Is Claude Free? What the Free Plan Gets You in 2026

Is Claude free? Yes. Claude has a free plan that costs $0 and needs no card. As of October 2026 it includes chat with Sonnet and Haiku, web search, memory, file creation, Artifacts and connectors, on the web, desktop and mobile apps. The catch is a usage limit that resets every five hours and shrinks when demand is high.

What Free doesn't include: the Opus and Fable models, Claude Code, Research and Claude in Chrome. Those need Pro, which costs $20 a month or $17 billed yearly. There's no free trial of Pro and no individual student discount.

How we researched this: Anthropic's pricing page, help center, education pages and release notes, checked October 28, 2026.

Is Claude free? What the free plan includes

More than it did a year ago. Here's what Free gets you, per Claude's pricing page:

The big change came on September 16, 2026, when Anthropic put Artifacts and its Design, Slides and Docs tools on every plan, including Free. For writing, studying and everyday questions, the free plan now covers most of what people use Claude for.

The free plan doesn't include Fable at all. Anthropic's Fable help article says plainly that it "isn't available on the Free plan".

What are Claude's free plan limits?

Free has a session limit that resets every five hours. Anthropic doesn't publish a message count, and the number you get varies with demand. Claude tells you when you've reached the limit or when a prompt is too long for the context window.

In practice, a few habits stretch the free allowance:

• Start a new chat for each new topic. Claude rereads the whole conversation with every message, so a long thread eats the limit faster.
• Use Haiku for quick questions and save Sonnet for harder ones.
• Upload only the pages of a document you need, not the whole file.

When you hit the limit on Free, you wait for the five-hour window to reset. You can't buy extra usage on Free; usage credits are for paid plans only.

Is there a Claude free trial?

No. Anthropic doesn't offer a free trial of Pro or Max. The pricing page lists trials only for sales-assisted Enterprise deals. The free plan is the trial: if Sonnet on Free works for you, there's no reason to pay yet.

Is there a Claude student discount?

No, not for individuals. We found no student price for Pro on Anthropic's pricing or education pages as of October 2026. Students get Claude in three other ways.

Claude for Education, through your university

Claude for Education is a plan universities buy for their students, faculty and staff. If your school has it, you sign in at claude.ai with your university email and get access at no cost to you. You can keep a personal account too and pick which one to use at login.

It includes a learning mode that "asks questions that help you find the answers yourself" instead of handing over answers, per Anthropic's education page. Universities shown there include Northeastern, the London School of Economics, Champlain College, Syracuse, Dartmouth, the University of Virginia and the University of Pittsburgh.

Ask your IT department or library whether your school has a license before you pay for Pro.

Anthropic's campus program

Anthropic runs a campus program with Claude Builder Clubs for undergraduates, plus programs for master's students and PhDs. Club leaders get a $3,600 stipend and API credits to share with members. You must be 18 or older. The program is closed for fall 2026, and applications for the next cycle open in early September.

GitHub Copilot Student

If you mostly want AI for coding, GitHub's Copilot Student plan is free for verified students. Note that on Copilot Free and Student, GitHub's docs say models are available "through auto model selection only", so you can't choose a Claude model yourself.

How to get Claude Pro for free

There's no official way for individuals. The legitimate routes are an Education license through your university, or a role in Anthropic's campus program. Be wary of sites offering "free Claude Pro" accounts or keys: shared or resold accounts can be shut down without warning, and those offers are a common way to steal logins.

Other ways to use Claude for free

• The Claude API gives new accounts "a small amount of free credits to test the API", per Anthropic's API pricing page. The amount isn't stated, and after that you pay per token. Haiku 5.5 costs $0.10 per million input tokens, so small tests cost very little.
• Claude Code isn't on the free plan. Our guide on whether Claude Code is free covers the cheapest ways to run it, including local models.

When should you upgrade from Free to Pro?

Upgrade when one of these is true:

• You hit the five-hour limit more than once or twice a week.
• You want Opus for harder writing, analysis or code.
• You want Claude Code, Research or Claude in Chrome.

Pro costs $20 a month, or $200 billed yearly ($17 a month). Our Claude pricing guide compares every plan, including when Max is worth it.

If you're choosing between free chatbots, our roundup of the best free AI for coding compares what each free tier allows.

FAQ

Is Claude AI free to use?

Yes. The free plan costs nothing and includes Sonnet, Haiku, web search, memory, file creation and Artifacts. It has a usage limit that resets every five hours.

Is Claude free forever?

The free plan has no end date. You can use it as long as you like, within its usage limits. Anthropic can change what's included, as it did when it added Artifacts in September 2026.

Does the free plan include Claude Opus?

No. Opus 5.5 needs Pro or higher, and Fable 5.1 isn't available on Free at all.

Is Claude Code free?

No. Claude Code needs a paid plan, an API key or a cloud provider account. Installing it is free, but the free Claude plan can't log in to it.

Does Claude have a student discount?

Not for individuals. Students get Claude through a university's Claude for Education license, or through Anthropic's campus program.