Tell HN: Anthropic no longer allowing Claude Code subscriptions to use OpenClaw

Given the sheer amount of logging that happens in Claude Code based on the leak, I'm not surprised. This isn't about load, this is merely about cost.

Claude Code is subsidized because of data collection.

Is this going to nuke all bring your own API 3rd party tools? I've been casually using fewshell https://github.com/few-sh/fewshell with my Claude api key, I really hope it's going to keep working. I've just finally managed to turn myself into a reasonable devops team with it.

Oh that is the crux of it, I was wondering why they are leading with the free credit in their email and what the catch is. I guess for someone that doesn’t use openclaw it doesn’t matter.

This email gives out the endgame - eventually, Claude subscription would be ~30% cheaper than API costs.

Our engineering team averages 1.5k per dev per month on credit costs, without busting Max limits today.

If OpenClaw is just "claude -p", then how do they know when you're using OpenClaw?

I believe the capacity about 30%. They did just spend the entire last month of feature releases in Clade Code replacing "claw" features.

So, to me its a "we built it into our world use ours"

Edit: FWIW I am an avid hater of all claw things, they're security nightmare.

Less than 24hr notice on a Friday: either Anthropic is dropping S tier next week or they massively fumbled over the past 2 months in self owns and outages.

I got fed up with Claude code limits and have been using a combination of qwen3-coder, gemma4, and qwen3-vl locally. Gets me 90% of the way there and CC is still around for now if I need it.

Btw even at insane markups $200/mo means GPUs break even pretty fast.

I get why they block OpenClaw and it makes sense but I wonder if they can actually detect OpenClaw calling Claude Code CLI using something like acpx.

It's simply identical to how people use Claude Code locally.

Anthropic measures your usage based on token consumption

We are paying for a certain amount of token consumption

Why then, is this an outsized strain on your system Anthropic?

It's like buying gasoline from Shell, and then Shell's terms of services forcing you to use that gas in a Hummer that does 5 MPG, while everyone else wants to drive any other vehicle.

They also forced OpenCode to remove support as well. Thankfully there is always self hosting and a shit ton of competitors that let you use whatever local software you want.

If you spend $200/month on Anthropic, that's $2400/year. Buy a fast GPU or Strix Halo machine, do the AI locally, after a year you're saving money.

And so it begins...

someone else _not_ having the “Claim” button on the banner at the top of the Usage page?

Does this mean I can't use `claude -p` in bash scripts now?

Oh, it's a billing thing. Not fear that Claude coupled to something that can actually do things is dangerous.

So is Codex the only SOTA that welcomes third-party harness?

This is exactly why building daily workflows on top of proprietary API wrappers is a ticking time bomb. The moment your tooling becomes an outsized strain, they just flip the switch on you.

I received it too. I wonder if they sent this to all pro/max subscribers or only those who they’ve flagged as having used a third party harness.

I wonder if this also applies to tools that interact with the claude code tui through tmux's capabilities.

Using Xiaomi’s mimo pro on openrouter via hermes agent

What are people doing with OpenClaw? Are there any places that try to log best uses and new ideas?

AI disallowing use by AI :|

Does anyone know. How would that relate to simply wrapping claude code as a subprocess?

Haha, I almost expected this.

Say goodbye to my 600$/ month Anthropic.

They are running out of things to ban...

Does anyone have a link to the "read more"?

Honestly, this is a good thing. OpenClaw as a concept was rather silly to run such a heavy model for. If you want something like OpenClaw to work you really need to figure out how to do it with an economical model.

Since the OpenClaw creator is posting on HN I’d like to hear some commentary from him directly.

Doesn't this unfairly impact startups? Why not instead allow issuance of API keys with usage caps? It seems like a money grab.

i think i'll no longer be giving my money to anthropic

Is anyone even getting anything out of a $20/mo sub for Anthropic?

I'm doing a side-by-side with GPT-5.4 for $20/mo and Sonnet for $20/mo and I can tell you that all my 5 hour tokens are eaten in 30 minutes with Claude. I still haven't used my tokens for OpenAI.

Code quality seems fine on both. Building an app in Go

You can cancel your subscription, there are like 5 competitors you can pick instead and anthropic offers an API plan where you can find out how many tokens circus tools like claws really consume compared to coding tasks.

Anthropic should calm down, I get that they're trying to either build a moat, or simply curb what is essentially subsidized tokens. It is technically true that when you've got a claude code subscription you pay for the product with its terms, and those terms doesn't include you grabbing the token and using it for another application. They're also trying to build a competitor to openclaw so it makes sense they're trying to crush it. But it feels like such a feeble moat, that it looks silly. Claude Code is nice, but it is not that nice.

Why not use datacenter of geniuses to increase capacity? Grug confused.

Big mistake.

Claude innovation will come from being open, not closed.

"We dont crash ever" -- the social network.

If you haven't been paying attention anthropic burned a lot of their developer good will in the last 2 weeks, with some combination of bugs and rate limits.

But the writing is on the wall about how bad things are behind the scenes. The circa 2002 sentiment filter regex in their own tool should have been a major clue about where things stand.

The question every one should be asking at this point is this: is there an economic model that makes AI viable. The "bitter lesson" here is in AI's history: expert systems were amazing, but they could not be maintained at cost.

The next race is the scaling problem, and google with their memory savings paper has given a strong signal what the next 2 years of research are going to be focused on: scaling.

Idk why people are complaining when they know subscription are currently heavily subsidized. If they don't like they can always choose alternative service.

Wellll, that rug aint gonna pull itself, now is it?

Ive been calling for local LLM as owning the means of production. I aint wrong.

Inefficient token use will have to tighten up.

I really started to like Pi. That's unfortunate that I won't be able to use it with Opus (way too expensive without a subscription). I'm optimistic that open source coding models will be able to keep up. AI is too important, we're shooting ourselves in the foot if we don't adopt open source tools and models. The more adoption the better it will become.

Nice

I like how the best way to protest this is by doing what everyone should have been doing to begin with: running a great open source model on rented hardware

> To make the transition easier, we’re offering a one-time credit for extra usage equal to your monthly subscription price. Redeem your credit by April 17. We’re also introducing discounts when you pre-purchase bundles of extra usage (up to 30%).

The Anthropic casino wants you to continue gambling tokens at their casino only on their machines (Claude Code) only by giving more promotional offers such as free spins, $20 bets and more free tokens at the roulette wheels and slot machines.

But you cannot repurpose your subscription on other slot machines that are not owned by Anthropic and if you want it badly, they charge you more for those credits.

The house (Anthropic) always wins.

So now what happens to startups and ADE's orientated around Claude like Conductor.. no more Claude for them I guess back to Codex!

mysterious anthropic win???

Yes, this was made clear a while back and should not be a surprise. (Honestly, I had to double-check the date/time to see if this was actually posted today.

You can use your Claude Code subscription with third-party tools, but you have to use the Claude Code harness. Or, you use the API. OpenClaw could use the Claude Code harness, but they don't.

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