How to Use Claude API in India and Pay in INR

The problem: Anthropic does not accept INR

Anthropic's direct API billing requires an international credit card and charges in USD. For most Indian developers, freelancers, and startups, that means forex fees, card declines, and unpredictable monthly bills.

AICredits solves this by acting as a compliant intermediary. You top up your wallet in INR via UPI, net banking, or debit card — and we handle the provider billing in USD on your behalf.

Step 1: Create your AICredits account

Sign up at aicredits.in. No credit card required at signup. You get access to the dashboard immediately.

Once logged in, navigate to API Keys and click Create New Key. Give it a name like claude-production and optionally set a budget cap to prevent runaway spend.

Step 2: Add credits in INR

Go to Billing → Add Credits. The minimum topup is ₹10. Pay via Razorpay using UPI (Google Pay, PhonePe, Paytm), net banking, or a domestic debit card.

Credits are added to your wallet instantly after payment confirmation. The INR balance is what gets deducted as you make API calls.

Step 3: Point your code at AICredits

Change exactly two lines in your existing code:

import anthropic
 
# Before (direct Anthropic)
client = anthropic.Anthropic(api_key="sk-ant-...")
 
# After (via AICredits — OpenAI-compatible format)
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://api.aicredits.in/v1",
    api_key="sk-your-aicredits-key",
)
 
response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="anthropic/claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Explain how neural networks learn."}],
    max_tokens=500,
)
print(response.choices[0].message.content)

Everything else — message format, streaming, system prompts, tool use — works exactly as documented. AICredits translates the OpenAI-compatible format to Anthropic's Messages API internally.

Cost: what does Claude actually cost in rupees?

Claude 3.5 Sonnet costs $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens at Anthropic's list price. At an exchange rate of ₹87 per USD with a 5% forex buffer and 5% platform markup, that works out to roughly ₹274 per million input tokens and ₹1,370 per million output tokens.

For a typical chatbot exchange of 500 input tokens and 300 output tokens, one request costs approximately ₹0.14. Use the cost calculator at aicredits.in/calculator to estimate your specific workload before committing credits.

Supported Claude models

AICredits supports all major Claude models:

| Model ID | Best for | |----------|---------| | anthropic/claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022 | Complex reasoning, code, writing | | anthropic/claude-3-5-haiku-20241022 | Fast, cost-efficient tasks | | anthropic/claude-3-opus-20240229 | Most capable, highest cost | | anthropic/claude-3-haiku-20240307 | Lightest and cheapest |

If a model is temporarily unavailable from the primary provider, AICredits automatically routes to a fallback so your application stays responsive.