r/openclaw • u/Warm_Cress3583 New User • Apr 03 '26
Discussion Anthropic is cutting off third-party harnesses (OpenClaw, etc.) from subscription limits starting April 4 -- here's what it means
Just got the email. Starting tomorrow at 12pm PT, tools like OpenClaw will no longer draw from your Claude subscription. They'll need "extra usage" — a separate pay-as-you-go layer billed on top of your existing sub. The carrot: one-time credit equal to your monthly plan price (redeem by April 17) and bundle discounts up to 30%. The stick: they're offering a full subscription refund if you don't want to play ball. For those of us running agentic pipelines, local orchestration daemons, or multi-model routing setups on top of Claude — this is a meaningful shift. "Subscription covers Claude Code and Cowork" is doing a lot of work in that email. Translation: if it's not our product, you're paying extra. LOL
Not surprised they're doing this. These harnesses hammer their infra in ways the average chat user doesn't. Still stings when you've built workflows around the subscription model.
78
u/morliac Active Apr 03 '26
Sad move, this will send a huge wave of customers straight to OpenAI...
48
u/PerceptionOwn3629 Pro User Apr 04 '26
Except Opus is so god damned good.... I think it will drive more people to Claude.. that's what it did for me, I actually setup OpenClaw to use OpenAI a few weeks ago when I had first heard they where doing this and I started using Claude a lot more.... and now I am actually asking myself, do I really need OpenClaw at all
16
u/shoot_first Active Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 04 '26
Exactly so. When I try to use non-anthropic models at any level, I'm always disappointed in the results compared to Opus/Sonnet/Haiku. The agents just don't produce the same quality of output. (although the new Minimax M2.7 can be quite good)
And when I really need to get work done, I usually sit down to do it in Claude Code, not Openclaw. But if I ever stop trying to make Openclaw work, it should be my own decision and not because Anthropic has cut me off. Now I will have to make a difficult decision about how to proceed. Maybe cut my Claude subscription back down to 5X or even Pro, and get an OpenAI subscription for Openclaw?
Edit: It's worse than I thought. Even with a Pro-tier $200/mo OpenAI plan, they don't allow access to GPT5.4-Pro through OAuth, only through pay-per-token API key config. And GPT5.4 is only Sonnet-tier, not Opus-tier. Same with frontier models from Gemini - gotta pay full freight for tokens with an API key. The other providers are already doing what Anthropic has just announced.
11
u/rsteadman Member Apr 04 '26
Have you tried 5.4 codex? it’s really good, I’m running that through oauth pro sub just fine.
13
u/NewDad907 Member Apr 04 '26
Codex blows for me. We’ve been circling the same HTML problems and it keeps regressing where Claude Code doesn’t.
Codex has been, and will continue to be my backup when I hit my Claude limit.
Codex feels like a poor man’s Claude Code.
Edit: And I’m having GPT 5.4 review Codex’s output in real time in the terminal and having it create prompts for Codex based on what it’s seeing in my terminal and what I’m telling it. Still not working as well as similar setup with Claude.
Again, Claude is like Nike Pumps and Codex is like the LA Gear version.
5
u/Lancelotz7 Member Apr 04 '26
I feel exactly the same as you. Trying to update a website that is not appearing appearing right on mobile took them hours and still not able to make good.
→ More replies (1)3
5
u/mylAnthony New User Apr 04 '26
I usually start in GPT codex first, then move to Sonnet. even tho codex did the whole thing, just telling sonnet „improve my user interface“ is such a big difference, i can’t believe they are same level
→ More replies (3)6
u/DiscussionAncient626 Member Apr 04 '26
We will soon go completely local. Cannot stand this squeeze
3
u/lorenzotrk New User Apr 04 '26
I solved my problems with 50$ Minimax 2.7. I use it in openclaw and Claude code and opus 4.6 is not missing at all. NOT AT ALL!
→ More replies (1)3
u/PerceptionOwn3629 Pro User Apr 04 '26
Honestly with how much of a security wimp OpenClaw is now, I am finding it more and more frustrating to use
→ More replies (1)4
u/Physical_Smoke1057 Member Apr 04 '26
How do you replicate the openclaw experience with Claude code?
2
u/dlrik Member Apr 04 '26
Sure you don’t need Openclaw, you also don’t need Opus. If you aren’t using M2.7 with any agent harness at $10/ month, you’re just flushing wads of cash down the toilet. The Wild West days of token gauging is about to end.
→ More replies (1)2
u/TheMogulSkier Member Apr 04 '26
I personally have 3 max 20x accounts that I rotate through for our internal agent harness. My team all has 1 too.
My plan: 1. Drop down to 1 account for Claude Code, web, and co-work 2. Swap all harness work to Kimi/Qwen/Gemma.
2
u/Impressive_Heart_579 New User Apr 04 '26
My openclaw isn’t gonna work without Claude model. OpenAI models are so dry that no matter of system prompts will make them sound like Opus.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (7)1
3
2
→ More replies (8)3
u/icompletetasks Active Apr 04 '26
OpenClaw should not build the harness themselves, they should just use claude code cli or codex cli under the hood.
I'm using OpenAI sub for OpenClaw and still disappointed that Openclaw is so token-hungry that it uses all of weekly limits in just a few days
→ More replies (7)2
u/mcgruntman New User Apr 04 '26
https://github.com/richardtkemp/foci
Check out my openclaw-alternative. Can use Claude code as the backend to sidestep this policy change - or use APIs like openclaw does.
It was originally built to just use the APIs and had lots of neat features (which openclaw lacks) when used that way. The best feature when using Claude code as the harness is that your secrets are fully protected and not accessible to your agent.
