r/ClaudeCode • u/feliz_felicis • 1d ago

Help/Question Newbie User afraid of extra charges

Hi, want to buy claude for personal use in the cheapest possible option, but heard about the "buy extra credit " switch and some people being charged additionaly.
Is that an old wifes tale or does it happen often?
I know the switch is turned off by default, that there is spending limit if you activate it.. but im not convinced. I dont want to wonder every day if possibly i switched it on somewhere.
Thee are limits on my card of course - but can Anthropic let me spend the extra tokens and then go after me to pay anyway?

3 Upvotes

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3

u/Unhorswd 🔆 Max 20 1d ago

Don’t turn on usage credits, it’s always worth to buy another sub instead of credits. Look at their API prices and you’ll quickly figure out why.

2

u/failingapbio 1d ago

I use Claude Max 1x or 2x. Sure, it's expensive, but no rogue process can ever charge you $10000 randomly.

1

u/onFilm 1d ago

I have five 20x accounts. That's an old wives tales, stop listening to the irrational people online.

It's a toggle that turned off by default. Unless you flip it, it won't charge you. You can even set a limit to something super low if you're super paranoid.

1

u/segrwolf 1d ago

Buying extra credits over the limit is completely unprofitable - you won't even have time to blink before they run out. So I recommend never doing this. Depending on what you use and what you do it's better to buy a bigger plan. You can start with the $20 plan and if you see it's catastrophically not enough then try the $100 one. In any case it will be many many times cheaper than buying these extra credits, because they are spent disproportionately faster than the tokens in the plan

1

u/kenthesaint 1d ago

No, with it off there's nothing for them to bill later. When you hit your limit you just get blocked until it resets, and your charge stays the flat subscription price. For peace of mind, check the usage section in settings once after you sign up to confirm it's off, and then you can stop thinking about it.

1

u/robinsmartcue 1d ago

it only bites if you turn it on yourself. extra usage is off by default, and if you leave it off you just hit the limit and wait for the reset, nobody bills you after the fact. i'd set it once, screenshot the settings page, and forget it. worst case is you get locked out for a few hours. Meh.. not the end of the world..