4 ms·

Claude subscription changes coverage of `claude -p`

60 points by ramoz 5mo ago

ramoz 5mo ago
The wording in the press is very confusing. Not sure if deliberate. If you're an active `claude -p` user, it will now cost you API rates vs being able to user your subscription. UPDATE: https://x.com/lydiahallie/status/2054650920768807313?s=20 https://x.com/lydiahallie/status/2054650920768807313?s=20 Still confused.
- aselimov3 5mo ago
  Where are you seeing that info?? The link you posted says nothing about -p
  - paulddraper 5mo ago
    It's literally there.
  - ramoz 5mo ago
    I wasn't able to post the official links because it was already posted by simple reposters who didn't understand, and titled their HN posts as "you get credits" basically this is the original thread https://x.com/ClaudeDevs/status/2054610152817619388?s=20 https://x.com/ClaudeDevs/status/2054610152817619388?s=20
- teg4n_ 5mo ago
  I mean it does cost you API rates, you just get a certain amount of credit by having a subscription.
  - darig 5mo ago
    [dead]
- solenoid0937 5mo ago
  You also get $200 in monthly credits so it's not bad.
  - gcr 5mo ago
    Ya but that monthly usage doesn't refill every five hours or every week the way your subscription usage does. Once you're through the $200, you're done until next month.
    - solenoid0937 5mo ago
      You can't seriously be expecting between $800 and $28,800 worth of API credits on a $200/mo subscription.
throawayonthe 5mo ago
hahahahahahaha
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
paulddraper 5mo ago
Title is misleading. (EDIT: Has been updated) https://x.com/ClaudeDevs/status/2054610152817619388 https://x.com/ClaudeDevs/status/2054610152817619388 You can claim a monthly credit that covers programmatic (`claude -p`, etc) usage. So a Claude subscription does cover it, but at a lesser amount.
- ramoz 5mo ago
  Happy to change the title if there is explicit clarity on what my `claude -p` usage costs me today & it not differing from what it'll cost me once the change is in effect.
  - paulddraper 5mo ago
    [dead]
puglr 5mo ago
It's a bit disheartening that this is generating so little discussion (this thread seems to be the one with the most comments, currently at 8). 99% of my max plan usage is non-interactive, and this post-June 15 pricing will far, far exceed what I can afford. I assume this applies to a great deal of us.
- mkw5053 5mo ago
  Out of curiosity, how are you using it and for what?
  - puglr 5mo ago
    Lots and lots of automation, along with long-running multi-instance headless tasks. My usage, which I was on the verge of increasing via a second Max plan, would cost 3 figures per day, rather than per month. I already know this because my initial tooling was prototyped against direct API usage, and that was the cost of my usage patterns. That is not sustainable for me. I understand that Anthropic can't subsidize all of us forever, but this will force me away from claude which is unfortunate. A number of the people I work with are similarly affected.
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    - DonsDiscountGas 5mo ago
      I'm curious what you're doing so often and repeatedly that can't be done with more normal software. Or maybe write a good school, I've noticed Haiku+good instructions often matches Opus
    - circuitwork 5mo ago
      Same. Lots of little tasks that add up over time. The economics might not be great for Anthropic, but the economics of this change definitely don’t work for me; I could build a home lab and recoup its cost in about three months for the same pricing. “Headless is expensive” is a weird tone to set given so many recent cc releases pushing for greater autonomy (agents view, auto mode). I’ve been happily single-homed on Anthropic for the last year, but I’ll be spending the next month rewriting projects off it to take advantage of better value elsewhere. I suspect that’s a one way door.
solenoid0937 5mo ago
Before the doomers come in, you get $200 in API credits every month for claude -p usage. Usage counts against those API credits. This is a nothing burger.
- ramoz 5mo ago
  This is much of a something burger for users who actively use `claude -p` under their subscription. Users will have to do their own math, but that 200 could come and go quite fast and then you're hitting normal API rates versus what you had previously been hitting. https://x.com/jeremyphoward/status/2054682882753597603?s=20 https://x.com/jeremyphoward/status/2054682882753597603?s=20
  - solenoid0937 5mo ago
    Sure, but if you spend that many tokens you're probably a pretty big net loss for the company anyways. No company will subsidize that level of compute for you indefinitely.
    - ramoz 5mo ago
      Yea that's fine and understandable. But like I said, this is something for those users. I launch many review processes locally with `claude -p`
    - user34283 5mo ago
      No. I just use claude -p to review some Codex output. The Pro plan is barely enough for this after the doubling of usage limits.
- gcr 5mo ago
  You're not understanding the difference between API billing and subscirption billing. Subscription usage refills every five hours. API billing doesn't.
  - Shadowmist 5mo ago
luckystarr 5mo ago
So what does that mean? Claude within ACP within my editor is billed differently than Claude via CLI?
- gcr 5mo ago
  As a fellow zed user, I fear this could affect us (though i'm not 100% confident). Zed uses their own adapter to implement claude's ACP support, and it's likely using `claude -p` (the agent SDK) under the hood. Hoping the Zed team will clarify.
  - mswphd 5mo ago
