India guide
How to pay for the Claude API from India with UPI
The Anthropic API bills in US dollars by card. How to buy Claude API access in rupees with UPI instead, and connect Claude Code and the Anthropic SDK.
Short answer: you cannot pay Anthropic’s API console with UPI. It sells prepaid credit in US dollars to a card. To pay in rupees, buy Claude API access from a prepaid provider that accepts UPI — such as ScaleMax — and point Claude Code or the Anthropic SDK at its base URL. Your model IDs and code stay the same.
Why UPI does not work with the Anthropic API
As of 14 October 2026, the Anthropic API bills prepaid credit in US dollars and takes payment by card. UPI and net banking are not offered there. Anthropic does show rupee prices in India, but those are for the Claude Pro and Max chat subscriptions — not for API credit.
For a developer in India that usually means an international credit card, a dollar charge, and your bank’s foreign-currency mark-up on top. Indian cards also need international transactions switched on before they can pay a foreign merchant.
Your options
| Option | How you pay | Good when |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic API direct | US dollars, international card | You need Anthropic’s own terms or a beta feature on release day |
| A prepaid provider (ScaleMax) | UPI, PayU or Cashfree (UPI, cards, net banking), Cryptomus (crypto) or PayPal | You want to pay in rupees with UPI and use Claude Code or the SDK as normal |
ScaleMax is independent and not affiliated with Anthropic. It serves Claude models through the same Messages API shape, so tools built for Anthropic work after a base URL change. The full comparison lists where going direct is better.
Buy Claude API access with UPI
- Open the ScaleMax pricing page.
- Choose Pay as you go (a credit balance that covers Claude and other families) or a Claude token pack (a fixed allowance for Claude models only).
- Pick UPI at checkout. Approve the payment in your UPI app; the amount is shown in rupees before you pay, with no added payment fee.
- Copy the key from the dashboard once the payment is confirmed. Keep it out of code repositories and chat messages.
Pay as you go spends credit at each model’s published rate and works across model families. A token pack is a fixed allowance for one family. What ₹1,000 buys compares the two on Claude.
Connect Claude Code and the Anthropic SDK
Claude Code reads its gateway from environment variables. Use the origin — no /v1 — because Claude Code adds /v1/messages itself:
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://api.scalemax.pro
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=YOUR_SCALEMAX_KEY
claudeWith a Claude token pack key, use https://api.scalemax.pro/token instead. Or run npx scalemax@latest, choose Claude Code, and let the installer write the settings.
In Python, pass the same origin to the Anthropic SDK:
client = anthropic.Anthropic(
base_url="https://api.scalemax.pro",
api_key=os.environ["SCALEMAX_API_KEY"],
)Model IDs do not change: claude-opus-5-5, claude-sonnet-5-5 and so on. Tools that only speak the OpenAI API — Cursor, Cline, Roo Code — use https://api.scalemax.pro/v1 with the same Claude IDs; see integrations.
What it costs in rupees
Claude usage is deducted from your balance at each model’s published rate, and checkout converts at a fixed ₹100 = $1. Credit packs add more usage credit than they cost:
| Pack | You pay | Usage credit |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | ₹250 | $25 |
| Growth | ₹1,000 | $105 |
| Power | ₹5,000 | $535 |
| Scale | ₹10,000 | $1,100 |
Current per-model rates in rupees, and what a coding-agent step costs on Opus, Sonnet and Haiku, are on the Claude API in India page — they are read from the live catalogue, so they stay current.