Anthropic Expands Discounts and Support for Founders

The Claude Startups program is expanding to more founders.

Members can get a year of Claude Team, API credits, special offers on the tools a startup runs on, and office hours with Anthropic’s Applied AI team. https://t.co/3MUg1whIfl

— Claude (@claudeai) October 6, 2026

Members of Claude Startups can get a year of Claude Team, API credits, special offers on tools a startup runs on and office hours with Anthropic’s Applied AI team, according to the post.

In a reply to that post, Anthropic said that the new Claude Startup Stack includes offers from companies building with Claude, including Linear, Lovable, ElevenLabs, Granola and Hex.

Members get discounts and credits worth as much as $45,000 on tools for sales, design, data engineering and other functions, per the reply.

Claude Startups is designed to help startups grow by offering approved founders a free year of Claude Team and $1,000 API credits so they can start building on Claude; access to discounts and credits worth up to $45,000 in tools to run an AI-native company; and a support system that includes virtual office hours with Anthropic’s Applied AI team and exclusive Claude Startups events, according to Anthropic’s page devoted to the program.

Claude Startups accepts applications from startups founded in the last five years or funded in the last two, and it is open to bootstrapped, pre-seed and venture-backed startups, according to FAQs on that page.

Sarah Wolf, head of startup marketing at Anthropic, said in a Tuesday post on X that the benefits offered by the expanded Claude Startups program were developed in response to feedback from founders.

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“There’s never been both a better and harder time to be a founder,” Wolf said. “So, we asked founders what would help most.”

The founders’ answers included tokens to build with, time with the Anthropic team, and support and connection while they get started, Wolf said in the post.

Really excited to share what I’ve been working on since I started at Anthropic. It’s been an incredible team effort to bring this to life.

There’s never been both a better and harder time to be a founder. So we asked founders what would help most. We heard three things: 1) tokens to build with 2) time with our team, and 3) support and connection while they get started.

Here’s what’s in the expanded Claude Startups program:
1. A free year of Claude Team to build your next idea
2. $1,000 in API credits
3. Up to $45K in offers from companies building with Claude (@linear, @Lovable , @ElevenLabs, @meetgranola, @hexanalytics and more)
4. Office hours with our Applied AI team

— Sarah Wolf (@sarahzorah) October 6, 2026

In an earlier initiative, Anthropic and venture capital group Menlo Ventures announced in July 2024 that they launched a $100 million fund for AI startups.

In May, PayPal announced that it partnered with Anthropic to offer a free online course that offers practical advice from AI fluency researchers and small business owners on using AI safely and effectively.

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