Anthropic says Claude Code subscribers will need to pay extra for OpenClaw support

It’s about to get more expensive for Claude Code subscribers to use Anthropic Programming Assistant with OpenClaw and other third-party tools.

According to the customer’s email It was shared on Hacker NewsAnthropic said that starting at noon Pacific on April 4 (today), “subscribers will no longer be able to use your Claude subscription limits for third-party tools including OpenClaw.” Instead, they’ll have to pay for additional usage through a “pay-as-you-go option that’s billed separately from your subscription.”

The company said that although it is starting with OpenClaw today, the policy “applies to all third-party tools and will be rolled out soon.”

Claude Code’s Anthropic Head Boris Cherny Written on X The company’s subscriptions “were not tailored to the usage patterns of third-party tools” and that Anthropy is trying now “To be intentional in managing our growth to continue serving our customers sustainably over the long term.”

The announcement comes after OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger said it was Join Anthropic competitor OpenAIwith OpenClaw continuing as an open source project supported by OpenAI.

Steinberger Publishing He and OpenClaw board member Dave Morin “tried to talk some sense into Anthropians” but were only able to delay the price increase by a week.

“It’s funny how the timings match up, they first copy some popular features into their closed tools, then they close open source,” Steinberger said.

But Cherni He insisted That the members of the Claude Code team are “big fans of open source” and that he himself “put out a few[pull requests]to improve the efficiency of OpenClaw’s fast cache specifically.”

“It’s more about engineering limitations,” he said, adding that Anthropic is still offering full refunds to subscribers. “We know that not everyone has realized that this is not something we support, and this is an attempt to make it clear and upfront.”

Meanwhile, OpenAI recently I closed the Sora app and video creation templatesIt’s said to free up computing resources and as part of a broader effort to refocus on winning software engineers and organizations that increasingly rely on products like Claude Code.