How to Access Claude Opus 5.5: 6 Ways In, None on the Free Plan

Claude Opus 5.5 is a hosted model, so you access it by signing in to something that includes it. In the Claude app (web, desktop or mobile), that means a Pro plan at $20 a month ($17 a month billed annually) or Max, Ultra, Team or Enterprise, and then choosing Opus 5.5 in the model menu. In Claude Code, update to v2.1.280 or later and Opus 5.5 is already the default on those plans; /model opus switches back to it. Developers call it through the Claude API as claude-opus-5-5 at $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens, or through Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud, Microsoft Foundry or GitHub Copilot Pro+. As of November 6, 2026, Claude's Free plan includes neither Opus nor Claude Code (Claude pricing page).

Free access exists only under conditions. A Pro, Max or Ultra subscriber can send you a guest pass for a week of Pro, which needs a card and becomes a paid plan unless you cancel. New API accounts get a small test credit, and Max and Ultra include monthly API credit. Gift subscriptions, the usual "ask a friend" route, can't be bought right now, and "free unlimited Opus" offers run on someone else's prepaid API credit that runs out.

Whichever way you get in, confirm the model from what the tool reports, not from the model's own answer. In a test call on November 6, 2026, the response's model field read claude-opus-5-5 while the model itself replied that it "can't verify which specific model or version" it was.

Which way into Opus 5.5 fits you: six entries as of November 6, 2026

Pick the entry by what you want to do and what you already pay for. If you want to chat, write or work through files, the Claude app on a paid plan is the shortest path. If you code in a terminal or IDE, Claude Code on the same plan gets you Opus 5.5 with no extra setup, and if you're building software, the API or your company's cloud account bills per token instead of per month.

The plan only opens the door. On a subscription, Opus 5.5 also draws down your five-hour and weekly limits, and Anthropic's pricing page says how fast you hit them "depends on the model you use, how long your chats are, and how large your files are." The per-plan numbers are in Claude Usage Limits by Plan: What 5x and 20x Actually Multiply. Where you are matters too: Anthropic only serves the countries on its supported-regions list, whichever entry you pick (see the questions at the end).

Can you access Claude Opus 5.5 for free?

Not on an ongoing basis. Anthropic has no free plan that includes Opus 5.5, so every free route is a time-limited or credit-limited version of a paid one, and each has a catch you should know before you sign up.

The closest thing to a free trial is a guest pass, and it has to come from someone who already pays. Eligible Pro, Max and Ultra subscribers get a limited number of passes, find them with /passes in Claude Code or in their Claude settings, and send you a referral link. According to Anthropic's guest pass help article, the link gives you "seven days of free access to Claude's Pro plan, which includes Claude Code, Cowork, and Claude Design," and Pro includes Opus 5.5. You must be new to Claude paid subscriptions and enter payment details at signup; you aren't charged during the seven days, but "if they don't cancel, their free trial will automatically convert to a paid Pro plan." Set a reminder for day six if you only want the week. A pass is a link from a subscriber, not a code you can buy or find on a coupon site.

Gift subscriptions are paused. As of November 6, 2026, Anthropic's gift subscription help page says gifts "are currently unavailable to purchase" for all accounts, with no date for their return. If someone already bought you one, you can still redeem it at claude.ai/gift/redeem without a credit card, within 365 days of the purchase date. A friend who wants to cover you now has to send a guest pass or share the cost some other way.

On the API, there is a one-time test credit and two plan perks. New Claude Console accounts "receive a small amount of free credits to test the API"; Anthropic doesn't publish the amount, and third-party reports put it around $5, which covers short test calls rather than daily use. Max includes $100 a month and Ultra $200 a month in API credits to build on the Claude Platform, and Pro includes none. How to claim each one is in Claude API Key: How to Get One, Is It Free, and Safe Buying.

Videos and sites that promise "free unlimited Opus 5.5" usually route you through a third-party provider's monthly API credits or an aggregator account. The catch is the meter. Opus is billed per token on the API, and in an r/ClaudeCode thread from early November 2026 asking what the catch was, a widely upvoted reply said $50 of Claude API tokens "would last you about a few minutes of using Fable or Opus models" in a coding agent. When the credit runs out, the offer ends or turns into a paid plan, and you have handed your code and prompts to a service you didn't vet.

If what you saw was "Opus 5.5 free reset", that is a different thing: a saved limit reset that Anthropic gave existing subscribers at launch, not free access. What it restores is covered in Claude Opus 5.5 Pricing and Limit Reset: What Each One Changes.