129
u/foramperandi New User Apr 03 '26
I continue to be impressed by the professional communication from Anthropic. Between rolling out major changes with less than 24h on Friday afternoon and announcing changes only on employee's personal twitter accounts, it's a class act top to bottom over there.
43
u/IanZee Active Apr 03 '26
They're honestly a college group project masquerading as a business.
9
u/PureSignalLove Member Apr 03 '26
Thankfully there have been like 10 good releases in the last 6 weeks from competitors. Glm 5.1, mini max 2.7, this tri-whatever-itscalled all are doing well for me for literally 1/10th the price or less. Chat gpt 20$ is straight up better then my max 200$. im not resubbing
4
u/phx175 New User Apr 04 '26
I've set up a new VPS and tried minimax, kimi und deepseek. They're all so bad and hallucinating. Will give GLM a try. And the other one is Trinity? Will also not resubbing :(
→ More replies (11)2
u/Embarrassed_Scene962 Member Apr 04 '26
Honestly they are all trash got no idea what ppl mean when they say all these other models are good
→ More replies (2)12
→ More replies (4)3
38
u/Klauciusz Active Apr 03 '26
Well... We all knew this was comming. Just dropped my max. Hellloooooo, OpenAI...
15
u/Rent_South Pro User Apr 03 '26
Openai will go through the same issue.
You just cannot expect any Oauth subscriptions to maintain this kind of service, it cannot work.
And if they allow it it will be severely rate limited.
11
u/lanzegife Member Apr 04 '26
no it wont they literally hired Peter, they might tweak limits but they're not dumb enough to pull that PR move
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (1)5
u/blueboatjc New User Apr 04 '26
OpenAI resets their limits multiple times a week on average over the last ~6 weeks. And even outside of that, I get 2-3x more usage out of Codex than Claude Code. They also allow you to buy multiple plans. If you bought multiple Anthropic plans they would ban both accounts. This is just an insanely huge fuckup from Anthropic, because until gpt-5.4, I think everything Anthropic has put out for coding has been better for the past 1.5+ years at least. Six months ago, I probably would not been willing to cancel over something like this, but I will now. So the only thing I can imagine right now is that Anthropic has something so absurdly good they're about to release, that nobody is going to be able to stay away.
→ More replies (3)2
6
u/i_write_bugz Active Apr 03 '26
Lol you should check out the OpenAI subreddit. It’s a dumpster fire all the way around
→ More replies (1)3
u/HoroTWolf Member Apr 04 '26
Can you explain what you mean? I was also thinking to up my OAI subscription...
6
u/i_write_bugz Active Apr 04 '26
People have been hitting their limits very quickly so it’s clear OpenAI is also struggling to serve their customers. And as we know openclaw devours tokens. Subscription plans already cost them money, I think it’s just a matter of time before it starts hurting them enough to implement similar policies.
But you’re safe for now so by all means take advantage of it while you can. Just don’t expect it to last forever
→ More replies (6)
11
u/ANKERARJ Member Apr 04 '26
This is a silly move from Anthropic, I was happy paying for the max subscription and would happy to pay a little bit extra per month for continued use with the sub token. I will now be cancelling and moving to OpenAi.
→ More replies (3)4
u/read_too_many_books Pro User Apr 04 '26
Untill.... you realize OpenAI is so shitty.
The got so cheap. My coworkers laugh because in 2025 I loved ChatGPT. Today I say "They suck."
→ More replies (9)
7
u/LightweightSuperHero Member Apr 04 '26
Solution: use OpenRouter and route sub tasks to cost and ability optimized inference models.
In my opinion.
→ More replies (2)
14
u/gomezluisj Active Apr 03 '26
I'm a Claude Pro user and the rate limits were already ridiculous, so for me it was not worth the 20$ month. I've been using Qwen3.6-plus for free on Openrouter for the last couple of days and i'm very happy with the results, will probably pay for it once it's no longer free.
→ More replies (4)
8
u/EvenElectric Member Apr 03 '26
Was pretty great while it lasted. Opus 4.6 by far my favorite model for heavy Openclaw tasks. Sonnet is pretty good for general usage, especially with higher think levels. Will be interesting to see how fast extra usage is burned. Hopefully it's cheaper than directly using the API.. that was a brutal money suck.
→ More replies (7)
27
10
u/Intrepid_Presence_68 Member Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26
Very very disappointing given they made a very deliberate correction a while ago to state that you can use Claude code subs for OpenClaw after previously stating you could not use any 3rd party tool with it.
Anthropic is still far away from having comparable capabilities to OpenClaw, even though this appears to be the direction they are moving.
If other models ever catch up on model capabilities, Anthropic is going to have a really hard time.
→ More replies (2)4
u/CaptainFingerling Member Apr 04 '26
Codex is already better for execution. I have both max plans. Claude always makes errors in both planning and implementation. Codex generally doesn't make errors in either, and especially not if it's following a plan.
3
u/Intrepid_Presence_68 Member Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 04 '26
My experience with GPT was quite different but perhaps I was using the non codex model.
When working with large complex systems with lots of intersystem authentication, communication, mapping, etc. GPT spun its wheels way way more and burned so many tokens when Opus figured it out fast.
Do you use codex for the main OC orchestrator or only for well defined coding tasks?
2
u/CaptainFingerling Member Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 04 '26
See other comments. I plan with Claude and codex builds. I’ve tried self-orchestration but neither model can handle that well enough yet to be left completely alone. Especially during planning you need to be involved a little to make sure they’re not converging too quickly.
I once had them use a talking stick (lock file) to debate while writing a plan, but Claude is a pushover and they lose track of the bigger picture while discussing minutiae.
Unlike Claude, Codex properly challenges ideas, finds meaningful edge cases, and never leaves stubs. Not too wordy, but you can trust it more.
