Last updated: 2026-08-19
Claude is Anthropic's family of AI assistant models, used by roughly 245 million monthly active users across its chat, API, and enterprise surfaces. Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus tiers cover chat, coding, and long-document work, and Max plans add a 1-million-token context window for full-codebase or full-book prompts.
About Claude
Claude is Anthropic's family of AI assistants, available through a web app, developer API, and enterprise deployments. Anthropic released Claude Sonnet 5 on June 30, 2026 as the most agentic model in the Sonnet line, and Claude Opus 5 followed on July 24, 2026 as the new flagship model.
Anthropic also launched Claude Science, an auditable AI workbench designed for conducting all stages of scientific research. Scientists can analyze literature, perform multi-step research, generate detailed artifacts, and develop manuscripts for peer review publication within a single, transparent interface that prioritizes interpretability and auditability.
The platform serves researchers, developers, and enterprises. API users span machine learning engineers building production systems, research institutions evaluating frontier models, and Fortune 500 companies implementing autonomous agents. Claude is available on the web, via API, and through enterprise deployments on AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by siblings Dario Amodei (CEO) and Daniela Amodei (President), both former OpenAI executives, and is headquartered in San Francisco. The company raised a $30 billion Series G round in February 2026 at a $380 billion valuation, with total funding topping $40 billion from backers including Google, Amazon, and Salesforce Ventures.
Screenshots
Pricing
Free tier: limited daily messages, Sonnet 5 as the default model. Pro: $20/month for web access with priority Opus access. Max 5x: $100/month; Max 20x: $200/month; both add a 1-million-token context window.
Team Standard: $25/seat/month; Team Premium: $125/seat/month with Claude Code CLI included. Enterprise: custom pricing with SSO and spend controls. Developer API: Sonnet 5 at an introductory $2/M input and $10/M output through August 31, 2026, then $3/$15 standard afterward.
Fable 5 and Mythos 5 run at a 50% weekly usage limit through July 12, then meter at $10/$50 per million tokens.
| Tier | Monthly price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | |
| Pro | $20/mo | |
| Team Standard | $25/mo | |
| Max 5x | $100/mo | |
| Team Premium | $125/mo | |
| Max 20x | $200/mo | |
| Enterprise | Custom |
Feature Comparison by Tier
| Feature | Free | Pro | Max 5x | Max 20x | Team Premium |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price / month | $0 | $20 | $100 | $200 | $125/seat |
| Context window | 200K | 200K | 1M | 1M | 200K |
| Default model | Haiku 4.5 | Sonnet 5 (primary) + limited Opus | Opus 4.7 / 4.8 | Opus 4.8 (priority) | Sonnet 4.6 + Opus 4.8 + Claude Code CLI |
| Claude Code CLI included | — | — | — | — | ✓ |
| Voice mode | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| MCP support | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| SWE-bench Verified score cited | — | — | 88.6% | — | — |
Key Features
- Claude Opus 5: Claude Opus 5 launched July 24, 2026 as Anthropic's new flagship, approaching Claude Fable 5's frontier intelligence at roughly half the price and posting the strongest internal benchmark results yet on evaluations like Frontier-Bench and GDPval-AA.
- Claude Sonnet 5: Agentic model released June 30, 2026 with near-Opus 4.8 performance, now the default on Free and Pro plans. Sonnet 5 plans multi-step tasks, calls tools like browsers and terminals, and executes autonomously at a level that previously required larger models.
- Claude Science: Auditable AI workbench for scientific research with literature analysis, multi-step experiments, artifact generation, and manuscript development for peer review.
- MCP Support: Model Context Protocol support ships on every tier, letting Claude connect directly to external tools, databases, and file systems through a standardized protocol instead of custom integrations.
- Vision & Code Execution: Analyzes images and runs Python code in a sandbox, combining multimodal reasoning with practical computation.
- Enterprise Deployment: Available on AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure with SSO, spend alerts, and API entitlements for team/enterprise plans.
- Claude Code's 1M-Token Context: Sonnet 5 is the default model in Claude Code, Anthropic's coding agent, with a 1-million-token context window for full-repository analysis in a single session.
- Claude for Government (beta): Beta compliance features and richer admin analytics showing usage and cost by group and user.
Pros
- The 1-million-token context window on Max plans is large enough to hold an entire codebase, a long legal contract, or hundreds of research papers in one session, a rare capability among frontier chat assistants.
- Claude Opus 4.8 leads SWE-bench Verified at 88.6% and GPQA Diamond at 93.6%, ahead of all publicly benchmarked alternatives as of May 2026.
- Healthcare, legal, and financial teams get a compliance-ready option: Zero Data Retention plus certifications covering SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001:2022, and a signed HIPAA BAA.
