Anthropic has informed users that they can no longer use their Claude subscription limits for third-party interfaces like OpenClaw. An additional fee will be required for this feature.
Starting tomorrow at 12pm PT, Claude subscriptions will no longer cover usage on third-party tools like OpenClaw.
— Boris Cherny (@bcherny) April 3, 2026
You can still use these tools with your Claude login via extra usage bundles (now available at a discount), or with a Claude API key.
"Our subscriptions were not designed with the use of third-party tools in mind. Computational resources are a carefully managed asset, and we prioritize our clients who use our products and API," commented Boris Cherny, head of Claude Code.
Developer Reactions and Technical Limitations
OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger stated that he and board member Dave Morin attempted to persuade Anthropic's management. However, they only managed to delay the implementation of the new rules by one week.
woke up and my mentions are full of these
— Peter Steinberger 🦞 (@steipete) April 3, 2026
Both me and @davemorin tried to talk sense into Anthropic, best we managed was delaying this for a week.
Funny how timings match up, first they copy some popular features into their closed harness, then they lock out open source. https://t.co/Mgmv6YmW2B
"Funny how the timings match up: first they copy some popular features into their closed platform, then they shut out open source," the entrepreneur emphasized.
In response, Cherny stated that the startup team supports open source, and the decision was made due to technical limitations.
"Our systems are carefully optimized for one specific type of load. We continue to optimize to serve as many users as possible with the most intelligent models," he noted.
The developer reminded clients who disagree with the changes that they can cancel their subscription and receive a full refund.
It’s worth noting that in April, the AI startup mistakenly deleted thousands of repositories on GitHub in an attempt to remove leaked source code of Claude Code.