# Use your Claude plan's API credits for agent tasks

> Claude Max and Team plans include monthly Claude API credits. Claim them, put a Console key on your desk, and your Claude Code tasks there draw on them.

28 Oct 2026 · Guides, Integrations

If you pay for Claude Max or a Claude Team plan, you have API credits you may not be using. They arrive every month and expire at the end of it. Here is how to point your agent tasks at them.

## What the credits are

Claude Max and Team plans include monthly credits for the Claude API. You link a Claude Console organization to your plan, and the credits arrive there each billing cycle. You do not need to add a payment method.

How much you get depends on your plan. The Claude docs page, [API credits for Max and Team plans](https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/api-credits-for-subscribers), has the amounts and the fine print. Three things worth knowing:

- Unused credits expire at the end of each billing cycle. They do not roll over.
- New subscribers can claim them after 7 days on an eligible plan.
- Every key in the linked organization draws from the same balance.

## Step 1: Claim the credits

You need to be the subscriber on a Max plan, or an Owner on a Team plan, and an Owner, Admin or Billing member of the Console organization.

1. On claude.ai, open **Settings > Billing** (Max) or **Organization settings > Billing** (Team).
2. In the **API credits** section, pick the Console organization that should get the credits, and link it. No organization yet? You can make one there.
3. Open the [Billing page](https://platform.claude.com/settings/billing) in the Claude Console. The credits show under **Promotional credits**, with the amount and the date they expire.

> [!WARNING]
> Each plan links to one Console organization, and you cannot change it yourself. Link the one you plan to use.

## Step 2: Make a key

In the Claude Console, open [API keys](https://platform.claude.com/settings/keys) and create a key in the linked organization. Copy it. You see it only once.

> [!TIP]
> To cap what your agent tasks can spend, give them a workspace of their own in the Console, set its spend limit, and make the key there.

## Step 3: Put the key on your desk

1. Open the **Agents** page on your desk and pick **Claude Code**.
2. Choose **Claude API key (from the Claude Console)**.
3. Paste the key and press **Check and save**.

Maindesk asks the key's provider once whether it accepts the key, and only then writes it to a private file on your desk. We do not keep it, log it or send it back. The page shows only its last 4 characters, with **Replace** and **Remove**.

If the provider refuses the key, nothing is saved and the page says why. Copy the whole key again, or make a new one.

Saving the key makes it the way Claude Code's tasks run. To go back to your plan's sign-in later, pick it on the same page.

From a terminal, the same takes one line. The key is read from standard input, so it stays out of your shell history:

```sh
maindesk agents key set anthropic_key --agent claude
```

## Step 4: Start a task

Start a task the way you always do: on the **Tasks** page, or with `maindesk send` from your project folder. Pick Claude Code as the agent.

On a Claude API key, the task runs Claude Code in its non-interactive mode, the mode the credits pay for. A follow-up, a question to you and the summary at the end work as on any task.

```flow
Claude plan → Console organization → API key → Your desk → Claude Code tasks
```

## What to expect

- **When the credits run out**, the Console stops taking requests on that key until next month's credits arrive, unless the organization has credits you bought. The task stops and says so, with the fix. Nothing is charged to your Claude plan.
- **Desk time is separate.** The credits pay for the model. Your Maindesk plan pays for the machines, in desk minutes. [Plans and desk minutes](/docs/money) explains what counts.
- **Remote Control** is for tasks on your plan's sign-in. Tasks on a key run without it.

## Why bother

Your Claude plan's usage limits stay where they are. Long tasks on your desk run on credits that would otherwise expire. And your laptop can stay shut while they do.

[Agents](/docs/agents) covers every way Claude Code can run on your desk.