Cons
- No native image, audio, or video generation: Claude accepts image inputs but outputs only text and code, requiring a separate tool for any generative media task.
- Trustpilot shows a wave of April 2026 billing complaints over unauthorized gift-subscription charges and double-billing, indicating Anthropic's billing and support operations have not kept pace with growth.
- Free tier only includes base Haiku-class models; unlocking Sonnet 5 for daily use and occasional Opus access requires a paid plan, so the real cost of full capability is higher than the free headline suggests.
Product Information
- Cloud
- Yes
- Self-Hosted
- No
- On-Premise
- No
- Languages
- English
- Training
- Documentation (docs.claude.com), Anthropic Academy courses, Claude Code CLI guides
Data Handling
- Training-data policy
- Does not train on API or Enterprise user data. Consumer claude.ai users opted into model improvement by default with an opt-out available in settings. Enterprise and API customers have Zero Data Retention by default.
- Data retention
- Zero retention
- Compliance
- SOC 2 Type II · ISO 27001:2022 · ISO/IEC 42001:2023 · HIPAA (BAA available) · GDPR · CCPA · Zero Data Retention
Frequently Asked Questions
What are Claude's pricing plans in 2026?
Claude's Free plan costs nothing and defaults to Sonnet 5 with limited daily messages. Pro is $20 a month for higher limits and priority Opus access, while Max 5x ($100/month) and Max 20x ($200/month) add a 1-million-token context window. Team plans run $25 or $125 per seat per month, Enterprise is custom-priced, and the developer API bills Sonnet 5 at an introductory $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens through August 31, 2026, reverting to $3/$15 afterward.
Does Claude have a free plan?
Yes, the Free plan has no cost and includes a limited number of daily messages with Sonnet 5 as the default model, plus basic vision and file uploads. It does not include voice mode, priority Opus access, or the 1-million-token context window, which are reserved for Pro and Max. Message limits reset daily and can tighten during weekday peak hours.
What should you use instead of Claude?
ChatGPT is the closest mainstream alternative, with stronger native image and video generation through DALL-E and Sora. Gemini offers a comparably large context window and tighter Google Workspace integration for teams already on Google Cloud. Perplexity makes more sense for citation-heavy web research than for coding or long-document work.
Claude or ChatGPT: which should you pick?
Claude and ChatGPT both charge $20 a month for their entry paid plan, which puts the decision on strengths rather than price. Claude's Sonnet 5 leads on long-document analysis and autonomous multi-step coding, while ChatGPT keeps the edge on generated visuals through DALL-E and Sora. Teams handling regulated data lean toward Claude for its Zero Data Retention and HIPAA-ready compliance, which ChatGPT's consumer plans don't match.
What does it take to start using Claude?
Create a free account at claude.ai or console.anthropic.com; the Free plan needs no payment details. Sonnet 5 loads by default in the chat interface, or an API key can be created from the developer console for building it into an application. Developers running coding workflows can install Claude Code from that same console and have it connected to a terminal or IDE within a few minutes.
Top Alternatives
- ChatGPT: Pick ChatGPT if you want the widest third-party plugin and app ecosystem at the same entry price as Claude Pro.
- Gemini: Pick Gemini if you need the largest context window on the market and tight Google Workspace document integration.
- Windsurf: Pick Windsurf if you want an AI-native IDE with visual multi-file diffs instead of Claude Code's terminal-first workflow.
HokAI guides covering Claude
- Best AI Chatbots in 2026: Pick by the Job, Not the Leaderboard: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Mistral's Vibe, Poe and Character.ai compared on price and actual job fit, not raw model rank, with a decision table and 2026 pricing.
- Which LLM Should You Use in 2026? Claude, GPT-6, Gemini and DeepSeek Compared: Claude Opus 5.5 and GPT-6 Sol launched Sept 22, 2026, both cheaper than before. Compare pricing, benchmarks and picks for Claude, GPT-6, Gemini and DeepSeek.
- Best AI Tools for Writing a Recommendation Letter in 2026: ChatGPT, Claude and Jotform compared for a recommendation letter: 2026 pricing, data privacy tradeoffs, and a verdict for one-off and high-volume writers.
- Anthropic Taught Claude to Fill Carts. It Skipped the Register on Purpose.: Anthropic gave retailers free Claude commerce agents on Sept 2, skipped payment on purpose, and backed the results with numbers nobody has checked yet.
- The Top AI Tools in 2026: How to Actually Choose One: ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, Gemini, and Perplexity all cap out near $200 a month in 2026. A practical framework for matching the right AI tool to your actual job.
- Claude Max Used to Die by Wednesday. Anthropic's Fix Expires August 19.: Anthropic doubled Claude Code's limits in May and boosted them 50% more since. That extra 50% is a promotion, extended four times, due to end August 19.