Claude for Your Team · Lesson 6 of 7

Costs, seats and the monthly API credits

20 minutes. For the owner. Know what you'll pay, put a ceiling on surprises, and claim the API credits your Team plan already includes.

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A Team plan bill has three parts, and only one of them is fixed. This lesson walks through all three, then the part most owners never find: monthly API credits that come with the plan and expire if nobody claims them.

You'll need to be the Primary Owner or an Owner. Admins can't see billing.

Part 1: Seats, the fixed cost (5 minutes)

As of October 10, 2026, Anthropic's prices for Team seats are:

| Seat | Billed monthly | Billed annually | |---|---|---| | Standard | $25 per seat per month | $20 per seat per month | | Premium | $125 per seat per month | $100 per seat per month |

Plus tax. Team needs at least 2 seats and allows up to 150.

Comfort Zone's math. Marcus has six Standard seats and one Premium seat for Tina. Billed annually, that's 6 × $20 + 1 × $100 = $220 a month. Billed monthly, it would be 6 × $25 + 1 × $125 = $275 a month.

Changing seats

  • Buy or remove seats: go to Organization settings > Organization and access, click Manage under Total seats, then Add or change seats, and use the + or minus button next to the seat type.
  • Move someone up to Premium: go to Organization settings > Members, find them, and change the dropdown under Tier to Premium. It's prorated, and the difference is charged right away. If all your Premium seats are taken, you'll be prompted to buy one.
  • Move someone down to Standard, or reduce your seat count: both take effect at your next renewal (the annual renewal date on annual plans), with no prorated refund.

Two money traps to avoid:

  • An empty seat still costs money. Removing a person frees their seat, but your bill only drops when you reduce the seat count.
  • A pending invitation takes a seat. Clear out invites nobody accepted.

Who needs a seat?

Not everyone, on day one. Comfort Zone's technicians didn't get seats at first. Marcus's rule: a seat goes to a person with a named job for it. "Writes estimate letters" is a job. "Might try it sometime" isn't. When a technician has a real use (writing up job notes, looking up a manual), they get a Standard seat.

Part 2: Usage credits, the variable cost (5 minutes)

Each seat has its own usage limits. When someone hits theirs, they wait until it resets. Or, if you allow it, they keep working and the extra is billed. Anthropic calls these usage credits (you may also see "extra usage").

What Anthropic's help center says:

  • Usage credits are off by default.
  • To turn them on, go to Organization settings > Usage and click Enable under usage credits.
  • They're billed at standard API rates.
  • You can set a monthly spend limit for the whole organization, under Usage and spend limits: click Adjust limit, enter an amount, and click Set spend limit. You can also set a monthly limit for each member.
  • There's an MTD Spend column (month to date) for each person, so you can see who's using extra.
  • Members who hit a limit can ask for more, and you get notified.

Your choice:

  • Leave it off if you want the bill to be exactly the seat price. People who hit a limit wait for it to reset.
  • Turn it on with a firm organization limit if a blocked person costs you more than the overage would. Start small, say an amount you'd be comfortable seeing on the bill without a conversation, and review it in Lesson 7.

Never turn it on without a limit. "Unlimited" is an option on the screen. Don't pick it.

If one person keeps running into the limit every week, that's not a usage credit problem. It's a seat problem. Compare their monthly overage to the price difference of a Premium seat.

Part 3: The monthly API credits you already have (10 minutes)

Here's the part most owners miss. Team plans include monthly credits for the Claude API, the service developers use to build Claude into their own apps, websites and tools.

From Anthropic's docs and help center:

| Seat | API credit each month | |---|---| | Standard | $20 per seat | | Premium | $100 per seat |

Credits for all seats are pooled into one monthly balance, capped at $500. Each month's credit is based on the seats on your plan at the start of that billing month.

Anthropic's own example: three Standard seats and two Premium seats get $260 a month. Comfort Zone's six Standard and one Premium get $220 a month. A team of 20 Standard and 2 Premium would add up to $600, but the cap holds it at $500.

What they're for, honestly

The credits work in the Claude API, Claude Managed Agents, the Claude Agent SDK and the Playground. They don't cover Claude Code, and they don't pay for usage credits in the Claude apps from Part 2. They don't change anyone's usage limits in Claude.

So they're useful if someone builds something: a website chat assistant, a tool your IT partner sets up, a script that sorts incoming forms. If nobody at your business builds software, the credits may simply expire each month. That's fine. Claim them anyway, so they're ready the day you need them.

Credits expire at the end of each billing cycle (monthly on annual plans) and don't roll over.

How to claim them

Before you start:

  • You must be the Primary Owner or an Owner on the Team plan.
  • The plan must be active and in good standing. New subscribers can claim after 7 days on the plan.
  • The credits land in a Claude Console organization (Anthropic's developer site, platform.claude.com). You'll need to be an Owner, Admin or Billing member there, or create one during the claim. You don't need to add a payment method to it.

Steps:

  • On claude.ai, go to Organization settings > Billing.
  • In the API credits section, select Link organization.
  • Choose the Console organization that should receive the credits, or create one.
  • Review the credit terms and confirm by linking.
  • Check it worked: in the Console, go to Settings > Billing. The credits show in the Promotional credits section, with the amount and expiry date.

Choose the Console organization carefully. Anthropic says each Team plan links to one Console organization, and you can't change it yourself later; you'd need to contact support. Use a Console organization that belongs to the business, created with a company email, not a developer's personal one.

Two safety notes:

  • When the credits run out, API requests simply stop until next month's credits arrive, unless you've bought extra credits in the Console. Anthropic says this usage is never charged to your Claude plan. Don't turn on auto-reload in the Console unless you mean to.
  • API keys are passwords. Anyone building with these credits creates an API key. Keep keys in your company password manager. Never paste one into a chat, an email, or a shared document.

If you work with an IT partner or a developer, this is the moment to tell them the credits exist. They may have an idea you'll like.

Do this now
  • Write your seat math on the Team Setup Checklist: seats, type, monthly cost.
  • Decide on usage credits. If on, set an organization spend limit.
  • Claim the API credits (or set a calendar reminder for day 8 if you just signed up), and record which Console organization you linked.

Check it worked

  • You know your fixed monthly cost to the dollar.
  • Usage credits are either off, or on with an organization limit you chose.
  • The API credits show in the Console's Promotional credits section, linked to a business-owned Console organization.
  • Nobody has pasted an API key anywhere it shouldn't be.

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Next: put it all together. Thirty days in, check what's working.

→ Lesson 7: Capstone: the 30-day check

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