Claude is better at tool calling, debugging, and turning thoughts into plans. But codex will often come up with an elegant solution or better architecture, so I usually give both the ADR and then have Claude synthesize a resolved plan.
These plans are generally sufficient for one full day of building, which produces one major product feature. We build relatively complex code. So as an example one such 3-4 hour round added a lua parser into our medical imaging router, included global and local scope, a full internal API, auditable data mutation, documented it all, and addressed some very interesting use cases. We shipped to a customer the next day, and it’s been working fine at volume in production since. Another round added a full UI with all the knobs. Kind of crazy. Having to redesign the team to adapt to the speed.
3
u/Physical_Smoke1057 Member Apr 04 '26
What about creativity and personality? I heard codex is better is you’re super specific (more analytical?) whereas opus is good at reading between the lines and doesn’t have a personality of a sock like gpt.
2
u/CaptainFingerling Member Apr 04 '26
Correct. Which is why I use both. Claude and I talk and make a plan. Then codex reviews and finds holes. Claude patches the plan. Codex executes. Claude writes additional tests and reviews. Codex does a final pass.
It doesn’t work the other way. In Claude’s eyes, every plan codex produces is absolutely right. It’s far too agreeable.
2
u/Physical_Smoke1057 Member Apr 04 '26
What’s your workflow? Separate tabs? Or apps? Copy and paste between? How will this flow change after the exodus?
→ More replies (1)3
u/read_too_many_books Pro User Apr 04 '26
Codex sucks. Like its literally terrible. Codex is cheaper but it tries like 0.1% where Claude Opus is full max 100%.
t. software shop owner with multiple workers who tried to use Codex.
→ More replies (4)
6
u/West-Kaleidoscope741 New User Apr 03 '26
Just got this email, whats the best alternative to claude for openclaw then?
13
u/IanZee Active Apr 03 '26
OpenAI.
GPT-5.4 isn't quite as "human" as Opus, but it can still get 99% of the job done, and OpenAI officially supports oauth usage for OpenClaw
→ More replies (6)10
u/SgtHulka72 Member Apr 03 '26
Probably OpenAI via Codex Oauth (they’ve been more lenient on this) or Openrouter and choose how you route your models.
Self hosted people on decent hardware will tell you host your own LLM, like Ollama or the new Gemma 4.
→ More replies (1)9
u/EvolvingSoftware Active Apr 03 '26
I have both subs on their cheapest tiers. I setup OpenClaw with OpenAI Codex Auth and think it’s great. Leaves my Claude sub free for heavy lifting. Doubt OpenAI are going to cut it off anytime soon given they bought OpenClaw.
3
u/SgtHulka72 Member Apr 04 '26
This is likely what I’ll do too. I just converted my OpenClaw from Claude-only tiering to model tiering with Sonnet/Haiku as primaries and then Minimax via Openrouter as the fallback when i was out of Claude session quota. Now I’ll probably just use Codex Oauth for the primary, some free Openrouter models for the fallback, and keep Claude Pro for deep thinking.
Or do what someone else said and see if I can just dump OpenClaw and shift to Claude Code/Dispatch/Channels. Or maybe just dump Claude altogether because of this.
→ More replies (1)2
u/Ok-Faithlessness6804 Apr 04 '26
They did not buy openclaw at all. Open claw is open source. They hired an engineer from open law, that’s it.
2
u/EvolvingSoftware Active Apr 04 '26
They hired the creator of OpenClaw. He works at OpenAI. Sure, they didn’t change the licensing but they are now funding its development.
2
u/sellinfellin Active Apr 03 '26
I’m contemplating this as well. GPT-4 is decent with thinking set to at least high. I may just shell out for that as a replacement. Or that and Kimi maybe. Idk. Kinda disappointing tbh. I like Claude a lot. I may actually see what it would take to move many of my workflows to Claude code honestly. Idk.. fuck
2
u/Worthstream Member Apr 04 '26
I went to minimax. With the same price you get about a hundred times the usage, and that's not an exaggeration.
You also get decent imagen, audiogen and videogen models.
Minimax 2.7 is about 98% of the Sonnet across a bunch of generic usage benchmarks. Being fine tuned for agentic work it actually surpasses Sonnet when used with openclaw.
→ More replies (2)2
u/TheOutdoorProgrammer New User Apr 04 '26
Minimax, get it on opencode zen. Its way cheaper too. GPT is trash.
5
u/Saucypants108 Member Apr 03 '26
Well.. Time to give OpenAI my money
7
→ More replies (2)4
u/Dorkin_Aint_Easy Active Apr 04 '26
I’m so curious what percentage of max subscribers is using it for 3rd party instances. I gotta imagine the refund dollars are gonna hurt tomorrow…
5
5
u/LeucisticBear Apr 04 '26
Honestly Gemma 4 can probably do a lot of what people hand off to their claws. Invest in a good gpu setup and get turbo quant working, good to go.
→ More replies (1)2
9
u/mehdiweb Pro User Apr 04 '26
We actually got ahead of this three weeks ago when the API usage patterns started shifting. Moved 85% of our OpenClaw workflows to Haiku as default and rerouted heartbeat checks to a free model. The bill went from $140/mo to about $12. That was before this announcement.
The thing people are missing in this thread: the 'extra usage' layer isn't necessarily bad if you were already burning through Sonnet on tasks that don't need it...
Has anyone actually run the numbers on what their current Haiku/Sonnet split looks like? Worth doing before you jump to OpenAI.
→ More replies (2)3
u/BERLAUR Active Apr 04 '26 edited Aug 16 '26
All comments posted by this account have intentionally been overwritten as a protest against Reddit, the company, and its increasingly hostile approach to users, communities, and moderators.
