It's very easy to blow through hundreds of dollars a session using API tokens especially with the 1m context if you aren't careful about clearing old context.

At the same time the subscription will allow the same usage for hundreds of dollars a month.

Either Anthropic is absolutely hosing API users, massively subsidizing subscriptions, or a little bit of both.

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internetter a day ago | parent | next [-]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/annatong/2026/03/05/cursor-goes...

"Cursor estimated last year that a $200-per-month Claude Code subscription could use up to $2,000 in compute, suggesting significant subsidization by Anthropic. Today, that subsidization appears to be even more aggressive, with that $200 plan able to consume about $5,000 in compute"

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jackp96 a day ago | parent | next [-]

Really curious how many people actually get close to that level of usage? Their general business plan only offers the $100 version, with pay-as-you-go above that.

If 95% of people are using $100 of value a month, the whales may not be hurting them that badly.

	▲	bakies a day ago \| parent [-]
		I wrote my own "harness" and it exposes the api dollar cost since those come back in the responses even while using my sub. The conversations are typically $40-$60 and the longs ones with multiple compactions get to $100+ I say "Harness" because it's just a web interface that uses `cluade -p` so I can run it in containers and remotely access it.

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beering a day ago | parent | prev [-]

That’s based on Anthropic’s retail price right? Not a fair comparison, like saying that Netflix must be losing money because every movie rental is $4 and a Netflix subscriber can watch 20 movies in a month.

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ageitgey a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Anthropic has a very "interesting" business model where you get subscription pricing as long as you are under 150 employees. When you hit 151, you have to start paying API prices overnight for everyone, and your total bill instantly multiplies.

They are getting you hooked on cheaper tokens, then raking you in when you get scale. I'm sure Uber gets a break on list price, but I doubt they are anywhere near <150 employee subscription pricing.

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KaiserPro a day ago | parent | next [-]

You have to remember that enterprise pricing is covered by NDAs

But things to note:

1) the per user license fee is almost certainly waived.

2) if you look in teams, when you buy extra credit, you get a 30% discount if you buy in bulk.

Unless you default into enterprise from teams, you're almost certiantly not going to pay the list price for per token price

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linkregister a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Is that known to be true? Enterprise pricing is opaque. I am aware of at least one 151+ organization using a flat-cost $150-200/mo per seat Claude Premium contract. Reportedly most employees don't need to top up with additional API usage to cope with token limits.

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rogerrogerr a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Strange pricing model for a company selling the idea of having fewer employees.

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ambicapter a day ago | parent [-]

Don't the incentives align? If you have fewer employees, then you pay less...

	▲	rogerrogerr a day ago \| parent [-]
		For customers, but not for Anthropic. If they truly expect their tools can turn a 160 person company into a 60 person company, this is not how they’d price.

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jcgrillo a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah, it's basically the opposite of how "product-led growth" SaaS works. Generally pay-as-you-go pricing is expensive at scale, but attractive initially. So you start on a pay-as-you-go plan, but as you scale you end up transitioning off pay-as-you-go to a negotiated commit. I.e. you call sales and sign a contract. Anthropic basically flips that around backwards.

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brightball a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I evaluated the pricing and could not justify the jump to Enterprise from Team. You lose the monthly subscription entirely when you jump to enterprise so you lose your ability to control costs.

You can cap per user, but not having the rolling cap are you really just going to tell a member of your team “No AI for the rest of the month”

It’s a risky deal as it sets up now IMO.