Amp said on 10 October 2026 that developers can now use a Claude Pro or Max subscription inside its coding agent, through a Claude Code mode. “It’s free and available for everyone now,” the company’s post says.
Quinn Slack, whose X profile lists him as CEO of Amp, announced it the same day: “You can use your Claude plan in Amp now. Free and open to everyone.” The post had about 314,000 views when read on 11 October.
Amp’s post gives the steps: “When creating a new thread, just pick Mode > Claude Code. It’ll ask to link your Claude sub if you haven’t already done that.”
The mode does not use Amp’s own agent. “Under the hood, this mode uses the Claude Agent SDK instead of Amp’s own agent,” the post says. Amp’s docs list what still works in it: orbs, runners, thread sharing, portals, multiplayer, and thread-to-thread messaging.
Users can link the plan in advance under Settings, Model Routing, where it appears as Claude Pro/Max, according to the docs. Orbs use that linked plan. A runner instead uses the Claude login on its own machine.
What a linked Claude Pro/Max plan covers in Amp’s Claude Code mode, and what still bills to Amp credits or is switched off, per Amp’s docs as read on 11 October 2026.
Business Pill · SWITCHING COSTS
A one-minute explainer of switching costs: what it costs a customer to move from one supplier to another. It teaches the general idea only and says nothing about any company in this story.
The key insight: As we read it, Amp is separating two bills: the Claude plan pays for the model, through Anthropic’s own Claude Agent SDK, while Amp charges for its own layer, the cloud machines it calls orbs and a few tools.
What the Plan Covers and What It Does Not
The docs separate model usage from Amp’s own infrastructure. “You can use runners on your own machine for free,” they say, while orbs in Claude Code mode are paid “from Amp Megawatt/Gigawatt or Amp credits”, and “the orbs aren’t covered by your Claude plan.”
The docs list three more limits. Painter, which generates images, uses Amp credits. “Oracle, Librarian, and Illustrator are excluded to avoid extra Amp credit charges.” And “Claude Code’s plan mode, todo tool, and notebook editing are disabled.”
Amp’s pricing page lists a free Hobby tier and an Individual tier at $20 a month with 45,000 minutes of orb time. Both list “Use your ChatGPT, Claude & other subs” and “No Amp token fees or limits.”
Our count of two announcements, from Cognition’s Devin docs (9 October) and Amp’s post (10 October 2026); Amp’s pricing page also lists ChatGPT subscriptions.
Only the Plan Is Used
On a runner, the docs tell users to sign in with a Pro or Max plan and add: “An API key does not work: Amp removes ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN, and the Bedrock, Vertex, and Foundry settings from Claude Code’s environment, so only your Claude plan is used.”
The docs say Amp needs Claude Code 2.1.276 or later, and that “Amp runs Claude Code without permission prompts”, which is why the runner has to run as a regular user rather than root.
What Anthropic’s Help Page Says
In Amp’s post, the words “Claude Agent SDK” link to Anthropic’s support article on using the SDK with a Claude plan. Its update dated 15 June 2026 reads: “We’ve paused the previously-announced changes to Claude Agent SDK usage. For now, nothing has changed: Claude Agent SDK, claude -p, and third-party app usage still draw from your subscription limits.”
An update dated 7 October 2026 adds that Claude Max and Team plans now include monthly API credits. Those cover the Claude Agent SDK, claude -p, the Claude API and Claude Managed Agents, and the update repeats: “You can still use the Claude Agent SDK, claude -p, and third-party apps with your subscription limits.”
The Same Week at Devin
A day earlier, Cognition said users can connect a personal ChatGPT Go, Plus or Pro plan to Devin, so that GPT usage in Devin sessions draws from the ChatGPTplan; that covers only the GPT portion of Devin’s sessions, as our earlier article reported.
SemiAnalysis estimates that subscriptions make up about 10% of Anthropic’s overall revenue but can take up over 40% of its inference compute, figures it calls “rough numbers”, as covered in our earlier article.
The Structural Read
Amp’s docs draw the line in practice. Claude usage draws on the linked Pro or Max plan, runners on a user’s own machine are free, and orbs are paid from Amp Megawatt/Gigawatt or Amp credits.
The mode runs Anthropic’s SDK rather than Amp’s own agent, so Amp’s part is the workspace around it: orbs, runners, thread sharing, portals and multiplayer, by the docs’ list.
Anthropic’s help page, as quoted above, says third-party app usage draws from subscription limits; Amp’s docs add that it strips API keys so that only the plan is used.
Quinn Slack on X, 10 October 2026
“You can use your Claude plan in Amp now. Free and open to everyone.”
Three Implications
DEVELOPERS ON CLAUDE PRO OR MAX Amp’s docs say runners on their own machines are free in this mode, while orbs still bill to Amp and Painter uses Amp credits.
TEAMS COMPARING CODING TOOLS Our count of this week’s moves is two: Devin with ChatGPT plans on 9 October and Amp with Claude plans on 10 October, each billing the model to a lab’s consumer plan.
ANYONE TRACKING ANTHROPIC’S PLAN TERMS Anthropic’s help page records a pause of announced SDK-usage changes on 15 June and monthly API credits for Max and Team plans from 7 October.
The essay argues: “The subscription is not one product. It is three assets bundled at a single price.” It also calls the arrangement “the harness training auction”.
As we read it, Amp running Claude through Anthropic’s own SDK keeps the plan’s usage inside Anthropic’s harness, while Amp sells the workspace around it.
What Is Not Established
Amp’s post and docs, as read on 11 October 2026, do not say how many users have linked a Claude plan, or whether Anthropic had any part in the integration beyond the SDK and help article they link.
The docs note one setting Anthropic does not document: Claude Code starts as root in a disposable container when IS_SANDBOX=1 is set, “and it may change.”
Business Engineer Framework
The Subsidized AGI Economy
A Business Engineer essay on why flat-price AI subscriptions are a strategic purchase by the labs, not a pricing mistake.
Since 10 October 2026, Amp users can run Claude models on their own Claude Pro or Max plan through a Claude Code mode built on Anthropic’s Claude Agent SDK. Amp says the mode is free; its orbs are paid from Amp Megawatt/Gigawatt or Amp credits, Painter uses Amp credits, Oracle, Librarian and Illustrator are switched off in the mode, and Anthropic’s help page says third-party app usage draws from subscription limits.
A note on sourcing. We read Amp’s 10 October post, its documentation on using a Claude subscription, its pricing page, Anthropic’s support article on using the Claude Agent SDK with a Claude plan, and Quinn Slack’s post on X in full on 11 October 2026. The Devin and SemiAnalysis context comes from our own earlier articles, each built from its primary sources. We have not tested the integration ourselves. Nothing here is a forecast, and nothing here is financial or investment advice.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur, HackerNoon and Search Engine People. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
Scroll to Top
Discover more from FourWeekMBA
Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.