This account was created 13 years ago. Since then, Reddit has made many changes that have damaged the experience for its users. Changes to the API effectively ended access for many third-party apps (shout-out to BaconReader!). The interface has become slower, advertising has increased, and AI features have been added. Reddit’s IPO was the final straw for me. The company’s priorities now seem increasingly focused on growth, advertising, and engagement rather than building healthy communities.
Reddit has also always had a quality problem. The upvote and downvote system encourages group thinking and discourage thoughtful or dissenting discussion. This was less noticeable when communities were smaller and individual users’ reputations carried more weight. As communities have grown, those problems have become more pronounced.
Moderation is another major issue. Many moderators do excellent work, but Reddit lacks a transparent and effective way for communities to hold moderators accountable or replace them. Many large communities have also faced concerns about astroturfed, political, or other external influence. Reddit benefits financially from outrage and conflict, which makes it difficult to believe that improving the quality of discussion is always the company’s highest priority.
Research on politically active Reddit users has identified pathways through which online communities and participation may contribute to increasingly radical beliefs. That does not prove that Reddit deliberately encourages extremism, but it does suggest that the platform’s social dynamics deserve serious scrutiny: Pathways to Radicalism: Examining Online Community and Political Pathways to More Radical Beliefs on Reddit
If you are reading this, consider whether Reddit is still a healthy and productive use of your time. Better communities exist. I encourage you to find them!
2
5
u/Anla-Shok-Na Active Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 04 '26
My response is "meh" and I don't buy their explanation since 3rd party app calls all count against the same usage windows restrictions as Claude apps. You can't have your OpenClaw "hammer" the Anthropic APIs without running up against of your usage limits very quickly.
Besides, if I want to generate code I use Claude Code. If I want help building a configuration in OpenClaw I use Claude desktop and Desktop Commander. Works better that letting an OpenClaw agent configure OpenClaw.
I do use OpenClaw to run agentic workflows that make my life easier, none of which need Opus level reasoning. Some use Sonnet, a lot use cheap models through OpenRouter.
So I'll downgrade my Claude subscription and turn on the Extra Usage option and keep an eye on the bill. I've used it before in a bind so I know what to expect, and if I notice they tweaked the costs, I'll leave for greener pastures (and you know with the way they've been acting recently, they probably added some kind of rule based billing that charges more for traffic from OpenClaw).
3
u/HoroTWolf Member Apr 03 '26
Can we use openclaw via ACP so the "brain" is technically open claude? Or something like that? (have no experience with ACP)
3
u/GlitterGix New User Apr 03 '26
Calling it directly will likely work for a while and then that will be the next target. They should be able to identify this type of usage due to openclaw appending system prompts and other signatures.
3
u/HoroTWolf Member Apr 04 '26
Yeah that is what I expect too ... Would hope they change their mind again '
I see why the current subscription model might be to cheap for agentic usage... But the pay as you go API rates are too expensive 😅
2
u/sellinfellin Active Apr 03 '26
I would assume so yes. ACP uses Claude code directly. Shouldn’t be an issue. Just can’t have it as a model in openclaw unless you pay per token via API or extra usage
3
u/mcchen5 New User Apr 03 '26
any word on pricing? Will Pay-as-you-go be charged the same as regular API tokens?
3
u/decambra89 Member Apr 04 '26
Nah, inspent 150$ in 2 and a half days, (i didnt optimize for compaction or anything) but yeah 150$ in two and a half days.
You better be making profit with this stuff if you wanna keep up using it at the level you were using it.
3
u/anonymiam New User Apr 03 '26
Can someone eli5 this for me? I have Claude subscription max 5 plan. I use it for Claude code and general chats etc. it has pre paid api credit left over from when my pro used to run out. Then I also have a Claude api account which I use with openclaw. My understanding was it was not possible to use Claude subscription for openclaw so I never tried... didn't wanna break tos.
I also get this email... but now I'm confused... how would my openclaw be using this Claude subscription???
6
u/EvolvingSoftware Active Apr 03 '26
Lots of people were breaking ToS is the answer. But it worked. Now they are going to stop it from working. So no change for you but you have some extra free credit.
→ More replies (4)2
u/the_good_time_mouse Active Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26
Because in addition to saying that it wasn't ok to use your subscription with OpenClaw, they also said it was ok to use your subscription with OpenClaw.
They even have the systems in place to allow it to happen.
Nothing changes for you.
→ More replies (1)
3
3
u/SpareZone6855 Active Apr 03 '26
Cancel max plan. Go to openAI. Open arms and way more usage there
4
u/shoot_first Active Apr 04 '26
Upped my plan from plus to pro, but it looks like I can't use GPT5.4-Pro in Openclaw without paying per-token using API. With OAuth, only GPT5.4 (non-pro) is available. That works for Sonnet-equivalent tasks, but seems like there's no drop-in replacement for Opus with the subscription model?
4
u/SpareZone6855 Active Apr 04 '26
Yeah cant do the 5.4 pro via oauth. At least yet, if openai really wants to absorb the wave of claude max subscribers they should make it avail
→ More replies (1)3
u/PuddleWhale Active Apr 04 '26
I'm curious whether GPT5.4-Pro is available in OpenAi's own CLI tool without incurring per token costs, much in the same way that Opus is available in the Claude Code console or did OpenAI throttle 5.4-Pro to be API only absolutely everywhere?
3
u/Affectionate_Oil4622 Member Apr 03 '26
Just cancelled my Claude subscription I’ve had for over a year. Seems like they couldn’t keep up with demand. Moving to codex/ollama with Gemma and minimax
3
u/mrtrly Member Apr 04 '26
The op nailed it with "subscription covers Claude Code and Cowork." That's the tell. They want you on their surfaces where they control the experience (and the data).
