Anthropic ends free Claude access for third party tools like OpenClaw

Anthropic has ended free access to Claude Code through third party tools like OpenClaw, meaning standard Claude subscriptions no longer cover those integrations. Since April 4 at 3 PM ET, users accessing Claude through third party apps must either buy a usage bundle or use their own Claude API key.

Boris Cherny, Anthropic’s head of Claude Code, said the change is tied to engineering and capacity constraints. He explained that Claude subscriptions were not built for the usage patterns common in third party tools, and that Anthropic is now prioritizing customers using its own products and API directly.

One of the main apps affected is OpenClaw, , the recently popular free and open source AI assistant for personal workflow automation. Users who still want to use Claude through OpenClaw now need a paid usage bundle or a Claude API key. Otherwise, they will have to switch to another available model like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, xAI, Perplexity, or DeepSeek. It is also worth noting that Anthropic offers its own assistant for similar task automation called Claude Cowork, so it seems reasonable to assume this move is also meant to steer users toward its own platform.