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Yes, Claude has a free plan with no card and no end date, but it runs out on a five-hour window that Anthropic puts no number on. It covers chat, web search, files, memory and up to five projects on the Sonnet and Haiku models. Sign-up needs a phone number that can receive a text.
Stay on the free plan if you ask a few things a day and can wait some hours when it stops, because everyday chat, search and file work are all in.
Pay for Pro if you hit the limit most days, or you need Claude Code, Research or the Opus model, none of which the free plan has.
Skip it if you want pictures or chat that never pauses, because Claude makes no images on any plan and ChatGPT's free plan does not cap plain text chat.
prices checked 2026-10-05 · by dan scutaru
| plan | price | what matters |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Sonnet and Haiku, a five-hour session limit with no published count, up to 5 projects. No card. |
| Pro | $20/mo | At least 5x the free usage per session, plus Claude Code, Research and Opus. $200 upfront for a year works out to $17/mo. |
| Max 5x | $100/mo | 5x Pro usage per session, priority at busy times. Monthly billing only. |
| Max 20x | $200/mo | 20x Pro usage per session. Monthly billing only. |
There is no message count. Anthropic says the free plan has a session limit that resets every five hours, and that how much you get inside it varies with demand, the length of your chats, the model and the features you use. Long conversations and big attachments spend it faster.
The "15 to 40 messages" figures you see elsewhere are user estimates, not Anthropic's. When you hit the wall you wait for the reset. Settings, then Usage, shows where you stand. Anthropic also reserves the right to add weekly or monthly caps.
Mostly headroom and the coding agent. Anthropic's pricing page says Pro gives at least 5x more usage per five-hour session than Free. Pro also adds Claude Code, Research, the Opus model, unlimited projects and the option to buy usage credits.
Two things do not change. Pro still has limits, and it adds a weekly one on top of the session window. And the newest Fable models are not in Pro's allowance either. You pay for them with usage credits.
No. Anthropic's help page says it offers no standard discounted pricing on any paid plan, students included. A student uses the same free plan as everyone else, or pays the same $20.
The exception runs through your school. Claude for Education is a campus-wide plan a university buys for its students and staff, so check whether yours has it before paying. Separately, Claude for Teachers is free for verified US K-12 educators, and it is not open to students. Claude is for adults only, 18 and over.
Not of the paid plans. The pricing page lists no Pro trial, and Anthropic says it has no standing discounts, only occasional limited-time promotions. The free plan is the trial, and it does not expire.
No. Claude Code is marked No on the free plan and is included from Pro up, where it shares one usage allowance with your chats.
Only if the free limit stops you most days, or you need Claude Code or Research. If you open Claude a few times a week, the free plan already covers it.
No, and paying does not change that. Claude does not generate photos or illustrations on any plan. It can build charts and diagrams as code, and it reads images you upload.