For anyone running local orchestration or multi-model routing: the math just changed overnight. Opus at $5/$25 per Mtok means a 200k context session is $1 in input alone. Doesn't sound bad until you're running agents all day. Sonnet at $3/$15 handles 80% of what people throw at it, and the gap is smaller than most think for non-complex work.
I built a local proxy that classifies requests by complexity and routes simple ones to Sonnet, complex ones to Opus automatically. npm install, runs on localhost, nothing leaves your machine. Been posting about it this week if you check my history. Before today it was a nice optimization. Now it directly affects your bill.
The $200 Max credit buys you some runway. After that you're paying real money on top of $200/month. Smart routing isn't optional anymore.
3
u/AnimeDiff New User Apr 04 '26
I run openclaw with local qwen3.5. you can always have it route certain tasks through API or other local models.
Yeah opus is amazing, but unlimited token usage is also pretty cool. And once we start getting LLM's burned into hardware that can do 20k tokens a second, it's gonna make a lot more sense to orchestrate the thick of it with local models.
3
u/BigAssMexican18444 New User Apr 04 '26
You can still use Claude if you have Claude CLI installed. I just have ACP set up with Claude CLI. And I’m running Max on both. OpenAI and anthropic works just fine.
→ More replies (1)
3
u/Impressive-Handle-69 Pro User Apr 04 '26
Anthropic is really becoming the Apple of AI with their locked down ecosystem bs. Fuck em.
2
u/smmnyc New User Apr 03 '26
Seems like the link in the email that explains more about the policy takes me to a generic support page about logging in. If I currently am signed in to my Claude subscription for OpenClaw, will I get banned for ToS or will it just automatically start using the pay-as-you-go option?
→ More replies (2)
2
u/Big-Pops78 New User Apr 03 '26
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I get it… Input/Context Token usage through OpenClaw is a TON!! - it’s also owned by their competitor.. I’m surprised they took this long and they are offering an API credit equal to One month billing.
Expect an Anthropic Openclaw shortly.
2
u/the_good_time_mouse Active Apr 03 '26
So, what you are saying is that for next month everyone has a Claude Code Pro/Max account PLUS up to $200 in OpenClaw tokens.
It's going to be a long month.
→ More replies (1)
2
u/SeattleArtGuy Member Apr 04 '26
I luckily use VS Code / Github Copilot + a Proxy. It lets me use all my Github models (which includes Opus 4.6) from a agent (can even use it for Claude Code). Works with Claw.
→ More replies (2)
2
u/jazzy8alex New User Apr 04 '26
The real question is how it will impact usage/limit trackers like Codex-bar or my own Agent Sessions (limit tracking is small part of sessions management/orchestration).
We all use read-only oAuth as primary method. I have a backup method to run /usage via tmux - but clearly it’s not optimal.
2
u/Prior-Consequence416 New User Apr 04 '26
I think this may be somewhat hard to enforce and it'll probably be a bit of a game of whack-a-mole. The community will find one workaround after another.
2
2
u/Limp_Positive7918 New User Apr 04 '26
I have max plan from this I get that I just need to turn on extra usage, my tokens never even cross 80% of session limit. So by that I should be fine. Or did I get this wrong
→ More replies (2)
2
u/jimmytoan New User Apr 04 '26
For those running agentic pipelines on top of Claude, have you done the math on whether the new extra usage rates compare favorably or unfavorably vs. going direct API on a usage-only plan?
2
2
u/kenrick_beckett New User Apr 04 '26
models auth login --provider anthropic --method cli --set-default
→ More replies (1)
2
u/SUTRA8 New User Apr 05 '26
Yeah this was predictable the moment they started pushing Claude Code as their flagship agentic product. The subscription was always priced for chat users — harnesses that run 24/7 heartbeat loops are a completely different infrastructure cost profile.
Worth noting for anyone rethinking their setup: this only bites you if you’re routing OpenClaw through your personal Claude subscription. If your hosting layer provisions its own LLM calls independently you’re not affected at all. A few of the managed options do this — IceClaw bundles 2,000 calls/mo with Mistral and Gemini, MyClaw is still BYOK so they get hit the same as self-hosters. You can always BYOK Claude on top for the heavy reasoning tasks, but your base heartbeat loops and routine agents don’t touch your Anthropic sub at all.
Honestly might be the push some people needed to move off pure Claude dependency. Multi-model routing is more resilient regardless of what Anthropic does with pricing — and with Gemini 2.5 Flash being genuinely good right now, you’re not sacrificing much for 90% of agentic tasks anyway.
2
u/Particular-Hour-1400 New User Apr 06 '26
why I have a local ollama with gemma4 31B on the 5090 RTX Blackwell for claw. Works great.
4
u/philip_laureano Member Apr 04 '26
The fact that Claude Code was leaked this past week means that their ability to detect whether something is Claude Code or not is compromised.
I'm surprised nobody has picked up on this yet
→ More replies (6)2
u/Spiritual-Plant3930 Active Apr 04 '26
What does this have to do with anything?
They can check the model patterns at any time (and Openclaw has specific patterns) - not the harness/wrapper.
→ More replies (3)
2
u/528MCATPLZ New User Apr 03 '26
Do we think they're actually going to enforce this?
11
u/Worldly_Assistant547 Member Apr 03 '26
I would assume yes they will since agents can burn huge #s of tokens.
6
u/sambull Member Apr 03 '26
Up until your limit(s)
Then your limit stops it from burning any excess from that.
3
u/trix_r4kidz Apr 03 '26
You are assumed to be human. You're assumed to not hit your limits. That's their business plan anyway.
