Claude Code: Anthropic Offers Up to $250 in Credit for Cloud Sessions Only

Are you subscribed to Claude Pro or Max? Anthropic is offering up to $250 in credit so you can test Claude Code cloud sessions. What are they actually for? How can you take advantage of them? Here’s the breakdown.

Over the past few days, Claude Code cloud sessions have become an official, stable feature. As a reminder, a cloud session runs Claude Code on a virtual machine hosted by Anthropic, not on your computer. So even if you close your laptop, your Claude Code task keeps running and you can come back later to review the work done.

"Cloud sessions run on Anthropic-hosted infrastructure, so the work continues even when your computer is turned off", Anthropic explains. These cloud sessions can be launched from claude.ai/code, the Code tab in the mobile app, the desktop app (by choosing Cloud instead of Local), or from the command line with claude --cloud. The reverse is also possible with a special command: claude --teleport. It brings a cloud session back into your terminal so you can continue locally, as noted in the official Claude Code documentation.

To persuade subscribers to try playing around with its Cloud, Anthropic is pulling out the checkbook. Well, almost.

$100 or $250 in credit, depending on your plan

The offer comes in the form of Claude Code credit, limited to one voucher per account, and the amount depends on your subscription:

• Claude Pro : $100 in credit.
• Claude Max : $250 in credit.

Most importantly, this promotional offer is only available to Pro and Max subscribers whose subscription was active when the promotion launched, namely on September 23, 2026. If you think you’re eligible and want to test it, here’s what you need to know:

• Claim the credit before October 7, 2026 : from the Claude website or with the /claim-credit command in the Claude Code CLI.
• Use the balance before November 4, 2026 : after that, any remaining credit expires.
• Link a GitHub account : this is required to launch a cloud session, since the VM clones the repository from GitHub before pushing changes to a branch. This ensures that changes made through Cloud sessions are preserved.

This credit is separate from your plan’s usage limits and is applied automatically as soon as a cloud session starts. "If you hit a limit locally, keep going in the cloud until your credit runs out", Anthropic says. If you’re already short on local quota, this can give you a bit of temporary breathing room... But be careful: once this balance is used up (or expires), cloud sessions fall back to the normal limits of your subscription.

No separate billing for the cloud

This announcement also caused some confusion: some people saw it as the arrival of a separate paid mode for running sessions in the cloud. That is not the case, and Anthropic had to clarify the situation. "Sorry for the confusion! Cloud sessions work with your Pro or Max plan, just like the rest of Claude Code", says the ClaudeDevs account.

The documentation says the same thing: there are no separate compute charges for the cloud VM, but cloud sessions share usage limits with the rest of your Claude usage. Running multiple tasks in parallel will therefore burn through your quota faster. In this case, it’s just a bonus.

Do you use Cloud sessions? Will you take advantage of these free credits? I’m curious to hear your thoughts!

Florian Burnel Co-founder of IT-Connect

Systems and network engineer, co-founder of IT-Connect and Microsoft MVP "Cloud and Datacenter Management". I'd like to share my experience and discoveries through my articles. I'm a generalist with a particular interest in Microsoft solutions and scripting. Enjoy your reading.

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