Getting started with Claude.ai
Published by AnthropicWatch on YouTube
Updated Oct 4, 2026
AI Assistants
Claude
Anthropic's AI assistant for reading, writing and analysis
From $17/mo
Claude at a glance
from our research
Anthropic's assistant for people whose work ends in reports, memos, spreadsheet models or decks
Searches, reads your files and runs code, then returns Word, Excel and PowerPoint files to edit
One allowance covers chat and Claude Code, resetting every five hours under a weekly cap
Pro costs $20 a month, or $17 a month billed yearly, and includes Claude Code
Overview
What is Claude?
Claude is an AI assistant made by Anthropic, an American company founded in 2021. You describe what you need, attach files or connect apps, and Claude either answers or works through the task: it searches the web, reads your files, runs code and assembles the result. By default it asks before each action, and an Auto setting lets it keep going on its own. Longer tasks keep running in the cloud after you close the page. Anthropic is merging its separate Cowork mode into this single conversation, starting with Pro and Max accounts.
Claude produces Word documents, Excel spreadsheets with working formulas, PowerPoint decks and PDFs. It draws charts and diagrams but does not generate photos or illustrations. Projects keep files and instructions together for related chats, memory carries context between conversations, and Research, on paid plans, runs a chain of web searches and returns a cited report. Connectors link Claude to services such as Google Drive, Gmail, Slack and Linear, and paid plans add Claude inside Chrome, Microsoft 365 and, in beta, Google Docs.
Claude runs on the web, in desktop apps for macOS, Windows and Linux (beta), and in iOS and Android apps; the desktop app can also work in a folder on your computer. Paid plans include Claude Code, Anthropic's coding agent. Individuals pay a flat monthly price and organizations pay per seat. Free, Pro, Max and Team plans meter usage in five-hour sessions, with weekly limits on paid tiers, while Enterprise charges a seat fee plus usage at API rates.
Our verdict on Claude
Updated Oct 4, 2026Pricing checked Oct 3, 2026
Claude suits people whose work ends in something other people will read: a report, a memo, a spreadsheet model or a deck. The merged conversation means you no longer pick a mode before starting. You describe the outcome, and Claude searches, reads your files, runs code and hands back a file you can edit or download in Office formats. Input limits are generous: on paid plans the newest models take up to 1 million tokens, and projects switch to retrieval when their files outgrow that. The data terms are also clear. Team and Enterprise content is not used for training by default, and personal plans have a privacy setting that controls it.
Claude does not generate photos or illustrations, so image work needs another tool. Fable 5.1, which Anthropic calls its most capable model for coding and knowledge work, is not part of Pro's included usage and runs on pay-as-you-go credits there. Chat, Claude Code and the desktop app share one allowance that resets every five hours, plus a weekly cap, and tasks that search, run code or create files use more of it than a quick question. Docs, Slides and Design are in beta, and the merged conversation is still rolling out.
Pro is the plan most individuals need, at $20 a month, or $17 a month billed yearly ($200 up front). It adds Claude Code, Research, the Chrome and Microsoft 365 add-ins and at least five times Free's usage per session. Max is for people who keep hitting that limit: Max 5x costs $100 a month and Max 20x $200 a month, billed monthly only. Teams of 2 to 150 pay $25 per Standard seat a month, or $20 billed yearly, and can mix in Premium seats at $125, or $100 billed yearly, for five times the usage. Enterprise is $20 per seat a month billed annually, with all usage charged at API rates on top.
Pick Claude for reading, writing and analysis, and stay on Pro until the five-hour limit becomes a regular obstacle. Look elsewhere if you need images: ChatGPT Plus, also $20 a month, generates and edits them. A company that wants shared projects and SSO should start on Team rather than buying Pro subscriptions one by one.
Written by Lokesh Kapoor
Pros & cons
Claude pros and cons
What it does well
- Opus 5.5 and Sonnet 5.5 read up to 1 million tokens of context on paid plans
- Creates Excel spreadsheets with working formulas, Word documents, decks and PDFs
- Research runs a chain of web searches and returns a report with citations
- Team and Enterprise content is excluded from model training by default
Where it falls short
- No image generation; it draws charts, diagrams and coded visuals instead
- On Pro, the Fable 5.1 model is billed as pay-as-you-go credits, outside the allowance
- Docs, Slides and Design are still beta, and the Cowork merge reaches accounts in stages
Editor's assessment from vendor documentation and published pricing
Pricing
Claude pricing
Claude's paid plans start at $17/month, right at the $16.67 median across the 5 tools in our AI Assistants ranking. A free plan is available.
Free
$0
Free plan
For one person
- Chat on web, desktop and mobile
- Web search, file creation and code execution
- Memory across conversations
- App connectors
Usage: Usage limits reset on a rolling five-hour window. Claude Code isn't included.
Pro
$17/mo
per month
or $20/mo billed monthly
For one person
- Claude Code
- More usage than Free
- Projects
- Claude in Chrome and Microsoft 365
Usage: At least 5x Free's usage per five-hour session, plus a weekly limit. The yearly plan is $200 billed up front. Extra usage at API rates if you turn on usage credits.
Max 5x
$100/mo
per month
For one person
- 5x Pro's usage per five-hour session
- Claude Code
- Higher output limits
- Priority access at busy times
Usage: Weekly limit across all models. Monthly billing only.
