How to Use Claude for Free in 2026: Every Option That Works

Claude is free to use in 2026. The permanent free plan at claude.ai includes Claude Sonnet 5—one of Anthropic’s strongest models—without a trial period or credit card. Free options also exist for Claude Code and API testing with Apidog.

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This guide covers the practical free routes: the official plan, Claude Code guest passes, API starter credits, third-party tools, and cloud-provider trials. For deciding whether to upgrade later, see our Claude Free vs Pro comparison.

Is Claude free?

Yes. The free plan at claude.ai never expires and requires no credit card. As of August 2026, it includes:

• Claude Sonnet 5, the default free model since July 2026
• Claude Haiku 4.5 for faster, lighter responses
• Web search, file uploads, and image inputs
• Web, desktop, and mobile access

It does not include Claude Fable 5 or other Opus-tier models. Anthropic’s help center lists Fable 5 as paid-plan only: Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise.

A short free Fable 5 promotion ran in June 2026 and ended on July 19, 2026. See How to Use Claude Fable 5 for Free for the details.

Free usage is metered. Anthropic does not publish fixed limits, but community testing suggests roughly 15–40 messages per rolling five-hour window. Limits can shrink during peak demand because paid accounts receive priority.

Use the free plan for daily questions, document work, and short coding sessions—not extended back-and-forth agent runs.

Option 1: Use the claude.ai free plan

This is the simplest path:

1. Go to claude.ai.
2. Sign up with email or Google.
3. Start using Sonnet 5.

Free Sonnet 5 is the same model available to paying users, not a reduced version. It handles code generation, document analysis, and multi-step reasoning well; most free users hit quota limits before quality limits.

For more detail, read our guide to using Claude Sonnet 5 for free and our Claude Sonnet 5 benchmarks breakdown.

Stretch your free quota

• Front-load context: Long threads consume more capacity because Claude reprocesses the conversation. Start a fresh chat for a new task.
• Use Haiku 4.5 for quick questions: Select it in the chat composer when you need speed rather than deeper reasoning.
• Watch the rolling window: When you reach the cap, Claude tells you when access resets.

Option 2: Get Claude Code through guest passes

Claude Code is not included in the standard free plan, but guest passes can provide free temporary access.

Anthropic gives Max subscribers a limited number of passes. Each pass can give a new user seven days of Pro-level access, including Claude Code. Ask a colleague with a Max subscription to run /passes in Claude Code, or look for trusted developer-community giveaways.

Keep these constraints in mind:

• Passes are typically for new accounts.
• Reports indicate a card may be required at redemption, even though the seven-day period is free.
• After expiration, the account returns to the free plan rather than automatically upgrading to Pro—but always review the current redemption terms.

For other temporary routes, see a proven way to use Claude Code for free and how to claim promotional Claude Code credits.

Option 3: Use free API credits with Apidog

New accounts at platform.claude.com receive a small starter credit balance. Third-party reports place it at about $5—enough to experiment with Sonnet 5 or Haiku 4.5 through the API.

For all available credit options, read free Claude API access.

Starter credits disappear quickly if you spend them debugging malformed requests. Use Apidog to minimize avoidable API usage:

1. Import the Anthropic API specification so endpoints, headers, and request schemas are ready to use.
2. Create one canonical /v1/messages request for each use case.
3. Inspect and save the response as an example.
4. Create a local mock server from that saved response.
5. Develop against the mock, then call the real API only for final verification.

This approach can reduce development API spend by an order of magnitude. See How to Cut Your Claude API Bill. When you move to production, prompt caching can reduce costs further.

Option 4: Access Claude through tools you already use

Several products expose Claude models through free or limited tiers, sometimes without requiring an Anthropic account:

• GitHub Copilot: Offers Claude as a selectable model through its subscription and limited free tier.
• Poe, DuckDuckGo AI Chat, and Brave Leo: Provide Claude variants with small daily allowances.
• Cursor and Windsurf: Include Claude among model options during trials.

These routes are useful for occasional usage or a short evaluation sprint. For Cursor, follow our guide on using Claude Sonnet 5 in Cursor.

Verify the exact model before relying on an integration. Third-party products may route requests to older or smaller Claude models and apply different system prompts than claude.ai.

Option 5: Use cloud-provider trial credits

AWS Bedrock, Google Vertex AI, and Azure AI Foundry all provide Claude models. Each cloud offers trial credits to new accounts, and existing startup or education credits may also cover usage.

Setup varies by platform. Our guide to running Claude Fable 5 on Bedrock, Vertex, and Foundry explains the setup; the same process applies to Sonnet 5.

This requires more setup than the consumer free plan, but it is currently the only free route to Fable 5-class models through trial or existing cloud credits.

What free Claude does not include

Know the limits before planning a workflow around the free tier:

• No Fable 5: It is available only on paid plans. On Pro, it uses pay-as-you-go credits rather than the flat subscription allowance. See How to Access Claude Fable 5.
• Lower peak-time priority: Free capacity can shrink when demand is high.
• Tighter session limits: Large projects and long-running agent workflows will reach limits sooner. Read Claude Fable 5 Rate Limits Explained for how limits differ by tier.

If you consistently hit the limit every week, the $20 Pro plan may be worthwhile. Until then, the free options above cover most individual use cases.

FAQ

Which model does the free Claude plan use in 2026?

Claude Sonnet 5 is the default model, with Haiku 4.5 available for faster replies. See the full Sonnet 5 guide for capabilities and API pricing.

How many messages do free users get?

Anthropic does not publish a fixed number. Community estimates suggest roughly 15–40 messages in a rolling five-hour window, depending on server load and message size.

Can I use the Claude API for free?

New platform.claude.com accounts receive starter credit, and Bedrock, Vertex, and Foundry trial credits can also fund API usage. Use Apidog mock servers so development traffic does not consume real API credits.

Is Claude Code free?

Not through the standard free plan. Guest passes can provide seven free days, Anthropic occasionally offers promotional credits, and starter API credit can fund a few short sessions.

Start free, test smart

The claude.ai free plan is the easiest no-cost way to use a frontier model in 2026: Sonnet 5, no card, and no expiry. Add a guest pass to evaluate Claude Code, and use API starter credits for integration tests.

Put Apidog between your application and the API so mock servers handle development traffic and your free credits go toward calls that matter. Download Apidog for free, then upgrade only when your actual usage requires it.