Is Claude Code free? What's free, the 7-day trial, and what a month costs

No, Claude Code is not free: it is not included in Claude’s free plan. What is free is the software itself—the CLI and VS Code and JetBrains extensions—and a guest pass: seven days of Claude Pro, including Claude Code, that an eligible Pro or Max subscriber can give to someone who has never paid for a Claude subscription. Otherwise, every model call is paid for, either through a subscription (Claude Pro costs US$ 20 per month, before taxes) or, without a subscription, by token with an API key. Through Kunavo, a typical 20-step task using Claude Sonnet 5 costs about US$ 0,87.

Updated October 10, 2026. Plans, prices, and limits are based on Anthropic’s pricing page (in English), the Claude Code installation documentation, and two help articles (Claude Code with Pro or Max, guest passes). Kunavo prices come directly from Kunavo’s model catalog.

What’s free in Claude Code and what isn’t

Claude Code is an agent: at each step—whether reading a file, proposing a change, running a command, or checking the result—it calls a Claude model, and those calls must be paid for through an account. According to the installation documentation, Claude Code requires a Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise, or Console account, and Claude.ai’s free plan does not include access to Claude Code. It also works through a cloud provider such as Amazon Bedrock or, as explained below, through a gateway using your own API key.

Claude plans that include Claude Code

Prices from claude.com/pricing, in US dollars and before taxes. For the break-even point between a subscription and the API, with details by model, see Claude Code pricing.

According to the help center, Pro and Max share their usage allowance between Claude chat and Claude Code: everything you do in either one counts toward the same limits. The pricing page does not state the size of this allowance, only the Max multiplier. When you reach the session or weekly limit, wait for it to reset or enable usage credits, which are charged at standard API rates. The monthly API credits included with Max cannot be used in Claude Code. If the ANTHROPIC_API_KEY variable is set in your terminal, Claude Code uses that key instead of the subscription: usage is billed as API usage, and the plan allowance remains untouched.

The guest pass: seven days of Claude Code at no charge

The only official way to use Claude Code for free is with a guest pass. This is how the Anthropic help center describes it:

• Who can send one: only eligible Pro and Max subscribers. They can find passes in Claude Code using the /passes command or in Claude settings under the “Claude Code” tab, and share a personal invitation link.
• What you get: seven days of Claude Pro, including Claude Code, Cowork, and Claude Design.
• Who can use one: only people who have never had a paid Claude subscription.
• The catch: you provide a payment method when signing up. You won’t be charged if you stop using Claude at the end of the seven days; if you don’t cancel, the trial automatically becomes a paid Pro subscription.
• Limited availability: each subscriber has a limited number of passes, which may expire or be withdrawn, and passes are redeemed on a first-come, first-served basis.

In practice, ask a colleague or friend with Pro or Max for a link, and mark the end of the seven days on your calendar if you don’t want to pay afterward. If you have had a paid Claude subscription before, the guest pass isn’t available to you; your options are a subscription or an API key.

Ollama, free models, leaked versions: what these workarounds provide

Many tutorials promising “free Claude Code” actually teach a workaround. Here are the three most common, plainly stated:

• Claude Code with Ollama. According to the Ollama documentation, it connects Claude Code to local and cloud models through an API compatible with Anthropic’s. The tool works, but the responses come from another company’s open model, not Claude. Running locally has no per-token charge, but your computer needs enough capacity: for large repositories, Ollama recommends a context window of at least 64k tokens.
• OpenRouter’s free models. None of the free models in the OpenRouter list were from Anthropic as of October 10, 2026. Claude models are also billed by token there.
• Leaked or “unlocked” versions. The CLI is already free; an unofficial version does not change the fact that someone has to pay for the model calls—it only changes the model. There is also a security risk: Anthropic signs its macOS and Windows releases and publishes a signed manifest with their checksums (installation documentation). A version downloaded from elsewhere does not have that verification chain.

What all three have in common: you get the Claude Code interface, but not the model it was designed for. To work with Claude, you have to pay; the only question is how much.

How much Claude Code costs without a subscription

Without a subscription, each model call is billed by token. Because Claude Code resends the system prompt, conversation, and file context at every step, an agentic step is larger than a chat message: about 25,000 input tokens and 1,200 output tokens. Using Claude Sonnet 5, with prompt caching intentionally disabled:

Ten tasks per month cost about US$ 8,68 through Kunavo, and the minimum top-up of US$ 10 covers about 12 tasks. The Pro subscription at US$ 20 is equivalent to about 460 steps, or 23 tasks per month. If you exceed that volume every month and Pro’s limits are sufficient, the subscription costs less; if you code in bursts, the key is the better option because an idle month costs nothing. See Claude Code pricing for the full calculation, including Max and model-by-model details.

The cheapest way without a subscription: your own API key

Claude Code reads the ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL variable and works with any endpoint that supports Anthropic’s Messages API, with no plugin, proxy, or modified binary. Kunavo is an independent gateway that offers the same Claude models at 30% below Anthropic’s list prices, paid for with a prepaid balance starting at US$ 10 and no monthly fee. Set these variables in your terminal:

export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://api.kunavo.com
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=sk-kn-...
export ANTHROPIC_MODEL=claude-sonnet-5
export ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL=claude-opus-5-5
export ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL=claude-sonnet-5
export ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL=claude-haiku-4-5

Keep the model lines. Without ANTHROPIC_MODEL, Claude Code starts with its default model, which Anthropic currently says is Opus 5.5; this line makes Claude Sonnet 5 the starting model, the same one used in the calculation above. ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL sets the opus alias to Opus 5.5, which Claude Code supports starting with version 2.1.280; on an older installation, run claude update. The sonnet alias requests Sonnet 5.5, which Kunavo does not offer: without ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL, /model sonnet, the execution phase of opusplan, and subagents using model: sonnet fail with a 404 error. ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL routes Claude Code’s background calls to Claude Haiku 4.5.

To make these settings permanent, put the variables in the env block of ~/.claude/settings.json. Remote Control and voice dictation require signing in to claude.ai and do not work with a gateway key; code, tools, subagents, and MCP work normally. For step-by-step installation and setup, see install Claude Code.

Pay from Brazil with Pix

Top-ups go through Stripe checkout. For customers paying from Brazil, Pix displays the amount already converted to reais, payable by QR code or copy and paste, and is credited immediately. You can also pay with an international card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express), Link, Apple Pay, or Google Pay. Boleto and PayPal are not offered. Stripe’s exchange rate includes a conversion fee of 2% to 4%. The balance does not expire and pays only for API usage through Kunavo; it cannot be used to buy a Claude Pro or Max subscription. See how to pay for Claude with Pix for the step-by-step instructions.

Frequently asked questions