Recently, Anthropic adjusted its subscription rules so that calling Claude with a third-party tool will no longer be included in the membership package — meaning users will have to pay extra if they want to use Claude through a tool like OpenClaw.

According to an email sent by Anthropic to users on Friday night, starting April 4 at 3 p.m. ET, Claude's subscription quota will no longer cover the use of third-party platforms such as OpenClaw.

However, users can still log in to their Claude account and continue to use these tools in two ways: purchase a separate subscription plan (currently discounted); Or use Claude's API key (pay-as-you-go).

In other words, if you open a membership, you can use Claude in various tools, but now you can't do it anymore - if you want to continue using it, you have to pay more. The threshold has become higher.

Why is it suddenly tightening?

OpenClaw, an AI tool that exploded earlier this year (jokingly called "lobster" by netizens), can automatically help people reply to emails, schedule schedules, and even check in, attracting a large number of users to use it frequently.

This high-intensity call put a lot of pressure on Anthropic's system, which eventually prompted the company to make adjustments.

Anthropic executive Boris Cherny explains, "We've been trying to keep up with the growing demand for Claude, but our subscription plans weren't originally designed for third-party tools like OpenClaw. Server capacity is limited, and we must prioritize users who use Claude's official products and APIs directly. ”

The deeper reason?

It is worth noting that OpenClaw founder Peter Steinberger has recently joined OpenAI, so some analysts believe that this policy adjustment is not only caused by technical pressure, but may also be intended to guide users to Anthropic's own collaboration tool Claude Cowork and reduce dependence on the "competition against related parties" ecosystem.

Anthropic has changed its way of making money

This policy change is actually an important shift in Anthropic's consumer-side business model: Previously, users could use Claude for a fixed monthly fee, including through high-frequency tools such as OpenClaw.

Now, Anthropic has taken this "high consumption" usage method out of subscriptions and instead charged for what you use.

The benefits of this are clear: it protects the experience of the average user (preventing the server from being overrun by a small number of people); It can also allow heavy users to pay for their high resource occupation and bring more reasonable income.

The introduction of additional plans with discounts also shows that Anthropic does not want to drive away OpenClaw users, but rather wants to find a balance between controlling server pressure and retaining people who are willing to pay.

But for OpenClaw users who are used to "monthly subscriptions", it is indeed more expensive to use in the future - this is an unavoidable fact.

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For AI platform stocks (e.g., Anthropic for potential IPOs):

This move marks its shift from "user growth priority" to "unit economic health priority"; The pay-as-you-go model is expected to increase LTV (lifetime value) for high-value customers; If the proportion of API revenue increases, the valuation logic will be closer to SaaS + cloud services rather than pure subscription systems.

For AI tool ecology:

Third-party agent tools need to redesign the billing model (such as built-in API quota packages). The risk of binding a single model is prominent - multi-model routing may become standard in the future; OpenAI may benefit from user return in the short term due to GPT-4o's cost-effective + loose policies.

 Risk warning:

If Anthropic significantly increases API prices in the future, it may accelerate users' migration to open source models (such as Qwen and Llama). If the regulation intervenes in the "platform banning third party" dispute, it may bring compliance uncertainty.