Max 20x
$200/mo
per month
For one person
- 20x Pro's usage per five-hour session
- Claude Code
- Higher output limits
- Priority access at busy times
Usage: Weekly limit across all models. Monthly billing only.
Team
$20/mo
per seat, per month (Standard seat)
or $25/mo billed monthly
Minimum 2 seats
- Claude Code with every seat
- More usage than Pro
- Central billing and admin
- SSO
- Enterprise search
Usage: Each Standard seat gets 1.25x Pro's per-session usage plus a weekly limit. 2 to 150 seats; Standard and Premium seats can be mixed.
Team Premium
$100/mo
per seat, per month (Premium seat)
or $125/mo billed monthly
Minimum 2 seats
- 5x a Standard seat's usage
- Claude Code
- Mix with Standard seats
Usage: 6.25x Pro's per-session usage plus a weekly limit.
Enterprise
$20/mo
per seat, per month, billed annually, plus usage at API rates
Minimum 20 seats
- All Team features
- Spend limits per user and organisation
- SCIM, audit logs and Compliance API
- Custom data retention
Usage: The seat fee covers access only: all usage is billed at standard API rates, with no included allowance. Self-serve needs 20+ seats; sales-assisted 50+. Yearly billing only.
Checked against Anthropic's pricing page on October 3, 2026 · see the full breakdown
Capabilities
Claude features
Checked against the same feature list as every other tool in its category.
Platform
- Included:Developer APIThe same models available programmatically for building your own applications.
Reasoning & Modes
- Included:Custom assistants & agentsSave a reusable assistant with its own instructions, files and tools.
- Included:Extended reasoning modeA slower mode that thinks through multi-step problems before answering, for maths, analysis and planning.
- Included:Long context windowAccepts book-length input in a single conversation without losing earlier detail.
- Included:Persistent memoryRemembers your preferences and context across separate conversations.
Knowledge & Sources
- Included:App connectorsConnects to Drive, SharePoint, email or a code host so the assistant can use your own data.
- Included:File & document analysisReads uploaded PDFs, spreadsheets and images and answers questions about them.
- Included:Inline source citationsLinks each claim back to the page it came from so answers can be checked.
- Included:Live web searchSearches the web during an answer rather than relying on training data alone.
Multimodal
- Included:Code execution & data analysisRuns code in a sandbox to analyse data, make charts and verify its own answers.
- Not included:Image generationCreates and edits images from a text description inside the same conversation.
- Included:Voice conversationReal-time spoken conversation with interruption, not just dictation.
Team & Governance
- Included:No training on your dataBusiness tiers exclude your conversations from model training by default.
- Included:Team admin & SSOCentral billing, seat management and single sign-on for organisations.
Ecosystem
Claude integrations
Videos
Watch Claude in action
Product walkthroughs from Claude's own YouTube channel.
Getting started with projects in Claude.ai
Published by AnthropicWatch on YouTube
Alternatives
Top Claude alternatives
Tools that do the same job, from the same category.
Fit check
Will Claude fit your team?
Support
- Email support
- Knowledge base
Training
- Documentation
- Video tutorials
Deployment
- Web
- iOS
- Android
- macOS
- Windows
Typical users
- Freelancers
- Small businesses
- Mid-size companies
- Enterprises
FAQs
Claude FAQs
Written by our editorial team.
Is Claude free?
Yes. The Free plan includes chat on the web, desktop and mobile, web search, file creation and code execution, memory, connectors and up to five projects, with usage that resets on a rolling five-hour window. It does not include Claude Code, Research or the Opus models. Pro costs $20 a month, or $17 a month billed yearly, and adds those along with at least five times Free's usage per session. See Claude pricing for every plan.
How do Claude's usage limits work?
Free, Pro, Max and Team plans get an allowance per five-hour session, and the paid ones add a weekly limit across all models. How many messages that buys depends on message length, attached files, conversation length, the model and the features you use, and chat, Claude Code and the desktop app all draw from the same limit. Max 5x and Max 20x give five and twenty times Pro's per-session allowance. When you run out, you wait for the reset, upgrade, or turn on usage credits billed at API rates.
Does Claude use your chats to train its models?
On Team and Enterprise plans, not by default. On Free, Pro and Max, the model-improvement setting under Settings > Privacy decides whether your chats and coding sessions are used. Turning it off keeps new chats out of future training but does not remove data from models already trained. Incognito chats are never used for training, and conversations flagged for safety review may still be used to improve Anthropic's safety systems.
Can Claude generate images?
No, not photos or illustrations. Claude builds charts, diagrams and interactive visuals in HTML and SVG that you can adjust in the conversation, and on paid plans Claude Design, in beta, makes on-brand visuals and mockups. It can also read and analyze images you upload. If image generation is part of the job, compare it with ChatGPT or see other Claude alternatives.
Who owns what Claude writes, and can you export your data?
You do, as far as Anthropic is concerned. Its consumer terms say you keep your rights in what you submit, and Anthropic assigns you whatever rights it has in Claude's outputs, provided you follow the terms. Individual users can export their conversations and account data from Settings > Privacy on the web or desktop app, though not from the mobile apps; the download link arrives by email and expires after 24 hours. On Team and Enterprise, only the Primary Owner can export.
Sources & methodology
Product details come from Anthropic's public website and documentation (United States). Every plan and price was checked against the vendor's pricing page on October 3, 2026. We haven't tested this product hands-on; the verdict is a desk assessment. How we research and rank tools
- Founded 2021
- 9 languages supported
- anthropic.com
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