Anthropic Claude's free plan gets a major upgrade with premium features added

Anthropic has upgraded Claude’s free tier with premium features, bringing greater access to its AI tools. The announcements come at a time when Anthropic’s rival OpenAI is reportedly exploring new monetisation strategies by introducing ads to ChatGPT.

The company confirmed the news by sharing an X (formerly Twitter) post that said, “We're bringing some of Claude’s most-used features to the free plan.”

Now, with Claude’s free tier, users will get the ability to create files powered by Sonnet 4.5, which was previously limited to paid users. Users will also be able to get connectors access, allowing users to link Claude to third-party services such as Canva, Slack, Notion, Zapier, and others. 

In addition, Claude users will also be able to edit Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, Word docs and PDFs for free. Users also get access to “skills,” which are known as filesystem-based resources. This enables users to create their own custom skills based on specialised workflows.

Anthropic has also upgraded how long free users can have a conversation with Claude, without hitting the limit. However, this doesn’t mean unlimited usage. Furthermore, the company has added “compaction,” which lets Claude automatically shorten and summarise prior conversation history.

Previously, Anthropic announced that it's making Claude ad-free, at the time when OpenAI announced testing ads in ChatGPT. Anthropic also released a series of ad campaigns that subtly mock OpenAI’s new monetisation strategies. Reacting to the ads, CEO Sam Altman said that the ads shown are “dishonest.”

Now, with upgraded features for free tier users, it signals intensified competition as both companies experiment with their business strategies to attract users, expand adoption, and differentiate their platforms through features rather than pricing alone.