Claude users will incur increased costs when using third-party tools like OpenClaw, as announced by Anthropic. This policy change will take effect on April 4 at 12 p.m. PT, under which subscribers will no longer use their Claude subscription limits for external harnesses.
The announcement was communicated via email to Claude subscription holders and was also posted on Hacker News. Subscribers will need to adopt a pay-as-you-go model for these tools, which will incur additional charges billed separately from their subscription.
Boris Cherny, Head of Claude Code, reiterated this change on X, emphasizing that these tools can still be accessed with an API key. He explained that the modification is a response to increased demand for Claude services, stating, “We’ve been working hard to meet the increase in demand for Claude, and our subscriptions weren’t built for the usage patterns of these third-party tools.” Cherny indicated that managing capacity is part of their focus on prioritizing customers who utilize their products and API.
In February, Peter Steinberger, the developer of OpenClaw, transitioned to OpenAI following the tool’s surge in popularity. On the day of the announcement, Steinberger posted on X about his negotiations with Anthropic, noting, “tried to talk sense into Anthropic, best we managed was delaying this for a week.” He further criticized Anthropic for purportedly copying popular features and restricting open-source access.
Cherny responded to these comments, reinforcing that the Claude team supports open-source initiatives while balancing engineering constraints. “Our systems are highly optimized for one kind of workload, and to serve as many people as possible with the most intelligent models, we are continuing to optimize that,” he remarked.
Anthropic is also offering full refunds for users wishing to cancel their subscriptions in light of these changes.
