Anthropic has renegotiated part of its partnership with Amazon, shifting the pricing for Claude from a compute-hours basis to a token basis. The change takes effect next year and could raise Amazon's costs across the products in which it embeds Claude.
From 2027 · Anthropic & Amazon
Anthropic Switches Amazon to Token-Based Billing for Claude
Charges will accrue on the volume of tokens processed rather than hardware usage time — a shift that ties revenue more directly to usage and could raise Amazon's costs as it scales Claude across its products.
~$25B
Amazon's total investment in Anthropic, including future portions
$100B+
Anthropic's 10-year compute commitment to AWS
5GW
Capacity secured on AWS, centered on Trainium chips
Amazon's Investment Into Anthropic, Stacked
Built up across rounds — heights proportional to dollars committed.
Current · Compute hours
Unit: hardware / GPU usage timeAnthropic revenue: varies with usage efficiencyAmazon cost: easier to keep level on a time basis
From 2027 · Tokens
Unit: volume of input / output tokensAnthropic revenue: tied to usage, easier to predictAmazon cost: can rise as usage expands
How the industry reads it
Token billing gives Anthropic firmer control over pricing and Amazon clearer cost visibility — but with mutual dependence flowing both ways, neither side gains a one-sided advantage.
→ Amazon is reportedly distilling Anthropic's models and leaning on its own Nova models to hedge costs ahead of 2027.
→ No direct pricing change announced for external Amazon Bedrock users — though future revisions remain a point of debate.
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