Claude Tag: what it is, what it costs and how to set it up

Short answer

Claude Tag is Anthropic's Claude for Slack teams. Anyone in a channel tags @Claude with a task, and Claude works on it in the thread, where the whole channel can see and steer it. It can answer questions, turn a thread into a doc, watch a channel on a schedule, or fix a bug and open a draft pull request.

• Plans: Claude Team and Enterprise only, in beta since June 23, 2026. Not on Free, Pro, Max or Ultra.
• Cost: no per-seat charge. Channel work is paid by usage from a balance your organization funds, under a monthly spend limit.
• Setup: a Claude Owner and a Slack workspace admin set it up once. After that, people in the channels it's in just tag it.

It replaced the earlier Claude app for Slack. A Microsoft Teams version has a waitlist.

What Claude Tag does

Anthropic announced Claude Tag as one Claude identity for the whole team, instead of a private chat for each person. It's the same Slack app and the same @Claude as before (how it works).

• Each thread is a working session. Claude works in its own cloud sandbox, the same engine as Claude Code on the web, and posts a checklist it updates as it goes. Anyone in the thread can add details or redirect it, and Stop halts it.
• It reads the room: its thread, the channel's history and pins, and files you attach (images up to about 3.75 MB, PDFs up to 5 MB, up to 5 files a message). It can search public channels by keyword, even ones it isn't in. A private channel is readable only from inside it, after Claude is invited. It can't read canvases.
• It hands back real work: replies, files and charts in the thread, a hosted page on claude.ai that anyone in the channel can open, or a draft pull request opened by the Claude GitHub App.
• It remembers per channel. Each channel keeps its own notes. Public channels can also save workspace notes that every channel reads (memory).
• It runs on a schedule. Ask for a weekday digest, a watch on a channel, or updates on one pull request (routines). Schedules run in UTC, and !scheduled lists them.
• It can answer without a tag. Respond automatically is on by default, so Claude may reply to a message it thinks needs it, or offer to help. It reacts with an emoji within seconds when you do tag it.
• You pick the model. Claude runs on the Opus and Sonnet models your organization allows. Say "@Claude switch to Claude Opus 5.5 for the rest of this thread", or make a model the channel's default (models). !fast turns on fast mode, if an Owner allows it, at a higher cost.

Anthropic says its own internal Claude Tag writes 65% of its product team's code.

Who can use Claude Tag

• Claude Team and Enterprise, on Anthropic's own service. Not Free, Pro, Max or Ultra, and not third-party deployments (overview). Organizations with Zero Data Retention, customer-managed keys or the HIPAA configuration can't use it.
• No Claude seat needed in channels. By default, anyone in the paired Slack workspace can tag Claude. An Owner can limit it to people in the Claude organization, to verified email domains, or on Enterprise to chosen roles.
• DMs run on your own account. A one-to-one DM with Claude, in the Claude app's Messages tab or Slack's assistant panel, uses your claude.ai account and your seat's limits. The seat needs Claude Code, or on Enterprise a Standard or Usage-Based Chat seat with Cowork. Someone without a Claude account gets a short trial billed to the organization: 7 days, $50 or 50 sessions, whichever comes first.
• Guests and shared channels are limited. By default Claude doesn't respond in channels with guests, and it's off in Slack Connect channels (access settings).

What Claude Tag costs

Claude Tag has no price of its own on top of the Team or Enterprise plan. Work in channels, threads and group DMs is paid from a usage balance that an Owner funds (spend limits).

• What's billed: sessions people start by tagging or replying to Claude, work Claude starts on its own, and scheduled work. Reading the channels it's in isn't billed.
• Spend limit: one monthly cap for all paired workspaces, reset at the start of each month. Setup offers $500, $1,000, $2,500 (preselected), $5,000, Unlimited or a custom amount. A default limit applies to each channel, and a channel can get its own.
• Warnings: Claude posts a heads-up in Slack at 75% and at 90% of a limit. At the limit, it stops and tells the person who asked.
• List price: the limit counts usage at list price. A negotiated discount applies on the invoice.
• No per-task price. Anthropic publishes no cost per task. It suggests a pilot with a spend limit, watching the per-channel breakdown on the usage page.
• Team plans fund it first. Claude won't respond in channels until the balance has money.
• DMs use the sender's own seat, not the balance.

The launch credit, $25,000 per Enterprise organization and $2,500 per Team organization, expired on October 1, 2026 (launch promo).

Set up Claude Tag

You need the Owner role in your Claude organization, and a Slack workspace admin for the pairing step (setup guide). First, turn on Admin settings › Capabilities › Remote sessions › Routines. Without it, Claude Tag does no work.