Use Opus 5.5 in the Claude app: download the app, not the model

On a paid plan, Opus 5.5 is one choice in the model menu of the Claude app, on the web at claude.ai, in the desktop app or on your phone. The plan, not the device, decides whether it appears, so the steps are the same everywhere:

1. Sign in at claude.ai or in the Claude desktop or mobile app with the account you want to use.
2. If the account is on Free, upgrade to Pro or higher, or redeem a guest pass link.
3. Start a chat, open the model menu in the chat window, and choose Opus 5.5.

There is no Claude Opus 5.5 file to download. Anthropic doesn't publish Opus 5.5 as model weights; it runs on Anthropic's servers and on the cloud platforms listed below. What you download is the Claude app: Claude's download page lists desktop apps for macOS, Windows (including Windows on Arm and the Microsoft Store) and Linux, plus mobile apps through claude.ai/mobile. A site offering an "Opus 5.5 free download" is not offering Anthropic's model.

To buy access, pick a plan on Claude's pricing page; prices there exclude tax, and Max ($100) and Ultra ($200) are billed monthly. If you're deciding between plans, Claude Pro vs Max vs Ultra: Usage Limits and When Max Is Worth It compares how far each one gets you.

Is Opus 5.5 in Claude Code? Yes, from v2.1.280

Yes. Claude Code needs v2.1.280 or later for Opus 5.5, and from that version it is the default model on Pro, Max, Ultra, Team, Enterprise and Anthropic API accounts, according to Claude Code's model configuration docs. Before v2.1.280, Pro and Team Standard defaulted to Sonnet 5, so on an old install you may not see it at all.

1. Install Claude Code if you haven't yet (How to Install Claude Code: Complete Setup Guide for Every Platform (2026)), and sign in with a paid Claude account or an API key. The Free plan doesn't include Claude Code.
2. Run claude --version. If it prints anything below 2.1.280, run claude update.
3. Start a session with claude. On the plans above, a new session starts on Opus 5.5 unless you saved a different model earlier.
4. If it isn't on Opus 5.5, run /model opus inside the session, or start with claude --model opus. To pin the exact version so a future alias change doesn't move you, use claude --model claude-opus-5-5 or set ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL=claude-opus-5-5.
5. Run /status to see the current model and account.

Two settings change what you get once you're there. Opus 5.5 runs at medium effort by default, and an effortLevel you saved before per-model effort existed doesn't apply to it; Claude Code Effort Level: Model Defaults and Why It Won't Stick explains how to raise it. If answers feel weaker than you expected, Is Opus 5.5 Nerfed? No Confirmed Drop Yet; Check Effort First walks through that check. Fast mode for Opus 5.5 is also available in Claude Code, at up to 2.5x the speed and twice the per-token price.

Call claude-opus-5-5 through the Claude API

The API model ID is claude-opus-5-5, and any Claude Console account with credit can call it; Anthropic's launch post put Opus 5.5 on all its platforms on day one, with no waitlist or approval step.

1. Create an account in the Claude Console at platform.claude.com. New accounts receive a small one-time test credit.
2. Create an API key and add prepaid credit to the organization, or use the API credit that comes with Max or Ultra.
3. Send a request with "model": "claude-opus-5-5":

curl https://api.anthropic.com/v1/messages \
  -H "x-api-key: $ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" \
  -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "claude-opus-5-5",
    "max_tokens": 1024,
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Summarize the attached plan in five bullet points."}]
  }'

4. Check the model field in the JSON that comes back. It names the model that produced the reply.

The response may start with a thinking block even when your request doesn't ask for one. Anthropic says Opus 5.5 is "no longer available with 'thinking' mode switched off," and the Messages call in the November 6 test below returned a signed thinking block although its request had no thinking field. Plan your parsing for it.

Fast mode on the Claude Platform costs $8 per million input tokens and $40 per million output tokens, the Batch API halves the standard price, and prompt cache reads cost 5% of the base input price (Claude models overview). Worked cost examples are in Claude Opus 5.5 Pricing and Limit Reset: What Each One Changes.

Opus 5.5 through Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud, Microsoft Foundry or Copilot

If your company already runs on a cloud provider, you can use Opus 5.5 there under your existing cloud bill, with the provider's own model ID. The Claude models overview lists anthropic.claude-opus-5-5 on Amazon Bedrock and claude-opus-5-5 on Claude Models on Google Cloud, Microsoft Foundry and Claude Platform on AWS. Use of the model is billed through your cloud account, not through a Claude subscription or Claude Console credit.

Claude Code works with these clouds too, with one trap. The opus alias resolves to Opus 5.5 on Bedrock, Google Cloud's Agent Platform and Claude Platform on AWS, but to Opus 4.6 on Microsoft Foundry, where the default model is Sonnet 4.5. On Foundry, select claude-opus-5-5 by its full name or set ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL.

