[DigitalToday reporter Chi-gyu Hwang (황치규)] Anthropic abruptly put on hold a planned pricing change for its Claude Agent SDK just before it was due to take effect, Ars Technica reported on June 16 local time.

According to the report, Anthropic last month announced a pricing change that was expected to sharply increase the cost burden for heavy users of the automation-focused Claude Agent SDK.

But on June 15, a day before the change was set to take effect, Anthropic said it would postpone it. As a result, SDK users will be able to continue using the usage limits that applied under their existing Claude subscriptions.

The proposed change would have split Claude usage into two tracks depending on the path. Use through the chat interface or the official Claude CLI would be treated as “standard” and keep existing subscription limits, while use of the Agent SDK through external apps or programming commands would be separated and subject to higher fees.

Agent SDK use is currently limited within weekly caps by subscription tier. With relatively generous limits, heavy users could get far more usage than if they paid the same amount in API fees.

There is also analysis estimating that Claude Opus users would come out ahead with a subscription compared with the API even if they send only two to three messages a day, and that the subscription’s value could amount to several times the monthly fee.

Anthropic, announcing the postponement, explained, “For now, nothing is changing,” and added, “We are working on revising our plans to better support how users build with Claude subscriptions.”