Quick Start

From sign-up to your first successful call in 3 minutes.

1. Register an Account

Open claude-api.org and sign up with your email:

• Registration requires an email verification code + Cloudflare Turnstile human verification.
• New sign-ups instantly receive a $1 trial credit; in the dashboard go to Profile → join the Telegram group to complete binding, then claim another $9 ($10 total), usable on all channels.
• Invited sign-ups: your inviter earns 15% commission on your spending within 90 days after you join (this does not affect your balance).

About "$"

The site displays currency as $ (USD), and when topping up ¥1 = $1 (no exchange-rate conversion). When calculating your balance, just read the $ figure directly.

2. Create an API Key

Dashboard → API Keys in the left sidebar → New in the top right:

• Name: Anything you like, to help you tell them apart ("My Cursor", "Company Claude Code", etc.).
• Bound Channel: Pick a Channel.
  • To run the Claude Code CLI → choose Claude Official (Claude Code only) (1.4x, all models, high-quality upstream) or Claude Sonnet Discount (Sonnet only, 0.5x discount)
  • To use Cline / Cursor with Claude / opencode / Open WebUI / Cherry Studio / your own SDK calling Anthropic → choose Claude Official (any client) (2.0x, stable) or Budget Claude (0.5x, relatively less stable quality)
  • For Claude workflows with the highest stability requirements (production-critical) → choose Claude AWS Bedrock (3.0x, AWS Bedrock upstream)
  • To run ChatGPT / Codex-style APIs: for plain text choose Codex (0.35x); to generate images (gpt-image-2) or for maximum cost savings choose Codex Ultra-low-cost (0.15x)
  • To run Gemini → choose Gemini
  • To generate images → choose the Codex Ultra-low-cost channel and use the gpt-image-2 model. The "AI Image Generation" entry in the dashboard sidebar is the embedded tool.
  • To use 1M context → choose a Claude-type channel, select the opus-4-7 / opus-4-6 / sonnet-4-6 model, and add the anthropic-beta: context-1m-2025-08-07 header. See Channels & Pricing § 1M Long Context for details.
• Quota: Unlimited by default, billed against your balance. You can set separate daily/weekly/monthly limits.

After creation, the full Key is shown only once, so copy and save it immediately (it starts with sk-).

3. Configure Your Client

Jump to the guide for the tool you use:

Tool	Best for	Go to
Claude Code	Terminal CLI, CC IDE plugin	Setup
Codex CLI	OpenAI Codex command line	Setup
opencode	Open-source multi-provider terminal Agent	Setup
cc-switch	Desktop GUI, one-click switching across providers	Setup
Chatbox	Desktop chat client	Setup
Cline	VS Code extension	Setup
Open WebUI	Self-hosted ChatGPT-like UI	Setup

The two most common environment-variable setups:

Claude Code (Anthropic 协议)

export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="https://claude-api.org"
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN="sk-你的key"

OpenAI 协议 (Cursor / Cline / Chatbox)

export OPENAI_BASE_URL="https://claude-api.org/v1"
export OPENAI_API_KEY="sk-你的key"

4. Verify

Run a one-line curl in your terminal and check that you get a 200:

Anthropic 协议

curl -sS https://claude-api.org/v1/messages \
  -H "x-api-key: sk-你的key" \
  -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model":"claude-sonnet-4-6","max_tokens":32,"messages":[{"role":"user","content":"ping"}]}'

OpenAI 协议

curl -sS https://claude-api.org/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-你的key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model":"gpt-5.4","max_tokens":32,"messages":[{"role":"user","content":"ping"}]}'

A normal JSON response means setup succeeded. For errors, see the FAQ.

The model field must use the exact name

We do not provide short-name fallbacks — for example, gpt-5 will not be automatically mapped to gpt-5.4, and you will get 503 No available accounts directly. See Channels & Pricing for the exact model names of each channel.

Next Steps

• See Channels & Pricing to pick the best-value channel
• See Top-up & Plans to learn how much bonus you get for a $100 top-up
• Configure your Key in your most-used tool and start working