What Anthropic's New Claude Billing Means for Zed Users
13 hours ago
- #Agent SDK Credit
- #Claude Subscriptions
- #Zed Editor
- Anthropic splits Claude subscription billing into two pools starting June 15: one for first-party tools (chat, official CLI) and another for third-party agent and SDK usage.
- Claude Code usage through ACP (like in Zed) will use a new monthly 'Agent SDK credit' instead of subscription limits: $20 for Pro, $100 for Max 5x, $200 for Max 20x, with extra usage billed at API rates.
- This change is a major cost increase for heavy agent users, as subscriptions previously subsidized agent usage at 15-30x compared to API pricing.
- In Zed, users can keep using Claude with their subscription limits by running Anthropic's official CLI in a terminal instead of through ACP, or use other providers (Zed-hosted models, API keys, Copilot, Ollama, DeepSeek).
- ACP remains an open protocol, allowing flexibility to switch agents or providers without changing editors, and Zed supports various ACP-compatible agents like OpenCode, Codex, Factory, and Cursor.