Free Claude Team year for startups: how to apply
If you run a young company, you can get Claude Team free for a year, with $1,000 in API credits on top. On October 6, 2026, Anthropic announced that it is opening its Claude Startups program to more founders.
The program had already been running since earlier this year, Anthropic writes. According to madrobot.blog, it started in May and Anthropic told CNBC that thousands of companies already participate. TechCrunch also reported the news on October 6.
We looked into what you get, whether you qualify as a Belgian startup, and where the catches are. Everything comes from the program page on claude.com, the official terms and the addendum for extra benefits, checked on October 7, 2026.
What do you get?
| Item | Details | Value according to Anthropic |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Team | 1 year free, up to 5 Premium seats, only if you are new to Team | $6,000 (5 seats at $100 per month, annual billing) |
| API credits | One-time $1,000, expires six months after grant | $1,000 |
| Claude Startup Stack | Discounts and credits from partners like ClickHouse, ElevenLabs, Granola and Gamma | up to $45,000 |
| Guidance | 45-minute office hours with the Applied AI team, every other week | not priced |
| Extra via your investor | Up to $100,000 additional API credits if a VC from Anthropic’s partner network invested in you | up to $100,000 |
The $6,000 matches the prices in our guide on what Claude costs: a Premium seat costs $100 per month at annual billing, $125 at monthly billing, excluding VAT. Five seats for twelve months is $6,000. Together with the credits, Anthropic speaks of “up to $7,000 in Claude products and credits”. Note the “up to”: if you take fewer or cheaper seats, the benefit is smaller.
A Premium seat is the heavier Team seat: according to claude.com “5x more usage than standard seats”, and it lets you use Fable for up to 50% of your weekly limits. Members who get credits also automatically get higher API limits.
The $45,000 from the Startup Stack is a ceiling, not a gift. Anthropic adds up the maximum value of all offers, at September 2026 list prices, and notes itself that you may not be able to combine all of them.
Do you qualify?
Anthropic sets two conditions, and you need to meet one of them: “Startups founded in the last 5 years or funded in the last 2.” You do not need a venture capitalist. The program is open to “bootstrapped, pre-seed, and venture-backed startups”.
You also need:
- an account on Claude Console, Anthropic’s developer platform;
- a business email address on the same domain as your website (so no Gmail address);
- a brief description of what you are building.
You must also comply with Anthropic’s rules on where and how Claude may be used (the “supportability policies”).
And Belgium? The terms exclude companies based in or serving a number of countries and regions, including Russia, Belarus, China, Iran and North Korea, plus anyone excluded by export rules. Belgium is on Anthropic’s list of supported countries. We found no separate European exclusion.
Note: Anthropic decides “in its sole discretion” and, according to the terms, looks at factors such as traction, funding and how you use Claude. Meeting the criteria is therefore no guarantee.
How to apply
- Create an account on Claude Console, with your business email.
- Open the application form and briefly describe what you are building.
- Wait for the decision. “Most are decided within minutes”, Anthropic writes. The rest go to a manual review that usually takes two to three business days. You get an email.
- Approved? Then you get a link to the Claude Startups page in the Console. There you claim the Team offer and the $1,000 in credits.
- You redeem the partner offers with a code, also via the Console.
Pitfalls
The credits expire. “Credits expire six months after they’re granted.” If you have nothing to test yet, that $1,000 just evaporates.
Only Anthropic’s own API. The credits do not work on AWS Bedrock, Google Vertex AI or other platforms that resell Claude. If your product already runs on AWS credits, you get little out of this.
Not for existing Team customers. “Only orgs that are new to Teams qualify for this offer.” If you already pay for Team, you do not get the free year. According to Anthropic, the $1,000 in credits does go to every approved company.
After twelve months. What happens after the free year is stated nowhere: not on the program page, not in the announcement and not in the terms. Our own estimate, using the regular prices from claude.com: if you stay on five Premium seats, you pay $500 per month at annual billing ($6,000 per year) or $625 at monthly billing, plus VAT. A Standard seat costs $20 per month at annual billing. Before you sign up, check how you can cancel or scale down after the first year.
The partners are not Anthropic. Each Startup Stack offer falls under that partner’s terms. According to the addendum, Anthropic is “not a party” to those agreements.
Taxes. The terms say API credits may be treated differently for tax purposes than a cash price, that Anthropic makes no promises about it and that you should consult a tax adviser. So run it by your accountant first.
Who gets less out of this?
The average Flemish SME misses out: if you have existed longer than five years and did not raise funding in the past two years, you do not qualify. Anthropic does not say whether a subsidy or a loan counts as “funding”.
If you work alone, you also get less out of it. Team is made for 2 to 150 people, and most of the value is in five Premium seats. And if you build your product on ChatGPT or Gemini, you are essentially buying a switch with this program. For how the three stack up, see our comparison.
Our take
This is customer lock-in, and Anthropic does not hide it. A startup that builds on Claude today may be a big customer tomorrow. After a year, your workflow, your prompts and your API integration are tuned to Claude, and switching costs time.
Still, it is a good deal for a young Belgian startup already working with Claude or considering it. $6,000 in Team seats is real money for a team of three to five people, the application takes a few minutes, and the Applied AI sessions give you access to knowledge you otherwise would not get. Do not rely on them blindly, though: according to the addendum, Anthropic makes no promise of a fixed amount of support and can stop the sessions at any time. With models like Sonnet 5.5, the product is also strong enough to build on for a year.
Our advice: apply if you have at least two people working with Claude every day and you are going to build something real with the API within six months. Put a reminder in your calendar, a month before the free year ends, to decide how many Premium seats you actually need.