In GitHub Copilot, Claude Opus 5.5 is generally available, but only on Copilot Pro+, Max, Business and Enterprise; GitHub's supported models page marks it "Not included" for Copilot Pro, and Copilot Free and Student users get models only through automatic selection. In Visual Studio it needs version 17.14.6 or later.

Through a third-party API gateway such as laozhang.ai

A gateway resells API access under its own key and price list, so the model can be the same while the features around it differ. laozhang.ai is one such option: its model catalog lists claude-opus-5-5 at the same per-token list price as Anthropic, callable through both the Anthropic Messages format and an OpenAI-compatible endpoint, which helps if your code already uses the OpenAI SDK or you want one key for Claude, GPT and Gemini models.

Disclosure: laozhang.ai is our own service. Its prices are platform pricing, not an independent comparison.

The trade-offs are written in its Claude API reference. Each response is capped at 32,768 output tokens, PDF document blocks aren't accepted, Anthropic server tools such as web_search, web_fetch and code_execution return a 400 error, and the token-counting endpoint, Message Batches and the Files API aren't available. If you need PDFs, Anthropic's web search tool or the batch discount, use Anthropic's API or a cloud provider instead.

Claude Code can point at a gateway by setting ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL (for laozhang.ai, https://api.laozhang.ai), and the gateway's docs ask for a key in its Claude Code token group; a default-group key also worked for a Messages call on November 6, 2026. Claude Code's own docs note that the base URL "changes where requests are sent, not which model answers them," so check the model with the steps below. A gateway also doesn't change Anthropic's supported-regions rule, which covers Claude models offered through cloud platforms and authorized resellers as well.

How to check the reply really came from Opus 5.5

Read the model name the tool reports, not what the model says about itself. On November 6, 2026, two calls to claude-opus-5-5 went through the laozhang.ai gateway (not Anthropic's API directly): one to the OpenAI-compatible /v1/chat/completions endpoint and one to the Anthropic Messages /v1/messages endpoint. Both returned HTTP 200 with "model": "claude-opus-5-5" in the response. The same prompt asked which Claude model family it belonged to, and the replies were "I'm Claude, made by Anthropic, but I can't verify which specific model or version I am" and "I don't have reliable information about which specific model version I am." The first call used 37 input and 131 output tokens, about $0.0028 at list price, and the second 37 and 119, about $0.0025.

Disclosure: laozhang.ai is our own service. Its prices are platform pricing, not an independent comparison.

So asking "are you Opus 5.5?" proves nothing either way, while the metadata does. On the API, a gateway or a cloud, that means the model field of the response or the model ID in your request, as listed in the last column of the table at the top; in the Claude app and Copilot, it's the name shown in the model menu.

Claude Code needs a little more care, because its model can change during a session. In an interactive session, /status shows the current model, and so does the status line if you've configured one. The name to expect is "Opus 5.5": in the Claude Code 2.1.316 build installed on a Mac on November 6, 2026, the model-selector configuration pairs the ID claude-opus-5-5 with the name "Opus 5.5". For scripts, claude -p with --output-format json returns modelUsage keyed by the model that actually answered; an October 21, 2026 run of the command below returned a key named claude-opus-5-5 with provider firstParty:

claude -p "Reply with OK" --model opus --output-format json \
  | python3 -c 'import json,sys; print(list(json.load(sys.stdin)["modelUsage"]))'

A Claude Code session can also leave Opus 5.5 without you choosing to. When Opus 5.5's safety classifiers flag a request, Claude Code re-runs biology-flagged requests on Opus 5 and cybersecurity-flagged requests on Opus 4.8, shows a notice in the transcript, and keeps the session on that model; run /model to go back. If the notice scrolled past, /status shows where you are now.

Claude Opus 5.5 access: other questions

Is Opus 5.5 available now?

Yes. Anthropic released Claude Opus 5.5 on September 22, 2026, and its launch announcement says it is "available on all platforms, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure," with claude-opus-5-5 as the API model ID. Inside each product it still depends on your plan, as of November 6, 2026.

Can you use Claude Opus 5.5 in Russia, China or Hong Kong?

No. As of November 6, 2026, Anthropic's supported countries and regions page doesn't list Russia, mainland China or Hong Kong, and the rule applies to people physically located there across Claude.ai, Claude Code, the API, and Claude models offered through cloud platforms and authorized resellers.

Should you use Sonnet 5.5 or Fable 5.1 instead of Opus 5.5?

Sonnet 5.5 is half Opus 5.5's API price and is included on the Free plan, so it is worth trying first for routine work; Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Opus 5.5: When Half the Price Really Saves shows where the gap matters. For problems Opus 5.5 can't solve even at higher effort, Claude Fable 5.1 vs Opus 5.5: Which Should You Use? covers when Fable is worth its cost.