $20 per month |
| Claude Pro, with the annual discount | $17 a month, $200 up front |
| Claude Max | From $100 per month |
Those are the figures on Anthropic's own pricing page as we read it. The same page adds: "Usage limits apply", "Prices shown don't include applicable tax", and "Price and plans are subject to change at Anthropic's discretion". Max is sold as either "5x or 20x more usage than Pro", so the hundred dollars is the floor of that plan.
What the free plan actually gives you
Anthropic's pricing page lists the Free plan as including chat on web, iOS, Android and desktop, generating code and visualizing data, writing and editing content, the ability to search the web, memory across conversations, creating files and executing code, and extended thinking for complex work. That is most of the product.
The context window, meaning how much text the model can hold in view at once, is listed as 200k on every tier: Free, Pro, and both versions of Max. Paying does not buy you a model with a longer memory in a single conversation. It buys you more turns with the same one. Where free does stop, we went through row by row in is Claude free?, along with the five-hour session limit Anthropic describes but never puts a number on.
- Free, at $0200k
- Claude Pro, at $20 a month200k
- Claude Max, from $100 a month200k
Context window as listed on Anthropic's own pricing page. Three bars of the same length is the finding: paying buys more turns with the same model, not a longer memory inside one conversation.
Do this, in this order
- Start free, and stay there until free stops being enough. If you never hit the limit, you never need the subscription.
- Decide about model training before you type anything sensitive. Anthropic's consumer terms say it "may use Materials to provide, maintain, and improve the Services and to develop other products and services, including training our models, unless you opt out of training through your account settings". The opt-out is real and the pricing page shows it on every tier, Free included, but it only protects you once you have gone and changed it.
- Know the two holes in that opt-out. The same clause continues: even if you opt out, your material is used for training when "you provide Feedback to us regarding any Materials" or when "your Materials are flagged for safety review". The first is the thumbs up and thumbs down buttons: rating an output means "we will store the related conversation as part of your Feedback", so a single approving click re-enrols that whole conversation. The second happens on their side and you will not be told.
- Think hard before you sign in with your work email. The terms include a Business Domains clause: if you use an email address owned by your employer or another organisation, your account "may be linked to the organization's Anthropic enterprise account", and the administrator "may be able to monitor and control the Account, including having access to Materials". If the organisation has already told you it may monitor your account, "we may not provide additional notice". A personal address keeps a personal account personal.
- If you do pay, choose the billing term with the renewal rule in front of you. The annual saving is real, and so is the exposure: you are handing over the whole year at once, on a contract that renews itself for another year of the same length unless you act.
- Put the cancellation date in your calendar the day you subscribe. The terms are specific: "To avoid renewal and charges for the next Renewal Term, cancel your subscription at least 24 hours before the last day of the Initial Term or any Renewal Term." Anthropic even works the example for you: subscribe on January 25th to a one-month term and you must cancel by February 23rd. Set the reminder two days early.
- Cancel in the place where you bought it. If you subscribed on the website, you cancel in the customer portal or by writing to support@anthropic.com. If you subscribed through an app store, you have to cancel through that store. Closing the account entirely is email-only. Our step-by-step on cancelling Claude works the deadline arithmetic through.
The fine print that costs money
The only way this offer can cost you is through the subscription. These are the clauses that decide that, quoted from Anthropic's consumer terms as we read them on July 25, 2026.
Money paid does not come back. "Except as expressly provided in these Terms or where required by law, all payments are non-refundable." There is no stated cooling-off period and no pro-rata refund for the unused part of a term.
The renewal matches whatever term you chose. Anthropic or the app store "will automatically charge your Payment Method on each agreed-upon periodic renewal date until you cancel", and the subscription renews "for an additional term equal in duration to the Initial Term". Pick a year and the thing that renews is a year, not a month.
The 24-hour rule is the trap. Most people assume cancelling on the last day they paid for is in time. A cancellation submitted a few hours late takes effect only after another full term has been charged.
Buy through an app store and you are under different rules entirely. If you purchase through a distributor, "the App Distributor's terms in relation to payment methods, billing, and refunds will apply instead of these Terms".
The price is not fixed for the life of the subscription. "We may increase fees for our Services." Anthropic says it will give you a chance to review and accept additional fees before charging them, and adds that if you do not accept, "we may discontinue your access to the Services or features".
What you are buying is capacity, and the amount is not written down. "Usage limits apply" is the only published statement on how much any plan gets you. Pro's allowance is not stated as a number, and Max is defined only as a multiple of Pro.
Is it worth your time?
Yes, on the free plan. It carries the same context window as the paid tiers and most of the same abilities, it costs nothing, and no code, link or referral improves it.
Turn the training setting off if you would not want a transcript of your conversations used to build the next model. And if you upgrade, decide monthly or annual with clear eyes: $17 a month is a real saving over $20, but it is $200 leaving your account today, non-refundable.