Chapter 08 of 8
The right plan for a business.
The plan you start on as one curious owner is rarely the plan your business should run on. Here's what each tier really buys you, what it costs for a real office, and the one line in the fine print about client data that decides it for most companies.
Most owners start the same way. They sign up for Pro on their own card, try it on a weekend, and by Wednesday they want the office manager on it too. That's the moment the plan question gets real, because the plan that suits one curious person is rarely the right home for a business, and the difference isn't mainly about price.
This chapter is the plain version of Anthropic's pricing page, with the parts that matter to a company pulled forward. All prices here are US prices before tax, as listed on September 30, 2026. Anthropic changes plans from time to time, so treat the numbers as a snapshot and the reasoning as the part that lasts.
What each seat costs.#
There are five tiers worth knowing. The Free plan is fine for a taste, but it doesn't include Claude Code or Cowork, which is most of what this book is about. Pro is $20 a month, or $17 a month if you pay for the year up front. Max comes in two sizes for people who use Claude all day: Max 5x at $100 a month and Max 20x at $200, both monthly only. Team is the business plan, sold per seat: Standard seats at $25 a month, or $20 billed yearly, and Premium seats at $125 a month, or $100 billed yearly.
Monthly price per person
US dollars, billed monthly, before tax. September 2026.
Enterprise works differently. The seat itself is $20 a month, billed yearly, but it covers access only: every bit of use is billed on top at Anthropic's API rates, with no included allowance. Self serve Enterprise starts at 20 seats, and the version sold through Anthropic's sales team starts at 50. It exists for companies that need things like audit logs, automatic account setup from their identity system, a compliance feed and custom data retention. Anthropic also lists a HIPAA ready offering and the option to keep processing inside the US for Enterprise customers who need them. If you don't already know you need those, you don't need Enterprise yet.
Between those two sits a practical ceiling. A Team plan needs at least two people and supports up to 150 seats, and you can mix Standard and Premium seats freely, so you pay for heavy use only where it happens. A company that grows past 150 people moves up to Enterprise.
How much use you get.#
Price is only half of it. Every plan has limits, and they don't work like a phone plan with a fixed number of messages. Your use is measured over a rolling five hour window, paid plans add a weekly limit on top, and everything draws from the same pool: chat, Cowork and Claude Code alike. Long conversations, big files, the most capable models and multi step tasks all use it up faster.
Usage per person, compared with Pro
Per five hour window, as Anthropic describes each seat. Pro = 1.
Two details matter for a team. First, limits are per person, not pooled, so one heavy user can't drain everyone else's allowance. Second, you're not stuck when someone hits the wall. On Pro, Max and Team you can switch on usage credits, which let work continue at standard API rates up to a monthly cap you set, and team owners can set spending limits for the whole company and for each person. You can also prepay discounted bundles: $45 for $50 of use, $200 for $250, or $700 for $1,000.
To see where you stand, open Settings and then Usage. It shows how much of the current five hour window and the current week you've used, and when each resets. Your weekly limit resets at a fixed time that Anthropic assigns to your account, so it's worth knowing your day. Now and then Anthropic also offers a free reset on eligible plans, which shows up on the same page.
In practice, most people in an office never touch their limit. The ones who do are the person building systems in Claude Code and whoever runs long Cowork jobs every day. Give those people bigger seats and leave everyone else on the standard one.
The line about your data.#
Here's the part that decides it for most businesses. Free, Pro and Max are consumer plans. Anthropic can use data from those accounts to train future models, including Claude Code sessions, when a setting called model improvement is switched on. You can switch it off in your privacy settings, and if you stay on Pro you should. But it's an opt out, set account by account, and it's easy for one person on the team to miss.
Team and Enterprise are commercial plans, and the default flips. Anthropic's words: by default, it will not use inputs or outputs from its commercial products to train its models. That covers Cowork sessions on those plans as well.
If client information goes anywhere near Claude, that default is worth more than any feature on the page.
