Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company, recently announced that it will re-allow paid subscribers to use third-party autonomous agents such as OpenClaw through Claude Pro and Max plans. This decision comes after the company suspended the feature in April due to resource abuse. According to an announcement from the official developer account @ClaudeDevs on X , Anthropic has adjusted its subscription tiers and introduced a new "Agent SDK" credit category for all paying users, specifically designed for programmatic calls, including external agent tools like OpenClaw.
The policy reversal was driven by heavy usage from some subscribers who, under the fixed monthly fee of $20 to $200, consumed hundreds or even thousands of dollars in token resources through autonomous agents like OpenClaw, far exceeding the capacity of their subscription plans. To balance service costs, Anthropic decided to restore third-party agent access but with significant limitations: programmatic usage will no longer be subsidized by the general subscription pool. Instead, it will be allocated as a fixed, non-cumulative monthly credit amount equal to the subscription fee ($20 to $200), billed at standard API rates. This means heavy users will no longer enjoy the hidden subsidy of unlimited usage within the subscription pool.