    it is using the agent SDK, see https://github.com/agentclientprotocol/claude-agent-acp/blob/main/src/acp-agent.ts https://github.com/agentclientprotocol/claude-agent-acp/blob...
gcr 5mo ago
A better link: https://support.claude.com/en/articles/15036540-use-the-claude-agent-sdk-with-your-claude-plan https://support.claude.com/en/articles/15036540-use-the-clau...
ed_mercer 5mo ago
I guess Openclaw can update their docs once again.
alyxya 5mo ago
This could end up becoming a cat-and-mouse game where users programmatically try to turn their non-interactive usage of Claude Code to appear interactive and Anthropic tries to detect and charge that under API pricing. I don't know if there's a proper solution here because there will always be borderline use cases like using Claude Code on a cloud VM, where it would be nicer to interactively do work through sending and receiving messages on a custom frontend rather than SSHing and using the CLI.
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 5mo ago
  Next thing to go will be loops and scheduled tasks, if they keep needing to trim usage to fit in the available compute, I suspect, if ‘claude -p’ is essentially gone, now.
bluesnowmonkey 5mo ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48126438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48126438
melonamin 5mo ago
I wonder how this cat-and-mouse game will end. I've been using my own wrapper around Claude CLI that overcomes some 'claude -p' limitations, and now I have even more reasons to. But inevitably, this will end, ultimately making AI a bit less accessible for consumers.
2001zhaozhao 5mo ago
I mostly get this change from their side except for the extremely misleading framing. I think in response to this change, I might write an open-source Claude Code GUI wrapper to wrap over the TUI and allow accessing it from a GUI interface. Still interactive (conforms to spirit of Anthropic's new rule), and runs Claude Code via the actual CLI (conforms to letter of Anthropic's rule), without even using the JSON output flag. It would just read the outputs directly from the terminal like a user would, and then translates the user's actions directly into actions to the Claude Code TUI. Tradeoffs: the thinking blocks are lost, and file changes from edit tools might have to be reconstructed after-the-fact using VCS commands because the TUI doesn't display them when accept-edits mode is enabled. Requires underlying terminal to have a giant width/height in order to reliably capture the outputs by reading the terminal alone. Interactive tools like AskUserQuestion will need to work via detecting that such a prompt is open and exposing the original CLI interface to the user temporarily. But overall it seems like it could give users most of the benefits of an interactive GUI interface (scrollable history, much higher info density, easy to copy text, browse features with mouse) while staying compliant with Anthropic's new rules both in letter and spirit. You can then build a worktree manager or whatever above this agent GUI layer. This way us interactive users can have our good tools back (and leverage the new claude -p credit for occasional automation features) while the people who are actually abusing the plan with 24/7 dark factories or openclaw are still locked out. (the only way Anthropic would not agree to this is if they had the ulterior motive of lock-in in mind...)
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- skeledrew 5mo ago
  I'd really love a proper CC GUI myself. > Tradeoffs [...] Sounds like you're thinking of scraping the raw terminal output. Consider using a terminal library (pyte[0] comes to mind) for interaction and processing the session files for tool use data, etc. [0] https://pyte.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ https://pyte.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
  - 2001zhaozhao 5mo ago
zitoshi 5mo ago
i don't quite understand the change. Does it impact purely claude code users?
- skeledrew 5mo ago
  It doesn't.
chatmasta 5mo ago
In other news, tmux send-keys is still free.
skeledrew 5mo ago
These Twitter/X links are killing me, especially when they don't work with XCancel which seems to be happening more frequently. This one just gave me a summary by Grok, and I have no idea now if I'm seeing the same thing that others are commenting on.
- frabcus 5mo ago
  Agreed. All I see is a grok summary of a lot of X posts. The original link is not suitable. Anyone have a link to a proper announcement?
  - user34283 5mo ago
    [dead]
  - paulddraper 5mo ago
    https://twitterwebviewer.com/?tweet=2054610152817619388 https://twitterwebviewer.com/?tweet=2054610152817619388
LinXitoW 5mo ago
It's really important to note that the programmatic vs. interactive framing is a little misleading. For example, if you're using some IDE integrations, that is still interactive, that is still the same usage pattern as using it in the Claude Code CLI. BUT with these new rules, it'll count against this special "programmatic" usage. Considering what kind of fuckups happened up until now everytime Anthropic vibe codes a horrible anti-automation "fix" (like billing extra usage just because the string "hermes" exists somewhere in the prompt), this will get funny/horrible really fast. After all, you can very easily script tmux to use Claude Code "interactively". What crazy shenanigans are gonna happen? Are people that type too fast, or people that copy paste too much, or people that output to markdown/json too often going to wake up to a 800$ extra usage bill or a banned account?
StaxReport 5mo ago
[flagged]
gpambrozio 5mo ago
[dead]
hammer-mei 5mo ago
[flagged]

