Anthropic’s pricing page listed Claude Code as part of its $20‑per‑month Pro plan, but on Monday new users discovered the tool was unavailable after they signed up. Existing Pro subscribers kept access, creating a split that sparked confusion and criticism across developer forums.

Reddit threads and X posts quickly highlighted the discrepancy. One user wrote, “I signed up for Pro and can’t use Claude Code – the pricing page says it should be there.” The outcry centered on the perception that Anthropic had altered its offering without clear notice.

Amol Avasare, Anthropic’s head of growth, responded on social media, explaining that the change was a “small test on ~2% of new prosumer sign‑ups.” He said the experiment was designed to gauge how customers use Claude Code now that the product landscape has evolved.

When Anthropic launched the Max plan a year ago, it did not include Claude Code, nor did it have Cowork or long‑running async agents. Max was intended for heavy chat usage only. Since then, Claude Code was bundled into Max, and the introduction of Opus 4 and Cowork made long‑running agents commonplace. Avasare noted that “engagement per subscriber is way up,” and the company’s original plans no longer match current usage patterns.

Anthropic has previously adjusted its limits, adding weekly caps and tighter peak‑hour restrictions. The recent test reflects a broader effort to redesign its subscription tiers so that heavy users of Claude Code continue to receive a reliable experience.

Within hours, the pricing page was updated to again list Claude Code under the Pro plan, effectively ending the test for new sign‑ups. Some users remained dissatisfied, calling the brief removal “strange and confusing,” especially because the documentation had suggested a universal change rather than a limited experiment.

The episode underscores the challenges AI companies face as their products shift from niche tools to core workflow components. As developer demand for agentic capabilities grows, providers like Anthropic must balance pricing structures with the need to support increasingly complex usage.

Used: News Factory APP - news discovery and automation - ChatGPT for Business