# Claude Duet: Pricing, Usage Limits and Waitlist > Claude Duet adds no fee to Claude Pro ($20) or Max (from $100), but its background check-ins spend the same usage limits. US only, waitlist, research preview. Source: https://capitalandcompute.net/blog/claude-duet-pricing-and-usage-limits/ Published: 2026-10-22 Updated: 2026-10-30 Claude Duet has no price of its own: it comes with Claude Pro ($20 a month) and Max (from $100), US only, by waitlist. The catch is that its check-ins every few hours spend the same usage limits as your chats. Anthropic opened Duet as a research preview on October 21, 2026\. It is a separate app where Claude works as a proactive agent: it sends you a morning brief, watches your connected apps, runs tasks on its own cloud computer, and asks before it acts for you. The launch coverage explains what it does. This page covers what people ask next: which plan gets it, what it really costs you, and how to get in. Key takeaways * Claude Duet is included in Claude Pro and Max at no extra charge. Free, Team and Enterprise plans do not include it during the preview. * Access is by waitlist, for US subscribers only, on iOS, Android and claude.ai on a computer. * Duet shares your plan usage limits with the rest of Claude. Its background checks count toward them, and Anthropic publishes no per-check cost. * It reads and drafts on its own but asks before it sends a message, pays, signs or deletes. It refuses securities trades and transfers between accounts even with your approval. * Cheapest way in: Duet at $20 a month via Pro, the same as Grok Bot via Cursor Pro and Muse Power. Muse also has a free tier; OpenAI Dots starts at $100. ## How much does Claude Duet cost? Nothing on top of the plan you already pay for. Anthropic’s product page, [_Claude Duet_](https://claude.com/product/claude-duet), says the preview is open by waitlist to “Pro and Max subscribers in the US” and that Team and Enterprise are not included yet. The [Claude pricing page](https://claude.com/pricing), read on October 22, 2026, lists no separate Duet line. Duet appears only as a product link in the menu. | Plan | Price billed monthly | Price billed annually | Claude Duet | Where | | ---------------- | -------------------- | ---------------------- | ---------------- | ------- | | Free | $0 | n/a | No | n/a | | Pro | $20/month | $17/month ($200/year) | Yes, by waitlist | US only | | Max 5x / Max 20x | From $100/month | Not listed | Yes, by waitlist | US only | | Team | $25/seat/month | $20/seat/month | Not yet | n/a | | Enterprise | Annual only | $20/seat/month + usage | Not yet | n/a | So the cheapest way into Duet is Pro billed annually, $200 a year. If you’re already on Pro or Max in the US, the only cost is the share of your usage limits it spends, which the next section covers. ## How do Duet’s background checks use your usage limits? They come out of the same allowance as everything else you do in Claude. Anthropic’s launch article, [_Introducing Claude Duet_](https://claude.com/resources/articles/claude-duet) (October 21, 2026), says it plainly: “Claude Duet shares your plan’s usage limits with the rest of Claude.” The product page adds that the background checks count toward those limits, and that bigger jobs, such as building a financial model or a deck, take more model turns and more background work. The check-in rhythm is set by that budget. The same article says Duet “checks your connected accounts every few hours, because checking nonstop would use up your plan’s limits.” In other words, Anthropic chose the polling interval so a Pro allowance survives a full day. You can change what Duet tells you about and how often. Two numbers are missing, and they are the two a buyer needs: * **How much one check costs.** Anthropic publishes no figure per check or per morning brief. Any per-check number you see quoted is a guess. * **How many checks a day Pro can carry.** The pricing page describes Pro as a five-hour session limit plus a weekly limit, with Max at five or twenty times Pro per session. It doesn’t say how Duet’s background work counts against the five-hour window. What follows from what is published: * **On Pro, Duet competes with your own chats.** A heavy Claude Code or long-document day and a busy Duet day draw on the same weekly limit. If you already hit Pro limits, Duet will make that happen sooner. * **Large handoffs cost the most.** A one-line triage of your inbox is cheap next to “build me a dashboard from QuickBooks”, which runs many turns in a browser on its own computer. * **Max is the safe choice for running Duet all day.** Five times the per-session allowance is the margin that lets background work and your own chats coexist. Duet is built around Claude Opus 5.5, a frontier model rather than a small, cheap one, so each turn draws on your allowance at Opus rates. The [Opus 5.5 pricing breakdown](/blog/claude-opus-5-5-pricing-benchmarks/) has the per-token prices behind that. ## How do you get on the Claude Duet waitlist? You need a Claude Pro or Max subscription and a US account. Then: 1. **Join the waitlist** from the [Claude Duet product page](https://claude.com/product/claude-duet). Anthropic says it emails you when access is ready, and gives no timeline. 2. **Install the app** on iOS or Android, or use it in a browser on claude.ai. 3. **Check your connectors first.** Duet carries over your memory, skills and connected apps from your Claude account, so the apps you have already connected are the ones it will watch on day one. 4. **Set the brief.