Anthropic backs off unpopular billing overhaul as price war with OpenAI looms

Anthropic has pulled back its planned billing change for the Claude Agent SDK just before launch. Instead of separate credits, the SDK and third-party apps will keep drawing from regular subscription limits.

Anthropic has paused the billing overhaul it had announced for June 15, 2026. “Nothing changes for now,” the company told by email. It’s working to better align the plan with actual usage patterns. For now, nothing changes. The Agent SDK, claude -p, and third-party apps still draw from regular subscription limits, Anthropic says.AdDEC_D_Incontent-1 The reversal is notable because Anthropic had already banned third-party tools like OpenClaw from subscription limits back in April, angering developers. OpenClaw developer Peter Steinberger accused Anthropic of absorbing popular features into its own system and then locking out open-source alternatives. Since then, users could still run their OpenClaw setup through Claude Code/claude -p under their subscription. The planned changes would have killed that workaround too. Several factors probably played into the reversal. According to the Wall Street Journal, OpenAI is considering steep price cuts for its API. Shifting to more expensive usage-based billing in the middle of a price war would be counterproductive. The billing change may only come once Anthropic can offer tokens at lower prices.Ad Anthropic has also filed IPO paperwork and wants to go public soon. Losing customers over an unpopular billing change right before a listing would hurt its valuation. More and more enterprise customers are already cutting their AI spending as costs jump from $200 flat rates to several thousand dollars a month under usage-based billing. The US government is adding pressure too.