Tell HN: Anthropic expires paid credits after a year

Hacker News Discussion ↗

Practice of expiring AI credits

  • Anthropic’s paid credits expire after one year; several commenters note OpenAI, Perplexity, Audible, Shutterstock, Skype and others do similar things.
  • Others contrast this with services like some cloud providers, Uber, Lyft, Starbucks, and in-game currencies where balances often don’t expire or are very long-lived.
  • Some users only discovered this by losing older credits; others say Anthropic prominently discloses it at purchase time.

Ethical and consumer impact views

  • Many call the practice “theft” or “robbery” even if disclosed, arguing you pay real money and should be able to use every cent or get a refund, especially on account closure.
  • Others see it as a standard, acceptable business practice as long as it’s clearly communicated.
  • Several warn against over‑reliance on AIaaS/“Intelligence as a Service”: if your skills or products depend on these tools and you go broke or lose access, you’re exposed.
  • Some say this erodes Anthropic’s “good guy” image and is a reason to switch providers or avoid prepay altogether.

Legal and regulatory uncertainty

  • Multiple comments question legality under California and Washington laws that restrict or forbid expiration of gift cards and prepaid dollar-value credits.
  • It’s unclear whether AI prepaid credits are legally equivalent to gift certificates or a distinct “service credit” category not covered by those protections.
  • One user reports even Claude gave a non-committal answer and suggested a possible complaint to California regulators.

Accounting and business rationale

  • Several commenters explain the standard accounting view: unused, non-expiring credits are “deferred revenue” (a liability) and must sit on the books until used or expired.
  • Non-expiring balances complicate revenue recognition, tax treatment, and can create large, long-lived liabilities; “breakage” accounting is cited as the formal framework.
  • Others push back that this is just accounting convenience and a business choice: many firms manage non-expiring gift cards and float without becoming banks or violating rules.

Incentives, usage patterns, and workarounds

  • Some argue expiring credits and token-based billing create misaligned incentives: providers benefit from users over-buying or “wasting” tokens; others counter that long-term customer retention dominates.
  • Suggestions: smaller deposits plus auto-reload, pay-as-you-go invoicing, long (e.g., 1000-year) expirations, or restoring expired credits on request.
  • A few users treat the expiry notice as a prompt to finally try features; others say it permanently reduced their trust in Anthropic.