Claude Max and ChatGPT Pro Now Include Monthly API Credits: How to Claim Them and What They Cover

If you pay for a top-tier Claude or ChatGPT plan, part of your subscription can now go toward building your own software. Anthropic gives Claude Max subscribers $100 a month in API credits and Ultra subscribers $200, while OpenAI gives ChatGPT Pro subscribers $100, $200 or $500 a month depending on their tier. The catch is that the money only works in the developer platforms, it expires every billing cycle, and the claim step is easy to get wrong.

Anthropic introduced its credit on October 7, alongside the launch of Claude Haiku 5.5. OpenAI followed with an almost identical benefit for ChatGPT Pro and Business at the end of October. This guide explains who qualifies, how to claim the credits on each platform, what they will and will not pay for, and how to avoid the one-way decisions that are hard to undo.

Key facts at a glance

• Claude: Max gets $100 a month, Ultra gets $200, and Team plans get up to $500 a month, pooled across seats. Free, Pro and Enterprise plans are not eligible.
• ChatGPT: Pro gets $100, $200 or $500 a month to match its three price tiers. Business gets $20 per Standard seat and $100 per Premium seat, capped at $500 per workspace each month.
• Waiting period: both companies require the paid plan to be at least seven days old before you can claim.
• Use it or lose it: unused credits on both platforms expire at the end of the billing cycle and do not roll over.
• Coding tools excluded: Claude Code is not covered by Anthropic's credit, and OpenAI says Codex usage through API keys is not covered by its benefit.

Who this is for

This benefit matters most to three groups. The first is hobbyist builders who already pay for a high-end plan and want to try the API without adding a credit card. Neither company requires a payment method on the developer side to claim or spend the credits.

The second is small teams. A Claude Team plan earns $20 per Standard seat and $100 per Premium seat, so Anthropic's own example of three Standard and two Premium seats works out to $260 a month. ChatGPT Business uses the same per-seat amounts, and both companies cap the pooled total at $500 a month.

The third is anyone comparing plans. Anthropic now sells Max at $100 a month and Ultra at $200. The company renamed its former "Max 5x" and "Max 20x" tiers to Max and Ultra at the end of October, keeping prices the same, and said existing subscribers did not need to do anything. If you sit on the Pro plan, at $20 a month billed monthly, none of this applies to you on either platform.

How the two programmes compare

The offers look alike, but the details differ in ways that affect how you should use them.

Based on Anthropic's and OpenAI's published programme terms.

What Anthropic's credit covers

Anthropic says the credit covers the Claude API, Claude Managed Agents, the Claude Agent SDK and the playground in the Claude Console. It does not cover Claude Code or extra usage inside the Claude apps, and it cannot be spent on Claude through AWS, Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud or Microsoft Foundry.

There is one subtle exception. Anthropic's help centre says the credit does cover running claude -p and the Agent SDK yourself with an API key from your linked Console organization, because that is billed as Agent SDK usage. Runs started by the Claude Code GitHub Action, an IDE extension or the desktop app count as Claude Code usage and are not covered.

What OpenAI's credit covers

OpenAI lists the Responses API, Agents API (including OpenAI-hosted sandbox charges), Decisions API, GPT-Live and the Realtime API, the Images API, and built-in tools such as web search, file search and Code Interpreter. The credits do not raise your ChatGPT or signed-in Codex usage limits.

How to claim your credits

Both claims take a few minutes, but read each step before you click. The organization you link is effectively permanent.

Claiming on Claude

1. Make sure you have the right roles. On a Max or Ultra plan you must be the subscriber; on a Team plan you must be the Primary Owner or an Owner. In the Console organization you need the Owner, Admin or Billing role.
2. On claude.ai in a web browser, open Settings > Billing (Max or Ultra) or Organization settings > Billing (Team). Plans bought through the iOS or Android apps are eligible, but the claim happens on the web.
3. In the API credits section, choose the Console organization that should receive the money, or create one, then accept the supplemental terms by linking.
4. Check the Promotional credits section of the Billing page in the Claude Console. It shows the amount and the expiry date.

Claiming on ChatGPT

1. Confirm that you own both the ChatGPT subscription (or Business workspace) and the API organization, and that both use the same email address.
2. In ChatGPT, open Settings > Billing for Pro, or your workspace billing settings for Business. You can also start from the API Platform's Billing page.
3. Find the API credits benefit, choose the organization that will receive the credits, and confirm.
4. Open the API Platform's billing settings to see the grant. OpenAI says the first grant is prorated for the time left in your current cycle.

Mistakes to avoid and how to fix them

Linking the wrong organization. Anthropic says each plan links to one Console organization, each organization can receive credits from only one plan, and you cannot change the link yourself. OpenAI also asks you to contact support to change the receiving organization. Link the organization you actually plan to build in, not a test account.

Letting a shared balance run wild. On Claude, every API key and workspace in the linked organization draws from the same balance. Anthropic suggests giving each project its own workspace with a spend limit. Usage paid with credits also counts toward the organization's monthly spend cap, which resets on the first of each calendar month while credits refresh on your billing date.

Expecting purchased credits to be protected. Both companies spend the free grant first and then any credits you bought. On Claude, auto-reload looks only at your purchased balance, so it can top up even while free credits remain.

Not seeing the offer. Anthropic says the credits appear only after seven days on an eligible plan. If you are past that point, check your plan, check your roles, and then contact support.

Changing plans. On Claude, upgrading from Max to Ultra gives you prorated credits right away, then $200 each cycle. Cancelling stops new grants, but credits you already have stay usable until they expire. OpenAI says downgrading to Plus, Go or Free removes the link at the end of the billing cycle, and moving from Business to Enterprise does the same.

What the companies say the credits are for

Anthropic described the credit as a way to help subscribers build new agents and applications on its platform. Its help centre is blunt about the limits: "The credits are for building your own apps and agents on the Claude Platform." OpenAI frames its version the same way, telling subscribers to activate the benefit and then use the credits to build apps and agents with its API.

There is a reason both companies tie the money to their own developer platforms. Credits that expire monthly and cannot be spent on rival clouds encourage subscribers to start building on that vendor's tools. For a reader, that is not a reason to avoid the offer, but it is a reason to keep your code portable if you might switch later.

How to make the credits go further

Your monthly bill depends mostly on which model you call and how often your app runs. Anthropic's own advice is to pick the cheapest model that handles each task, use prompt caching for repeated context, and send non-urgent jobs through its Message Batches API, which it says costs 50% less. Haiku 5.5, launched the same day as the credit, is priced at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens for prompts up to 100,000 tokens.

Anthropic also says organizations linked to an eligible plan move up to at least its Start usage tier, and to at least the Build tier if their monthly credits exceed $200. That can raise your rate limits, but the credits themselves do not count toward reaching a higher tier.

On the OpenAI side, the benefit is still subject to API rate limits, so check your organization's limits page before planning anything heavy.

Conclusion

The new credits turn an expensive chat subscription into a small monthly developer budget, but only if you claim them carefully and use them before they vanish.

• Check eligibility first: Claude Max, Ultra and Team, or ChatGPT Pro and Business, at least seven days old. Claude Pro and ChatGPT Plus do not qualify.
• Link the right organization once: neither company lets you change it without contacting support.
• Set spend limits per project: the balance is shared across every key in the organization.
• Do not count on it for coding tools: Claude Code and Codex usage through API keys are excluded.
• Plan around expiry: unused credits disappear at the end of each billing cycle, so schedule batch jobs and experiments before your renewal date.