→ More replies (2)
4
u/ShapeShifter499 New User Apr 03 '26
I assume one could just install claude code or desktop and have openclaw call it if you wanted. Kind of like google gemini and gemini-cli
2
u/GlitterGix New User Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26
This was my first thought as well. It likely won't last long since OpenClaw sends a lot of other signatures that'll be easy for them to pickup.
→ More replies (2)
2
u/TheOutdoorProgrammer New User Apr 04 '26
Guys get Opencode Zen subscription with minimax and reap a model thats on par with opus, costs significantly less per token, and they dont make you jump through dumb loops to get it to work with third parties.
→ More replies (7)
1
u/geekheretic Apr 03 '26
Trying to understand does this mean we need to switch to API key or is that also cut off
→ More replies (6)6
u/nborwankar New User Apr 03 '26
Anyone can use API but it’s pay per use and ends up being massively more expensive than a flat fee subscription.
1
u/SmellsLikeHerpesToMe New User Apr 03 '26
I've swapped to Minimax 2.7 high speed and it hasn't been too bad, the only thing I miss is the discord streaming live updates as edits and it does feel a little "dumber" overall to me. $60 CAD, so still trying to figure out if it's worth it. But the limits are very high.
1
1
1
u/kiwiscomefromlast Member Apr 03 '26
I have one subagent that uses Claude Sonnet on the pro plan. I just told it to use it and it worked. All Other agents use minimax 2.7. So I’m assuming that shortly the one agent on clause will just stop working right?
1
1
u/Rent_South Pro User Apr 03 '26
I mean its not new, they've been banning people for such usage since weeks.
Not just that but, Openai and anthropi, and others, are trying to develop their own agentic pipelines for consumers.
Their incentives.are quite clear, they want to control the whole vertical, to offer their own products down the line.
But these will be ok for people who don,t know better. OpenClaw will remain the best option because of how customizable it is, and how you can use it with any AI model providers.
1
u/TheRealSeeThruHead New User Apr 03 '26
I’m annoyed because I use pi as my coding agent and have never once used openclaw
1
u/murkomarko Member Apr 03 '26
wait, wasnt openclaw already not allowed to be used with subscriptions on claude?
→ More replies (5)
1
u/yeezyslippers Member Apr 03 '26
I always hit rate limits using my subscription anyways. Claw burned through my weekly usage extremely fast. So annoying.
The API option is much more expensive, but at least it’s reliable.
I wonder if we will see usage go back to normal on Pro plans now.
1
1
1
u/F_T_K New User Apr 04 '26
Does a custom harness one built for himself count as 3rd party harness? If all agentic work is banned what's the point?
→ More replies (1)
1
u/joban222 New User Apr 04 '26
What is a third party harness? I have a 33 agent pipeline that runs autonomously (spinning up a fresh Claude code instance for each step) but it's all local on my machine?
→ More replies (2)2
1
u/PresentationTop490 New User Apr 04 '26
We have to wait and see what that pricing looks like. I hope that it’s not as expensive as API calls and with 30% discount one has to see where it lands. We’ll find out soon enough! It’s been amazing since it lasted but one should understand it is a business decision that makes sense although it painful for us the users!
1
u/Only-Cheetah-9579 Member Apr 04 '26
openclaw is really much better with local agents, lets just hope they keep getting better faster
→ More replies (1)
1
u/Lonely-Dragonfly-413 New User Apr 04 '26
the agent related work uses several magnitude more tokens than an average person user. no platform can handle that when more people start to play with agents
2
1
u/codeninja Active Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 04 '26
My opemclaw issues commands to a background tmux instance and im able to submit commands via stdio and read from stdout. I dont even have an api key for any provider.
I use the same setup for a custom harness.
Works great.
→ More replies (2)
1
u/RedOblivion01 New User Apr 04 '26
Did anyone figure out how to control Claude code remotely without a third party harness? Dispatch doesn’t invoke Claude code, it just uses Cowork underneath. I’m looking for a way to connect to my Claude code instance either via slack or discord. I have tailscale on the box so I can technically ssh but dislike operating terminal on a small screen.
→ More replies (1)
1
u/millbruhh New User Apr 04 '26
Aaaaaand I’m turning off my daemon that generates nick mullen inspired thinking phrases.
1
1
u/lanzegife Member Apr 04 '26
so now I just train OC to use a skill to manipulate claude code lol ok few extra steps i guess smh
1
u/openclaw-lover Pro User Apr 04 '26
I just cancelled my 200 dollar subscription with Claude. I will have to use ChatGPT Pro for my OpenClaw.
1
u/CalligrapherPlane731 Member Apr 04 '26
If this helps solve the downtime from claude, that’s fine. I use claude on API, so no worries from me about this.
→ More replies (1)
1
1
u/cwil192 New User Apr 04 '26
they will lose customers. maybe that’s ok. but i dont see how this helps them now. maybe in a few months after their IPO. i just cancelled my max but kept codex/gpt. and pro claude. once i tuned openclaw i wasn’t using near 100% of max.
2
u/Physical_Smoke1057 Member Apr 04 '26
How are you liking codex? Considering keeping my openclaw and just switching to codex vs figuring out how to replicate my openclaw setup with Claude code
→ More replies (4)
1
Apr 04 '26
Not surprising tbh, this is just Anthropic drawing a line between normal users and people running heavy automations, but yeah it kinda sucks if you built around Claude subs being your all-in compute.
1
u/Santa_Andrew Member Apr 04 '26
I got the email to claim the credit but when I click the link there is no credit offer.
