ClaudeSeptember 24, 20264 min read
Claude Code cloud credit: $100 or $250 that won't land on their own
Anthropic is giving Pro and Max subscribers a one-time credit to try Claude Code cloud sessions. You have to claim it by October 7 and connect GitHub, or it stays on the table. Here is how, in four steps.
On Wednesday, September 23, at 2:23 PM Pacific time, the @ClaudeDevs account announced that Claude Code cloud sessions were out of research preview. The idea: the session runs on an Anthropic virtual machine instead of your own computer, so you can start a task, close the lid and come back to find it further along. To mark the occasion, subscribers get a trial credit.
The key word is "get". In practice, nothing reaches your account until you claim it, and nothing is spent until GitHub is connected. Two small steps that plenty of subscribers will not take before the deadline.
Cloud sessions are officially available and out of research preview! They let you keep Claude Code working, even when your laptop is closed. Existing subscribers get a one-time credit to try them: $100 on Pro, $250 on Max.
At a glance
| Pro | Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Credit amount | $100 | $250 |
| Number of credits | one, per account | one, per account |
| Can be spent on | cloud sessions only | cloud sessions only |
| How to claim | link in the announcement or /claim-credit | link in the announcement or /claim-credit |
| Requirement | a connected GitHub account | a connected GitHub account |
The announcement tweet names Pro and Max, and only those. Team and Enterprise plans do have access to cloud sessions, but nothing in the announcement gives them this credit.
Key dates
| Milestone | Pacific time | Eastern time | UTC | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Announcement | Sep 23, 2:23 PM | Sep 23, 5:23 PM | Sep 23, 21:23 | confirmed |
| Last chance to claim | Oct 7, 11:59 PM | Oct 8, 2:59 AM | Oct 8, 06:59 | date confirmed, time reported |
| Unspent credit expires | Nov 4, 11:59 PM | Nov 5, 2:59 AM | Nov 5, 07:59 | reported |
The October 7 date is in the official tweet setting out the terms. The cutoff time and the expiry date come from secondary sources that agree with each other and quote the claim page, not from the tweets themselves. So be careful, and don't wait for the last night. Whatever is left unspent in early November is gone.
Claiming the credit in four steps
- Claim it. Either through the link attached to the second tweet from @ClaudeDevs, or from the terminal, inside a Claude Code session, with the
/claim-creditcommand. Several users also report a "Claim credit" pop-up when opening claude.ai/code. - Connect GitHub. This is the condition Anthropic sets for starting a session. In the browser, you authorize the Claude GitHub App during the claude.ai/code onboarding. If you already use the
ghcommand line,/web-setuppasses its token to your Claude account, with no app to install. - Let it create the environment. On your first session, onboarding sets up a default environment whose network access is limited to a list of trusted domains. You can adjust it later.
- Start a cloud session. The credit applies on its own as soon as the first session starts: there is no code to enter.
From the terminal, a cloud session takes a single line:
claude --cloud "Fix the flaky test in auth.spec.ts"One detail catches everyone the first time: the remote machine clones your current branch from GitHub, not your local checkout. Commits you haven't pushed don't exist as far as it is concerned. The older --remote flag still works, as an alias for --cloud.
What the credit changes, and what it doesn't
The Claude Code docs are explicit: there is no separate charge for the virtual machine. A cloud session draws on your subscription's usage, just like a local session, and shares the same limits.
The credit sits in front of that usage. @ClaudeDevs had to spell it out a few hours after the announcement, as questions piled up: cloud sessions spend the credit first, then fall back onto your normal plan usage once it runs out. In other words, it is an extra reserve, not an access pass. If you don't claim it, you can still use cloud sessions, simply on your usual plan.
Our advice for not wasting it: save it for the long tasks you hesitate to run locally because they tie up your machine. A migration whose plan is already written, a test suite to bring back to green, three independent fixes run in parallel. The docs themselves suggest drafting the plan locally, in plan mode, pushing it to the repository, then handing the execution to the cloud.
Sources
- @ClaudeDevs announcement, September 23, 2026: "Existing subscribers get a one-time credit to try them: $100 on Pro, $250 on Max."
- @ClaudeDevs, terms: "Follow the link below to claim the credit or run /claim-credit in the CLI. You'll need GitHub connected to start a session. Claim by Oct 7. Terms apply."
- @ClaudeDevs, clarification: "This promo is an optional one-time credit that your cloud sessions spend first, before falling back onto your normal plan usage."
- Claude Code docs, "Use Claude Code in the cloud", accessed September 24, 2026: plans eligible for cloud sessions, GitHub connection, the
--cloudflag, no separate charge for the virtual machine. - Cutoff time and expiry date: explainx.ai ("11:59 PM PT, November 4, 2026"), cross-checked against a second source giving 2:59 AM Eastern on November 5, the same moment.