The rest of what Team adds is the plumbing a business expects: one bill instead of a pile of personal cards, an admin who can add and remove people, single sign on, control over which connectors staff can switch on, projects the team can share, and Skills an owner can push to everyone, which the Cowork chapter covers. A Standard seat also gets slightly more use than Pro, and every Team seat includes Claude Code and Cowork.
One office grew into Claude the usual way: the owner on Pro, then the bookkeeper, then two project managers and a salesperson, each on a personal card, each with their own settings. Nobody could say who had model improvement switched on, a departing employee kept an account full of client notes, and five receipts arrived every month. Moving to a Team plan took an afternoon and fixed all three.
What a small office really pays.#
Take a real shape: a five person office where the owner builds things in Claude Code and runs long jobs, and four staff use Cowork and chat for their daily work. Here are the honest options, per month.
A five person office, per month
US dollars before tax, from the list prices above. Usage credits extra if used.
The highlighted option is where most small offices land: one Premium seat for the person doing the heavy lifting, Standard seats for everyone else, paid yearly once you're sure. If the owner is the only heavy user and the business is still just them, Max on its own is fine. The moment a second person joins, or a client file enters the picture, move to Team.
Which plan, at a glance
Sorted by how many people use it and how heavily.
Turn model improvement off
Standard for everyone else
Turn model improvement off
From 2 people up to 150
A few catches worth knowing.#
No plan is perfect, and a few differences can surprise people. Computer use, where Claude clicks and types on your screen to drive other apps, is available on Pro and Max but not on Team or Enterprise at the time of writing. Most offices never miss it, because connectors and the browser cover the same ground more safely, but if one person relies on it, give them a Max plan for that work and keep company data on Team.
One catch trips up people who set up Claude Code by following older guides online. If a setting called ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is present on the computer, Claude Code bills Anthropic's pay as you go API instead of your plan, and those bills arrive separately. If you're on a paid plan, you don't need a key at all for your own work, and the chapter on keys explains where the few keys you do need should live. Ask Claude to check for you in one line, and it will tell you which way it's being billed.
Max is monthly only, so there's no yearly discount. On Team, adding a seat is charged right away for the rest of the billing period, while removing someone doesn't refund the seat until renewal, so tidy up seat counts before the plan renews rather than after. And prices vary by country and can change, which is why this chapter gives you a way of choosing rather than just a number.
If you're setting up your own computer first, the getting set up chapter walks through the afternoon. Start on whichever plan gets you going today. Just don't let the business quietly grow up on five personal cards. The day a second person needs Claude is the day to move to Team.
Common questions.
Is Claude Code free?
No. Claude Code is included on every paid plan, from Pro at $20 a month up, and on every Team seat. The Free plan doesn't include Claude Code or Cowork.
How much is the Claude Team plan?
Team Standard seats are $25 per person per month, or $20 billed yearly. Team Premium seats are $125 per month, or $100 billed yearly. A Team plan needs at least 2 seats and supports up to 150, and you can mix Standard and Premium seats. Prices are US, before tax.
What is the difference between Claude Pro and Team?
Team adds central billing and admin, single sign on, admin control over connectors, shared projects, company wide Skills, and commercial terms where your content is not used to train models by default. A Standard Team seat also gets a little more usage than Pro, about 1.25 times.
Does Anthropic train on my business data?
On Team and Enterprise, not by default. Free, Pro and Max are consumer plans with a model training setting you can switch off in your privacy settings. Businesses handling client information usually choose Team for this reason.
How much does Claude Enterprise cost?
Enterprise is $20 per seat per month billed yearly, plus all usage billed separately at API rates. Self serve Enterprise starts at 20 seats and sales assisted at 50. It adds things like audit logs, SCIM, a compliance API and custom data retention.
What happens when I hit my Claude usage limit?
Limits reset on a rolling five hour window, with weekly limits on paid plans. You can wait, or turn on usage credits to keep working at standard API rates with a monthly spending cap. Pro, Max and Team can also prepay discounted usage bundles.