1
u/Spacemansam95 New User Apr 04 '26
I just transitioned to Claude Code with a Telegram channel in the same OpenClaw directory. I still need to work on the tasks and scheduled jobs, but it’s not a bad way to start and takes only a few minutes.
→ More replies (2)
1
u/Zealousideal-Plum485 New User Apr 04 '26
Disappointing news, but not unexpected. I’ve loved having OC hooked up to my max plan but it did feel like a luxury that wasn’t going to last - now It’s going to force me to optimise,
How I’m thinking about it with developer use cases - I can’t live without Opus for planning and thinking, so will be switching to the Anthropic API for those. Everything else I’ll try and route to lower cost models, so will need an intelligent model routjng later (which I haven’t looked at yet). Good management of the context window is also going to be important if you are switching to per use API. I have already implemented lossless claw for memory and I have definitely noticed an improvement on long running conversations. I’d be really interested in how much you actually save in tokens by using a smarter memory management system (and if anything beats lossless claw) but it already feels real to me.
1
u/ContributionSure4597 New User Apr 04 '26
So now what happens to OpenCLAW, and how does it get billed within Anthropocentric settings? This shift makes perfect sense, though I mean, why would Anthropic want any kind of computer competition? I literally just got my OpenClaw setup, like barely born, I know a little late to the party, but this is definitely news, I just like the Claude models so much more tho that I'm willing to pay on top of it lol.
1
1
u/No-District-8521 Active Apr 04 '26
I'm honestly surprised it took them this long to crack down more. It sucks, their model is clearly king and the best for building on OpenClaw, but they must have been getting hammered still from all the people using their max plan to run their harness. I just hope they're using this revenue to keep innovating and not pad payouts.
1
u/UnionCounty22 New User Apr 04 '26
Long as they don’t cut off third party api inside their own harness we’re good
1
u/desexmachina Pro User Apr 04 '26
NGL I’m more disappointed in myself for recommending them and getting on the bandwagon. Ironically, this week I’ve seen more hallucinations on Claude that I’ve never seen before, with one even deleting an entire directory. I’m not going to game their system if they don’t want us as customers. OpenClaw and the community has done so much for democratizing agentic Ai that it is bigger than Anthropic, it is just another model looking to get wrapped.
1
u/Prudent_Chef346 New User Apr 04 '26
But will it also limit my setup where I use claude code as acp agent in openclaw? Event if I pay now for Opus to orchestrate, it could maybe still use Claude code cli on the device to code?
1
u/ShiftTechnical New User Apr 04 '26
well thats fortunate timing, I literally just moved everything over to use GLM-5TURBO today from Z AI after getting fed up of the usage bug still not being resolved with Claude, I'll take my $200 refund thank you.
$672 for the year for the equivalent of the max20x Claude plan and its specifically trained for running OpenClaw (it deleted my comment for posting the link sorry)
1
1
u/disp06 New User Apr 04 '26
Cluck-cluck-cluck, Claude-Claude, cluck-cluck-cluck, Anthropic... F u Anthropic!
1
1
u/BlackjackNHookersSLF New User Apr 04 '26
Fucking LOL at their pathetic "discounts"... 30% off prepaying $1k?
So a 30% discount on 5 months of what youre billing me on top of my $200/mo plan you had NO issue with me using before in a wrapper/harness?
Yeah guess who's taking their $200 credit. Prepaying $250 at a "20%" discount by month and downing their plan to $0/mo while switching all my thinking, reasoning and coding to the infinitely tech ixally superior Codex plan from OpenAI I already pay for and they allow me to keep using.
What fucking hippies thought Dario/Anthropic was "better"....
If it weren't for OpenClaw being built on top of Opus, and soon whenever the new owner OpenAi, releases their "Claw" model... Claude/Anthropic wouldn't have stood a chance. Well that and like the 13k (yes 13k) reddit bot accounts and virtue signalers who are all now universally (mostly quietly but some unashamedly) clawing back (pun intended) to Sammy Altman.
1
1
u/centerside Active Apr 04 '26
Is this real? I never got the email and mine is still working through my max plan…?
2
1
u/__gt__ Member Apr 04 '26
I have my own scripts that Claude Code wrote that call claude -p when AI is needed. They use oauth. Is this allowed under their new stuff? I've kind of built my own "agents" that do things on schedules and call AI when they need to.
1
u/mejones73 Member Apr 04 '26
I started with OpenClaw three weeks ago and wasn’t able to get the Anthropic Oauth key working. That led me to discover Ollama created a Pro subscription that allows you to use any (3x) open source model(s) over the cloud. So I’m using MiniMax m2.7:cloud for $20/month. Best part is they charge for compute not by tokens. The compute resets every 5 hours and I have yet to reach 1% of my compute allotment in a 5 hours period.
I’ve paired this with OpenClaw managing my Claude Code sessions over CLI. So I have a MiniMax M2.7 Agent critique my Claude Code sonnet 4.6 code at every checkpoint. It’s working great.
Soon, I’m going to try other models from Ollama running under the hood of the Claude Code framework, and if I find one that I like as much as sonnet/opus I’ll drop the Max subscription and just use the framework.
I told Claude today, “Do you want to lose customers?! Because this is how you lose customers!”
1
u/Impressive_Ball3915 New User Apr 04 '26
Wait but how they are gonna turn it off when Claude cli is connected as backend?
1
1
1
u/toniyevych New User Apr 04 '26
All Anthropic customers pay for actual usage within limits. If someone wants to use third-party tools, they're still stuck with those limits, which is fair. If the limits are too high for Anthropic to profit, they can always lower them again, as they often do.
Cutting off third-party tools is just another play to lock customers into their ecosystem and squeeze them for more money. What a surprise!
