Claude Code's basically what ChatGPT was to everyone else wondering what AI was all about (after all, it was practically synonymous with the word AI for the longest time). Claude Code is Anthropic's terminal-based coding agent, and though the tool is primarily positioned around developers, the reality is that it's brought an entirely new audience into coding.

Unfortunately, it looks like the tool that brought them in might not be included in the plan that got them here for much longer. If that happens, I'm not sure how much longer I can keep recommending Claude to people.

Hold up, what's even happening?

First, some context

Claude's been around since 2023, and for a long time, it was primarily used and talked about by the developer community because of its coding capabilities. It felt like a very niche product — like the one tool your tech friend wouldn't stop talking about, but that never quite broke through to everyone else. Until it did. Beyond launching features that naturally pull people in, that isn't really what finally broke through. Instead, it was OpenAI signing the Pentagon deal (which Anthropic had refused to), and the sudden wave of people ditching OpenAI on principle. Claude shot up to the top of the App Store and replaced ChatGPT for the first time ever.

While that's great for Anthropic, it also means they've been dealing with a surge in demand their infrastructure clearly wasn't ready for. Unfortunately, that also means the company has had to make decisions that have started to chip away at the very thing that made people fall in love with Claude. If you've been using Claude for a while now, you've probably noticed things getting tighter. For instance, you might've started getting those "you've reached your usage limit" messages way more frequently (even if your workflow hasn't changed at all). The limits bit is something Anthropic's already acknowledged, but something even more controversial has been going on lately.

On the 21st of April, the company quietly updated its pricing page to show Claude Code as no longer included in the Pro plan. There wasn't an announcement, no post on X, no email, no changelog — nothing but an X where a checkmark used to be. In fact, this was something users spotted in the wild and posted about on X and Reddit. Anthropic's Head of Growth then acknowledged this and called it a small A/B test on 2% of new prosumer signups. Companies running A/B tests isn't really anything new.

They do it all the time. But why did they go through the hassle of updating the entire pricing page, the support documentation, and every public-facing reference to Pro if it was only meant for 2% of new signups? I might not have run a single A/B test myself, but I know for certain that's not how these tests work. The company eventually reverted everything after the massive backlash and put everything back the way it was. The checkmark returned, the docs were reverted, and everything went back to normal. The community certainly didn't let it go, but from Anthropic's end, it was business as usual.

Just 6 days later, another change appeared in Anthropic's support docs. This time, Claude Code Pro users were told they'd only be able to use Opus models after enabling and purchasing extra usage, essentially turning what used to be an included feature into a paid add-on. Now, to be fair, Anthropic later clarified that this was an outdated support article that hadn't been properly updated when Opus was added to the Pro plan. And after being contacted directly, a representative confirmed it was a documentation issue and said that if anything affecting current subscribers does change, they'd get "plenty of notice." So this could very well just be an honest mistake. But I don't know about you — I'm very clearly seeing a pattern forming. Even when the individual explanations sound reasonable, patterns don't really lie. At what point do we stop giving the benefit of the doubt?

The Pro plan is living on borrowed time

Something's gotta give

Per the above and given Claude's constant outages, it's no secret that Claude's struggling with capacity issues. Usage is through the roof, infrastructure is strained, workloads are heavier, and newer models burn through tokens faster than ever. That's a real problem, and it's becoming incredibly clear that Anthropic will need to find some way to address it. They've already made limits tighter. They've blocked third-party tools from using Pro and Max subscriptions. And now they're floating the idea of removing Claude Code from the Pro plan entirely. I'm not sure how much longer they'll keep pretending the Pro plan can stay the way it is.

But here's the thing: the Pro plan is the entry tier. It's how most people first experience what Claude actually is (and no, the free tier just doesn't count). Given that Claude Code is limited to paid tiers, I started with Claude Pro myself. If you're reading this, you probably did too! Of course, this doesn't just apply to Claude. When I realized I needed more than ChatGPT's free tier, I didn't just automatically jump to the most powerful plan they offered. I got the Plus plan. Same with Google Gemini — I began with AI Pro. That's just how people try things. You pay the lowest tier, you see if it's worth the hype, and upgrade if it's genuinely worth it.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, would be willing to drop $100 or $200 a month on a Max plan just to see if a feature is worth it. In this case, it's a tool whose name suggests it's aimed at developers. Would non-technical people even bother paying that amount just to give the tool a try? I know countless people who picked up Claude Code without writing a single line of code before. They saw a demo, got curious, and the $20 Pro plan made it a no-brainer to try. Take that away, and you're telling those people (the ones who are arguably Claude's best evangelists) that this isn't for them anymore. In fact, I didn't subscribe to Claude Pro for Claude Code. I tried Claude Code because I was already subscribed to the Pro tier, and realized I was likely missing out on something incredible that was already included in my subscription. That's how discovery works!

There are some excellent Claude Code alternatives

A lot of them are free

Now, I've only ever had good things to say about Claude Code, besides the occasional complaint. It's a genuinely excellent tool, and there's a reason why Anthropic is struggling with load issues. That said, if the floor for using it jumps to $100 a month, I can't in good conscience tell someone to just get Claude without mentioning what else they could do with that money.

At the stage we're at, there are some excellent Claude Code alternatives out there. The most obvious one is OpenAI's Codex, which, ironically, is available on the free tier too! OpenCode is a completely free and open-source Claude Code alternative, and it even lets you bring in your own LLM instead of locking you into a single provider's ecosystem.

I understand where Anthropic is coming from

At $20, Claude Code is an easy recommendation. At $100+, it becomes a hard one. And at that price, I'd be doing people a disservice, not to mention what else is out there. And while I can see where Anthropic is coming from, they're about to lose the people who got them to where they are now if they decide to go through with this.