Anthropic starts localizing Claude pricing for India, its biggest market after the US

Anthropic has started localizing Claude’s pricing in India, its largest market outside the US, as global AI companies increasingly tailor their offerings to win over users in the world’s most populous country.

Local prices will appear on Claude’s website and mobile apps for some users in India. However, Anthropic has yet to enable payments through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the widely used Indian payment network. Users will still have to pay by card or through Apple and Google’s app store billing systems. This is different from OpenAI, that has rolled out Indian Rupee pricing for ChatGPT in August with UPI support.

Claude users in India do long sought after subscriptions in rupees, with dollar pricing and currency conversion making access to the service more difficult. This step is particularly important, as India accounts for 5.8% of global Claude usagemaking it the second-largest market for the service after the US, according to Anthropic.

On Claude’s website in India, Anthropic lists Claude Pro at ₹2,000 (about $21) per month when billed annually, compared to $17 per month in the US. Claude Max starts at ₹11,999 (about $125) per month in India, versus $100 in the US, while Team plans start at ₹2,399 (about $25) per seat per month, compared to $20 in the US. Prices in India include local taxes. Additionally, the prices of Claude’s mobile apps vary slightly from the prices on her website.

The Indian Rupee pricing comes from Anthropic’s growing focus on India. The Claude maker opened an office in Bengaluru in February, after announcing the move in October, and appointed former Microsoft India managing director Irina Ghose to head its operations in the country in January. Anthropic has also partnered with Indian IT services giants Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services in recent months to help scale enterprise AI deployments.

That expansion suffered a setback in June when Anthropic abruptly suspended access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models for non-US entities, prompting some Indian developers and startup founders to consider alternatives to US AI models. The restriction on Fable 5 has now been lifted, although access to Mythos 5 remains limited.

India has become an increasingly important market for AI companies, driven by its large base of developers and technology workers. However, converting widespread usage into paid subscriptions remains a challenge in the price-sensitive market.

Anthropic did not respond to a request for comment on the introduction of Indian Rupee pricing.