Claude: free vs paid plans and feature differences
- Graziano Stefanelli
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
Claude has evolved into a powerful assistant offering multiple subscription tiers—Free, Pro, Team, and Max—to meet different user needs. Each plan provides distinct model access, context limits, file-handling capabilities, and API quotas. With the introduction of Opus 4.1, Heavy 3 preview, and expanded file support, the distinctions between free and paid plans are more relevant than ever. This guide provides an updated, detailed breakdown of Claude’s plans as of August-September 2025.
Free plan offers essential access to Claude models.
Claude’s Free plan is designed for casual users and lightweight tasks, but its features remain powerful for general queries and smaller uploads.
Models available:
Claude Haiku 3.5 for fast, low-cost inference (64,000-token context).
Claude Sonnet 4 with extended 200,000-token context for more complex tasks.
Message limit: Up to 30 messages per day.
File uploads:
25 MB max per file.
40 MB total upload limit per day.
Use cases: Ideal for basic Q&A, small-scale research, and light spreadsheet or document summaries.
While the free tier is functional, heavy users will quickly run into rate and upload ceilings, making paid plans a better fit for professional or data-heavy workflows.
Pro plan unlocks Opus 4.1 and higher daily throughput.
The Pro plan is Claude’s most popular option for individual professionals. At $20/month, it offers unlimited usage within rate constraints and unlocks Claude Opus 4.1, the most capable reasoning model currently available.
Models included:
Everything in the Free plan (Haiku 3.5 + Sonnet 4).
Opus 4.1 with 200,000-token context and improved reasoning.
Message rate: Unlimited, but throttled to 5 requests per minute.
File uploads:
1 GB total per day.
Individual file limit 25 MB.
Priority features: Early access to beta features, such as Sonnet 4 “1M” context experiments for select users.
This tier is ideal for developers, analysts, and content professionals who regularly work with larger documents, coding tasks, or structured data.
Team plan offers pooled tokens and collaboration tools.
For small teams and collaborative work environments, the Team plan extends Pro capabilities to a group setting, adding pooled quotas and management features.
Pricing: $30 per seat per month (minimum 3 seats).
Models included: Same lineup as Pro (Haiku 3.5, Sonnet 4, Opus 4.1).
Token allocation:
Up to 100 million tokens per organization per day.
Soft per-user allocation ≈10 million tokens/day.
Collaboration features:
Shared prompt libraries.
Centralized admin controls and billing.
SOC 2-compliant security.
This tier benefits organizations needing shared analytics workflows or team-based access to Claude’s premium models without per-user usage conflicts.
Max plan offers exclusive access to Heavy 3 and advanced quotas.
The Max plan, priced at $60/month, unlocks Claude’s most powerful experimental features and provides premium throughput for enterprise-grade work.
Models available:
All models from Pro and Team plans.
Heavy 3 preview: Claude’s multi-agent experimental reasoning model, currently invite-only.
Context windows:
Opus 4.1: 200,000 tokens.
Heavy 3 preview: 256,000 tokens.
Token allocation:
200 million tokens/day per organization (default limit).
Higher quotas available on request.
Enterprise perks:
Priority API capacity.
Dedicated Slack/Teams plugins.
Custom knowledge glossary support.
Early roadmap previews.
The Max plan is best suited for data-intensive teams, research organizations, and users requiring access to Claude’s most advanced models.
File handling and storage across plans.
Claude’s paid tiers now support significantly larger file uploads and total daily storage volumes.
Plan | Max File Size | Daily Upload Quota | Supported Formats |
Free | 25 MB | 40 MB/day | TXT, PDF, DOCX, CSV, images |
Pro | 25 MB | 1 GB/day | Same as Free + ZIP archives |
Team | 25 MB | 1 GB/day (pooled) | Same as Pro |
Max | 25 MB | 1 GB/day (higher quotas available) | Same as Pro |
Tip: Larger datasets and media-heavy workflows benefit from Pro, Team, or Max, as the free tier cannot handle multiple large documents simultaneously.
Model access and context window differences.
Claude’s available models scale in capability depending on the plan tier:
Plan | Models | Context Window | Best Use Case |
Free | Haiku 3.5, Sonnet 4 | 64k / 200k tokens | Lightweight research & Q&A |
Pro | + Opus 4.1 | 200k tokens | Coding, analytics, writing |
Team | Opus 4.1 shared | 200k tokens | Cross-team reporting & automation |
Max | Opus 4.1, Heavy 3 preview | 200k / 256k tokens | Experimental multi-agent reasoning |
This expanded access makes Opus 4.1 the key differentiator between free and Pro, while Heavy 3 in Max enables experimental capabilities far beyond standard tier limits.
API pricing and enterprise controls.
Beyond app-based usage, Claude offers a separate API billing model for enterprises and developers:
Sonnet 4: $15 per million tokens.
Opus 4.1: $25 per million tokens.
Haiku 3.5: $8 per million tokens.
Enterprise deployments via AWS Bedrock or GCP Vertex allow direct SOC 2-compliant integration with centralized billing, identity, and policy controls.
This flexibility lets organizations integrate Claude into internal apps or connect to workflow pipelines without relying solely on the Claude web interface.
Choosing the right Claude plan.
Scenario | Recommended Plan | Why |
Basic Q&A & summaries | Free | Lightweight usage with Haiku 3.5 and Sonnet 4 |
Professional writing & analysis | Pro | Unlocks Opus 4.1, larger uploads, unlimited tokens |
Small business collaboration | Team | Pooled tokens and centralized admin tools |
Research & enterprise-scale use | Max | Heavy 3 preview, priority API, extended quotas |
With Claude’s evolving model lineup, larger context windows, and expanded file handling, selecting the right tier depends on your required model access, upload capacity, and collaboration needs.
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