60 points by ramoz 5mo ago

ramoz 5mo ago

The wording in the press is very confusing. Not sure if deliberate. If you're an active `claude -p` user, it will now cost you API rates vs being able to user your subscription. UPDATE: https://x.com/lydiahallie/status/2054650920768807313?s=20 https://x.com/lydiahallie/status/2054650920768807313?s=20 Still confused.

aselimov3 5mo ago
Where are you seeing that info?? The link you posted says nothing about -p
- paulddraper 5mo ago
  It's literally there.
- ramoz 5mo ago
  I wasn't able to post the official links because it was already posted by simple reposters who didn't understand, and titled their HN posts as "you get credits" basically this is the original thread https://x.com/ClaudeDevs/status/2054610152817619388?s=20 https://x.com/ClaudeDevs/status/2054610152817619388?s=20
teg4n_ 5mo ago
I mean it does cost you API rates, you just get a certain amount of credit by having a subscription.
- darig 5mo ago
  [dead]
solenoid0937 5mo ago
You also get $200 in monthly credits so it's not bad.
- gcr 5mo ago
  Ya but that monthly usage doesn't refill every five hours or every week the way your subscription usage does. Once you're through the $200, you're done until next month.
  - solenoid0937 5mo ago
    You can't seriously be expecting between $800 and $28,800 worth of API credits on a $200/mo subscription.

throawayonthe 5mo ago

hahahahahahaha

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

paulddraper 5mo ago

Title is misleading. (EDIT: Has been updated) https://x.com/ClaudeDevs/status/2054610152817619388 https://x.com/ClaudeDevs/status/2054610152817619388 You can claim a monthly credit that covers programmatic (`claude -p`, etc) usage. So a Claude subscription does cover it, but at a lesser amount.