** Tell it what counts as urgent and how often you want to hear from it. That choice also controls how much of your limit it spends. There’s no separate setup beyond that. You talk to Duet by text or voice in one ongoing thread. ## What can Claude Duet do, and what needs your approval? Duet can use more than 6,000 connectors and plugins from the Claude Marketplace. Anthropic’s examples are small-business chores: finding missed Gmail and Slack messages, chasing unpaid invoices in QuickBooks or Stripe, preparing payroll in Gusto, sending agreements through Docusign, drafting follow-ups from HubSpot, and running a Shopify store. It can buy things through Link, Stripe’s wallet, and pays with a virtual card “so your real card number isn’t shared.” It can also check out with Shop Pay. The permission model has three tiers, and they are the part to read before you connect a bank or a payroll app. __What Claude Duet does alone, what it asks first, and what it refuses__ | Tier | Actions | | ---------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Does on its own (no approval needed) | Reads connected apps; Checks in every few hours; Drafts replies; Builds docs, sheets, decks; Sends you a morning brief | | Asks you first (shows the action, waits) | Sends a message; Makes a payment; Signs a document; Deletes anything | | Refuses (even with your approval) | Trades securities; Moves money between accounts | Claude Duet's three action tiers. It reads and drafts on its own, asks before it sends a message, pays, signs or deletes anything, and refuses some actions even with approval, such as trading securities or moving money between accounts.Source: [Anthropic, Introducing Claude Duet and the Claude Duet product page, read October 22, 2026.](https://claude.com/resources/articles/claude-duet) The approval list is Anthropic’s own wording: Duet shows you the action “before it sends a message, makes a payment, signs a document, or deletes anything.” Anthropic says the refused tier contains “a few things,” and gives securities trades and transfers between accounts as examples. It doesn’t publish the full list. Underneath, the launch article says Duet uses the credential design from Claude Managed Agents, so it never sees your passwords or sign-in tokens directly. A new classifier screens its messages for sensitive data. Card numbers and government IDs are in the strictest tier, and health and personal-finance details go out only when you explicitly tell it to share them. How that credential vault works is covered in this site’s [comparison of the Agent SDK and Managed Agents](/blog/claude-agent-sdk-vs-managed-agents/). Anthropic also lists what the preview gets wrong. It “might misread a thread or miscalibrate what’s urgent.” Personal errands such as booking tickets “aren’t quite as strong,” because it was built around work. And it “can’t yet show you its browser.” Saved 1Password logins and a visual Shopify storefront editor are marked as coming soon. How this page was checked Every plan, price and quote was read from Anthropic’s launch article, the Claude Duet product page and the Claude pricing page on October 22, 2026\. Competitor prices come from this site’s September 30 comparison, re-checked against current coverage on the same day. Duet was not tested hands-on: access is by waitlist. Nothing here is sponsored, and there are no affiliate links. ## Claude Duet vs Dots vs Muse: which costs less? Duet and two of its rivals all have a $20 door, so price alone doesn’t pick a winner. Region and plan do. | Agent | Cheapest way in | Other plans | Where | | ----------- | ----------------------------- | ------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------- | | Claude Duet | Claude Pro, $20/month | Max, from $100/month | US only, waitlist | | Meta Muse | Free, with a weekly usage cap | Power $20, Maximum $100 | US at launch; Meta later added Canada | | Grok Bot | Cursor Pro, $20/month | Pro+ $60, Ultra $200, SuperGrok | Not published | | OpenAI Dots | ChatGPT Pro, $100/month | Pro $200 and $500, Business | Not in the EEA, Switzerland or UK on Pro | The difference that matters for Duet is how usage is billed. Duet spends your existing Claude limits, so a Pro subscriber pays nothing new but shares one allowance. Muse sells its own weekly token allowances by tier, and Grok Bot meters its usage separately from your Cursor editor usage. The full three-way comparison, with safety designs and a pick per reader, is in [Dots vs Muse vs Grok Bot](/blog/dots-vs-muse-vs-grok-bot/). ## Is Claude Duet worth it on Pro? Yes, if you’re already paying for Pro and your work runs through the apps it connects to: there’s no extra charge, so the preview costs you only some usage. The exception is if you regularly hit Pro limits already. Then Duet will crowd out your own work, and Max is the realistic plan for it. If you’re outside the US, or on Team or Enterprise, you can’t get Duet yet. Meta Muse’s free tier is the cheapest way to try an always-on agent today. For a sense of what self-hosted agents cost by comparison (hosting, tokens and your time), see [what a personal AI agent costs in 2026](/blog/personal-ai-agent-cost-2026/). ## Frequently asked questions Is Claude Duet free? Not on the Free plan. Claude Duet has no separate fee, but it is only included in Claude Pro ($20 a month) and Max (from $100 a month), for US subscribers, by waitlist, during the research preview. Does Claude Duet use my Claude usage limits? Yes. Anthropic says Duet shares your plan usage limits with the rest of Claude, and its background checks count toward them. Larger tasks such as building a financial model or a deck use more. Anthropic does not publish how much one check uses. Can I use Claude Duet on a Team or Enterprise plan? Not yet. As of October 22, 2026, the Claude Duet product page says Team and Enterprise plans are not included in the research preview. Is Claude Duet available outside the US? No. The research preview opened on October 21, 2026 for Pro and Max subscribers in the US only. Anthropic has not given a date for other countries. Which model does Claude Duet use? Claude Duet is built around Claude Opus 5.5, according to Anthropic. It runs on its own cloud computer with its own browser, so your phone or laptop does not need to stay on. ## Sources Anthropic (2026). _Introducing Claude Duet_. Anthropic announcement. Anthropic (2026). _Claude Duet_. Product page. Anthropic (2026). _Plans and pricing_. Claude pricing page. Meta (2026). _Muse subscriptions_. Meta Help Center. Cursor (2026). _Grok Bot plans_. Cursor Help Center documentation.