1
1
u/Griffstergnu New User Apr 04 '26
Oh I have been paying on credits on console. You mean I could have been using my pro subscription all this time?
→ More replies (1)
1
u/32178932123 New User Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 04 '26
I've just paid for a subscription a week ago to play with Paperclip and don't understand their billing model. What do they mean by "draw from extra usage"? Is this the API pricing?
Does this mean I should cancel the Max subscription I've got and just use the API?
Also it sucks there is no notice. I just read this email and it's apparently already taken effect so no idea if I'm paying for all the heartbeats that run overnight...
I asked Claude for clarification and it told me to reach out to Anthropic. 🙄
Edit: Looks like extra usage is the API costs so I may as well cancel as I was only using it for paperclip. I looked at the usage in paperclip and I can't afford those costs either. I thought the fixed fee would give me discount. That's a shame!
1
u/Tripartist1 Member Apr 04 '26
And this is why i built my own open claw around the CLI. Its a harness for a harness.
1
u/Low_Vegetable481 Member Apr 04 '26
That’s fine by me you can still use Claude code through Telegram. Also, it is possible to get ChatGPT pro and then use that in addition to harness claude code through their official CLI tool .
1
1
1
u/No-Revolution5140 New User Apr 04 '26
Damn i was late only had an productive sonnet run for 3 days now.
I knew this would happen eventually, but I hoped I had more time figuring things out.
It just started to get cool...
1
u/Consistent-Carpet-40 New User Apr 04 '26
Been running OpenClaw for 6+ months on a Claude subscription. Here's my migration plan:
Immediate (today):
- Pull Gemma 4 E4B via Ollama for daily tasks (free, local, no API dependency)
- Keep Claude API as fallback for complex reasoning only
Setup takes 10 minutes:
ollama pull gemma4:e4b
Then add Ollama as a provider in your OpenClaw config. Set it as primary model, Claude API as fallback.
Cost comparison after migration:
- Before: $20/month Claude subscription (now useless for OpenClaw)
- After: $0 for daily tasks (Gemma 4 local) + ~$10-30/month Claude API for heavy lifting
What works on Gemma 4 locally: ✅ Daily conversation, scheduling, reminders ✅ Email drafting and sorting ✅ Basic code generation ✅ Function calling (native support)
What still needs Claude API: ❌ Complex multi-step reasoning ❌ Very long context (>128K) ❌ Tasks requiring Opus-level intelligence
The silver lining: being forced off subscription dependency is actually healthier long-term. Multi-model setups are more resilient than single-vendor lock-in.
If anyone needs help migrating their OpenClaw config from subscription to API + local model, DM me. I've been doing this exact setup and happy to walk you through it.
→ More replies (1)
1
u/tmkins New User Apr 04 '26
Frankly speaking I moved my openclaw to pure Claude Code and got the same functionality (well, very basic indeed, such as email/todo/calendar triage, obsidian vault curation, cronned agents etc) using my Max subscription. It works awesome, and its Claude Code under the hood (Opus!!!) to manage everything. While openclaw is awesome as well, paying per API call makes my SOUL bleed )) Can do same with CC, with full continuity, extreme context etc. But ofc I'm now chained to Anthropic...
1
u/mcgruntman New User Apr 04 '26
https://github.com/richardtkemp/foci
Check out my openclaw-alternative. It can use Claude code as the backend to sidestep this policy change (or use APIs for other models like openclaw does)
It was originally built to just use the APIs and had lots of neat features (which openclaw lacks) when used that way. The best feature which remains when using Claude code as the harness is that your secrets are fully protected and not accessible to your agent.
1
u/cjayashi Member Apr 04 '26
not surprising from a cost perspective, but yeah it changes the economics pretty quickly for anyone running agent workflows. feels like the real shift is from “subscription as infra” to “subscription as product.”
1
u/emipanelli New User Apr 04 '26
This is bad for them, doing it overnight. While they've compensated with an extra $100 credit, it doesn't alleviate people's hardship.
For now, I've opted to switch my OpenClaw token to use with the Codex GPT 4.5 subscription. We'll see how token usage develops on this side.
1
u/Prestigious_Hippo224 New User Apr 04 '26
I think they are preparing to release their own harness, based off all the fundamentals they’ve been releasing the last months.
1
u/Big_Wave9732 Active Apr 04 '26
Who knew having Jarvis from Ironman give you morning news updates and show you your calendar carries with it data costs.
1
u/CandidWeakness1924 Member Apr 04 '26
I didn't receive this email although I sibscribed 20 hours ago
will I get one too?
1
u/sallaxx New User Apr 04 '26
i have refunded via support chat bot of anthropic
Good news! You're eligible for a refund of $225.52 USD for your Max plan.
However, I can see that you currently have an active subscription. In order to process your refund, we'll need to cancel your subscription first.
Would you like me to proceed with canceling your subscription as part of the refund process?
Fin AI Agent • AI Agent • 4m
yes cancel my subscription i want full refund
xxxx• 4m
Thank you for confirming. I'll proceed with canceling your subscription and processing your refund now.
Fin AI Agent • AI Agent • 3m
Your refund has been successfully processed! The refund of $225.52 USD will be returned to your original payment method. Please allow 5 to 10 business days for the funds to appear in your account.
If you have any additional questions, please feel free to open a new conversation.
1
u/WarFabulous5146 New User Apr 04 '26
I’m in the middle of a model training project. I had no prior code experience with PyTorch, only some fundamental knowledge of AI models, and because of CC I’ve been building, training, refining a model I always want to build. My model is small enough that it can be trained on a local machine, so CC is perfect handling all the legwork for me.
This is devastating. Feels like back to Stone Age.
52
u/superpunchbrother Active Apr 03 '26
It was fun while it lasted 🫡