ramoz 5mo ago
Happy to change the title if there is explicit clarity on what my `claude -p` usage costs me today & it not differing from what it'll cost me once the change is in effect.
- paulddraper 5mo ago
  [dead]

puglr 5mo ago

It's a bit disheartening that this is generating so little discussion (this thread seems to be the one with the most comments, currently at 8). 99% of my max plan usage is non-interactive, and this post-June 15 pricing will far, far exceed what I can afford. I assume this applies to a great deal of us.

mkw5053 5mo ago
Out of curiosity, how are you using it and for what?
- puglr 5mo ago
  Lots and lots of automation, along with long-running multi-instance headless tasks. My usage, which I was on the verge of increasing via a second Max plan, would cost 3 figures per day, rather than per month. I already know this because my initial tooling was prototyped against direct API usage, and that was the cost of my usage patterns. That is not sustainable for me. I understand that Anthropic can't subsidize all of us forever, but this will force me away from claude which is unfortunate. A number of the people I work with are similarly affected.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - DonsDiscountGas 5mo ago
    I'm curious what you're doing so often and repeatedly that can't be done with more normal software. Or maybe write a good school, I've noticed Haiku+good instructions often matches Opus
  - circuitwork 5mo ago
    Same. Lots of little tasks that add up over time. The economics might not be great for Anthropic, but the economics of this change definitely don’t work for me; I could build a home lab and recoup its cost in about three months for the same pricing. “Headless is expensive” is a weird tone to set given so many recent cc releases pushing for greater autonomy (agents view, auto mode). I’ve been happily single-homed on Anthropic for the last year, but I’ll be spending the next month rewriting projects off it to take advantage of better value elsewhere. I suspect that’s a one way door.

solenoid0937 5mo ago

Before the doomers come in, you get $200 in API credits every month for claude -p usage. Usage counts against those API credits. This is a nothing burger.

ramoz 5mo ago
This is much of a something burger for users who actively use `claude -p` under their subscription. Users will have to do their own math, but that 200 could come and go quite fast and then you're hitting normal API rates versus what you had previously been hitting. https://x.com/jeremyphoward/status/2054682882753597603?s=20 https://x.com/jeremyphoward/status/2054682882753597603?s=20
- solenoid0937 5mo ago
  Sure, but if you spend that many tokens you're probably a pretty big net loss for the company anyways. No company will subsidize that level of compute for you indefinitely.
  - ramoz 5mo ago
    Yea that's fine and understandable. But like I said, this is something for those users. I launch many review processes locally with `claude -p`
  - user34283 5mo ago
    No. I just use claude -p to review some Codex output. The Pro plan is barely enough for this after the doubling of usage limits.
gcr 5mo ago
You're not understanding the difference between API billing and subscirption billing. Subscription usage refills every five hours. API billing doesn't.
- Shadowmist 5mo ago

luckystarr 5mo ago

So what does that mean? Claude within ACP within my editor is billed differently than Claude via CLI?

gcr 5mo ago
As a fellow zed user, I fear this could affect us (though i'm not 100% confident). Zed uses their own adapter to implement claude's ACP support, and it's likely using `claude -p` (the agent SDK) under the hood. Hoping the Zed team will clarify.
- mswphd 5mo ago
  it is using the agent SDK, see https://github.com/agentclientprotocol/claude-agent-acp/blob/main/src/acp-agent.ts https://github.com/agentclientprotocol/claude-agent-acp/blob...

gcr 5mo ago

A better link: https://support.claude.com/en/articles/15036540-use-the-claude-agent-sdk-with-your-claude-plan https://support.claude.com/en/articles/15036540-use-the-clau...

ed_mercer 5mo ago

I guess Openclaw can update their docs once again.

alyxya 5mo ago

This could end up becoming a cat-and-mouse game where users programmatically try to turn their non-interactive usage of Claude Code to appear interactive and Anthropic tries to detect and charge that under API pricing. I don't know if there's a proper solution here because there will always be borderline use cases like using Claude Code on a cloud VM, where it would be nicer to interactively do work through sending and receiving messages on a custom frontend rather than SSHing and using the CLI.

