Is Claude Free in 2026? What the Free Plan Includes
Yes. Claude's Free plan costs $0 and includes chat on web, desktop and mobile, web search, file creation with code execution, Artifacts, memory, connectors, voice mode and up to 5 Projects, on the Sonnet and Haiku models. Claude Code, Opus and Research stay paid, from Pro at $20 a month or $17 billed yearly. Verified on claude.com in October 2026.
The free tier is wider than most people expect. Anthropic's 2026 Free plan also carries Claude Design, Slides and Docs, so a lot of everyday office work fits inside it. What pushes people to pay is usually one of three things: the five-hour usage limit, Opus, or Claude Code.
Claude Free vs Pro vs Max: the feature grid
| Feature | Free | Pro | Max 5x | Max 20x |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 | $20/mo, or $17/mo billed yearly ($200 up front) | $100/mo | $200/mo |
| Chat on web, desktop, iOS and Android | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Web search | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Create and edit files with code execution | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Artifacts | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Claude Design, Slides and Docs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Memory, skills and connectors | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Voice mode and incognito chats | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Projects | Up to 5 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Research | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Claude Code | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Claude in Chrome | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Claude for Microsoft 365 and Outlook | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Claude Dashboards (beta) | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sonnet and Haiku models | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Opus model | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Fable model | No | Usage credits | Up to 50% of weekly limits | Up to 50% of weekly limits |
| Usage credits to keep working past a limit | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Monthly API credits | No | No | $100/month | $200/month |
Source: the plan comparison grid on Claude pricing, read 28 October 2026. Prices exclude tax, and usage limits apply on every plan.
Dupple data: Toolradar, our software directory, tracks 1,573 AI assistants as of October 2026, and 61% are free, freemium or open source. Claude belongs to that majority, and its free tier carries more of the full product than most.
What does the Claude free plan include?
The Free plan covers the core assistant, not a cut-down demo: you can chat on the web, the desktop app and the mobile apps, search the web, upload files, and have Claude create documents and run code to analyze data. Artifacts, Claude Design, Slides and Docs are all included too, so finished output does not need a paid plan.
Claude also remembers context across conversations on Free, and you can connect apps and tools through connectors. For a marketer drafting copy, a manager summarizing reports or a student working through a reading list, that is a complete working setup.
Projects are the one feature with a hard number on Free: you get up to 5. A Project keeps files and instructions together for a recurring piece of work, so five is enough for a few clients or courses, not for a whole department.
Which models can you use on Claude free?
Free users get Sonnet and Haiku. Opus, which Anthropic pitches as its daily driver for agentic coding and enterprise work, needs Pro or higher, and Fable, built for long-running agents, is not on Free at all.
Anthropic describes Sonnet 5.5 as a high-performance model for coding and agents, so the cap matters less than it sounds for writing, analysis and everyday questions. You are more likely to miss Opus on long, multi-step work. Our Claude Opus vs Sonnet guide explains when the larger model is worth it.
The context window on Free is listed as "up to 1M, varies by model", the same wording as the paid plans. In practice, long documents and long chats use up your session allowance faster, which is the real constraint.
Does Claude free include Claude Code?
No, Claude Code, Anthropic's coding agent for the terminal and IDE, starts on Pro. The same goes for Claude in Chrome, Claude for Microsoft 365 and Outlook, Research, Claude Science and the ability to hand off and schedule tasks.
If coding is why you are looking at Claude, the cheapest route is Pro, and our Claude Code pricing breakdown covers every plan and the API option for it. Code execution inside the chat, for analysis and file creation, does work on Free.
What are the Claude free plan limits?
Free has a session-based usage limit that resets every five hours. Anthropic publishes no message count: its help center says the number of messages varies with demand, and that it may add other limits to keep access fair. Claude notifies you when you reach it, and on Free the only fix is to wait for the reset or upgrade.
How fast you reach it depends on message length, attachments, conversation length, tool use such as web search, and the model, per Anthropic's usage limit best practices. Starting fresh chats and keeping reference files in a Project stretch the allowance. Pro raises it to at least five times Free's per-session usage.
Unlike paid plans, Free cannot buy usage credits to keep going past the limit, so a deadline day can stall for hours.
Is the Claude API free?
No, the Claude API is billed per token through a Claude Console account, separately from the chat plans. Sonnet 5.5, for example, costs $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens, and Haiku 5.5 starts at $0.10 per million input tokens for prompts up to 100K tokens.
The Free plan also comes with no API credits, and Anthropic's monthly API credits article lists Free, Pro and Enterprise as not eligible; only Max and Team plans get a monthly API allowance. If you want to build on Claude without paying, the chat plan is not the way in.
How much is Claude Pro, and is it worth it?
Pro costs $20 a month billed monthly, or $200 up front for a year, which works out to $17 a month. Over a year, that is $240 on monthly billing against $200 on annual billing, a $40 saving, about 17% (our arithmetic).
Pro earns its price when the five-hour limit interrupts your work every week, or when you need Claude Code, Opus or Research. If you hit the limit once a month, Free with a little patience is the better deal. Max starts at $100 a month, or $1,200 a year (our arithmetic), and only makes sense for people who use Claude all day. Our Claude Pro vs Max comparison covers that choice in detail.
If you want Pro without paying full price, how to get Claude Pro for free lists the official routes.
Free alternatives if Claude Free is not enough
Every major assistant has a free tier now, and the limits differ in ways that matter. Google meters Gemini's free plan on compute, with a smaller context window, as our Is Gemini free? guide shows. Grok's free tier has its own caps, covered in Is Grok free?. DeepSeek's chat has no paid plan at all, though its data is stored in China, which Is DeepSeek free? explains.
For a head to head on quality rather than price, read Claude vs ChatGPT and Claude vs Gemini. The wider field sits in our best free AI chatbots ranking, and Toolradar keeps a Claude profile with alternatives.
Methodology
The plan grid was read on claude.com/pricing on 28 October 2026. Free plan limits come from Anthropic's help center: Get started with Claude, What is the Pro plan? and the usage and API credit articles linked above, read the same day. Yearly totals are our arithmetic. The Toolradar figures come from its live AI assistants category. We recheck prices every 60 days.
Cite this: Dupple, "Is Claude Free in 2026? What the Free Plan Includes", November 2026.
FAQ
Is Claude free to use in 2026?
Yes. Claude's Free plan costs $0 and includes chat on web, desktop and mobile, web search, file creation, Artifacts, memory, connectors and up to 5 Projects, on Sonnet and Haiku. Verified on claude.com in October 2026.
What do you lose on the Claude free plan?
The Free plan has no Claude Code, Opus, Research, Claude in Chrome or Claude for Microsoft 365, and you cannot buy usage credits to keep going past the five-hour limit. Projects are capped at 5.
Does Claude free have a message limit?
There is a session limit that resets every five hours, but Anthropic publishes no fixed message count. How many messages fit depends on demand, message length, attachments and the model.
Can I use Claude Code for free?
No. Claude Code starts on Pro, which costs $20 a month or $17 a month billed yearly. The Free plan can still run code inside the chat to analyze files.
Is Claude Pro worth it over Free?
Pro is worth it if the five-hour limit interrupts your work weekly or you need Claude Code, Opus or Research. Pro gives at least five times Free's usage per session.
Is there a free Claude API?
No. The API is billed per token through the Claude Console, and the Free plan includes no API credits. Only Max and Team plans include a monthly API allowance.
Start on Claude Free, and upgrade to Pro only when the five-hour limit costs you real work or you need Claude Code or Opus. Start the Dupple X trial →
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