9wzYQbTYsAIc 5mo ago
Next thing to go will be loops and scheduled tasks, if they keep needing to trim usage to fit in the available compute, I suspect, if ‘claude -p’ is essentially gone, now.

bluesnowmonkey 5mo ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48126438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48126438

melonamin 5mo ago

I wonder how this cat-and-mouse game will end. I've been using my own wrapper around Claude CLI that overcomes some 'claude -p' limitations, and now I have even more reasons to. But inevitably, this will end, ultimately making AI a bit less accessible for consumers.

2001zhaozhao 5mo ago

I mostly get this change from their side except for the extremely misleading framing. I think in response to this change, I might write an open-source Claude Code GUI wrapper to wrap over the TUI and allow accessing it from a GUI interface. Still interactive (conforms to spirit of Anthropic's new rule), and runs Claude Code via the actual CLI (conforms to letter of Anthropic's rule), without even using the JSON output flag. It would just read the outputs directly from the terminal like a user would, and then translates the user's actions directly into actions to the Claude Code TUI. Tradeoffs: the thinking blocks are lost, and file changes from edit tools might have to be reconstructed after-the-fact using VCS commands because the TUI doesn't display them when accept-edits mode is enabled. Requires underlying terminal to have a giant width/height in order to reliably capture the outputs by reading the terminal alone. Interactive tools like AskUserQuestion will need to work via detecting that such a prompt is open and exposing the original CLI interface to the user temporarily. But overall it seems like it could give users most of the benefits of an interactive GUI interface (scrollable history, much higher info density, easy to copy text, browse features with mouse) while staying compliant with Anthropic's new rules both in letter and spirit. You can then build a worktree manager or whatever above this agent GUI layer. This way us interactive users can have our good tools back (and leverage the new claude -p credit for occasional automation features) while the people who are actually abusing the plan with 24/7 dark factories or openclaw are still locked out. (the only way Anthropic would not agree to this is if they had the ulterior motive of lock-in in mind...)

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
skeledrew 5mo ago
I'd really love a proper CC GUI myself. > Tradeoffs [...] Sounds like you're thinking of scraping the raw terminal output. Consider using a terminal library (pyte[0] comes to mind) for interaction and processing the session files for tool use data, etc. [0] https://pyte.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ https://pyte.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
- 2001zhaozhao 5mo ago

zitoshi 5mo ago

i don't quite understand the change. Does it impact purely claude code users?

skeledrew 5mo ago
It doesn't.

chatmasta 5mo ago

In other news, tmux send-keys is still free.

skeledrew 5mo ago

These Twitter/X links are killing me, especially when they don't work with XCancel which seems to be happening more frequently. This one just gave me a summary by Grok, and I have no idea now if I'm seeing the same thing that others are commenting on.

frabcus 5mo ago
Agreed. All I see is a grok summary of a lot of X posts. The original link is not suitable. Anyone have a link to a proper announcement?
- user34283 5mo ago
  [dead]
- paulddraper 5mo ago
  https://twitterwebviewer.com/?tweet=2054610152817619388 https://twitterwebviewer.com/?tweet=2054610152817619388

LinXitoW 5mo ago

It's really important to note that the programmatic vs. interactive framing is a little misleading. For example, if you're using some IDE integrations, that is still interactive, that is still the same usage pattern as using it in the Claude Code CLI. BUT with these new rules, it'll count against this special "programmatic" usage. Considering what kind of fuckups happened up until now everytime Anthropic vibe codes a horrible anti-automation "fix" (like billing extra usage just because the string "hermes" exists somewhere in the prompt), this will get funny/horrible really fast. After all, you can very easily script tmux to use Claude Code "interactively". What crazy shenanigans are gonna happen? Are people that type too fast, or people that copy paste too much, or people that output to markdown/json too often going to wake up to a 800$ extra usage bill or a banned account?

StaxReport 5mo ago

[flagged]

gpambrozio 5mo ago

[dead]

hammer-mei 5mo ago

[flagged]