1. Go to claude.ai/admin-settings/claude-tag and click Start setup.
2. Click Add to Slack and install the Claude app in your workspace. If Slack shows Request to install, a Slack admin approves it.
3. In a Slack channel, run /invite @Claude. A Slack workspace admin then sends @Claude connect, with no other text. Claude replies with a pairing code, which works once and expires in 15 minutes.
4. Paste it into Paste the pairing code and click Pair workspace.
5. Connect GitHub if Claude should work on code, and buy usage credits if asked, or skip both.
6. Pick a spend limit and at least one public channel, then click Launch Claude Tag.

Everyone in those channels can use it right away. Claude starts with no access to your other systems: an Owner then adds connectors and grants repositories to the Claude GitHub App. Used the earlier Claude app? Since October 5, 2026, it no longer answers in channels of a paired workspace, and nothing carries over from it (migration guide).

Use Claude Tag in a channel

1. In a channel Claude is in, write @Claude and the task, in plain language.
2. Claude reacts, then replies in the thread with a checklist and works through it.
3. Reply in the thread to add details or change course. Anyone in the thread can.
4. Claude posts the result in the thread: an answer, a file, a page or a pull request.

To see what it can reach, ask @Claude what can you access from this channel?, or click Configure in the footer of a Claude reply (getting started). Claude remembers what you tell it to: "@Claude remember that we ship on Tuesdays."

What Claude Tag can reach: connectors

Claude Tag reaches other tools two ways.

• Claude Tag connectors, added by an admin for a channel. They use an account the admin set up for Claude, so everyone who asks in that channel gets the same access. Anthropic has setup guides for Datadog, Sentry, PagerDuty, Linear, Asana, Jira and Confluence, Notion, Google Drive, Calendar and Gmail, HubSpot, Salesforce, Gong, GitLab, Snowflake, Amplitude, Stripe and Vercel, and admins can add custom ones (connections). GitHub goes through the Claude GitHub App.
• Personal connectors, the ones on your own claude.ai account. Claude's glossary counts "a custom MCP server" among them. Since September 2026, Claude can use them in a channel for your own requests, after asking you (personal connectors):
  • Allow runs in auto mode and holds anything that looks sensitive for you to check.
  • Allow with review shows you every result before it posts.
  • Don't allow declines this request.

Your connectors serve only you. A teammate's request in the same thread can't use them, and neither can routines or work Claude starts on its own. In DMs they apply without asking. Your saved choice is in the Claude app's Home tab in Slack.

Your own apps in Claude Tag, through Upsy

Because a custom connector counts as a personal connector, Upsy works in Claude Tag the way it works in claude.ai. Add Upsy once, and Claude can use your Gmail, Google Calendar, Drive, Notion, Linear and more for your requests in a channel and in DMs. What Upsy adds:

• Limits that hold in Slack too. Set Gmail to Read-only in Upsy, and Claude can't send email for you, even in auto mode. Upsy enforces it on its side.
• More than one account: up to five Gmail accounts, or work and personal calendars, each with its own access.
• A record: every call is in Upsy's History under Claude, and Upsy emails you if one assistant reads 100 or more times in 10 minutes.

To set it up:

1. Sign up at upsy.ai with Set up Upsy, and connect your apps on the Apps page.
2. Open Assistants, click Add assistant, pick Claude and copy your Upsy address, https://upsy.ai/connect.
3. On Team and Enterprise, an Owner adds Upsy once under Organization settings › Connectors (Add › Custom › Web). Then go to Customize › Connectors and click Connect next to Upsy.
4. Sign in on the Upsy page, choose each app's access, and click Allow.
5. In Slack, try "@Claude using Upsy, find a free 30-minute slot on my calendar Thursday afternoon." Choose Allow with review the first time.

The custom connector guide has each screen. Remember that what Claude posts in a channel, everyone there can read.

Where Claude Tag stops

• Team and Enterprise only, and Slack only. Microsoft Teams is coming. Individual plans can't use it.
• Costs are hard to predict. There's no price per task, and a busy channel with Respond automatically on starts work on its own. Set a spend limit, and per-channel limits for busy channels.
• No automatic retention in the beta. Transcripts and memory are kept until you delete them or disconnect the workspace. Your organization's retention setting doesn't apply to them, and they aren't in data exports or the Compliance API (data lifecycle).
• No full task log. The announcement promised a log of each task and who asked. The audit docs say there isn't one yet.
• Files don't last. The sandbox goes a few minutes after Claude's turn, with any file that only lived there. Ask Claude to post or commit what you need.
• Guests and Slack Connect get little or nothing by default.

Without Team or Enterprise

• The earlier Claude app. On Pro, Max or Ultra, in a Slack workspace that isn't paired with Claude Tag, the earlier app still answers you, and @Claude can still start a Claude Code session on the web. See Claude in Slack.
• Slack inside Claude. Slack's own connector, or Upsy on any plan, Free included, lets Claude read your Slack and post as you from claude.ai. That's you asking Claude, not your team tagging it.
• A channel for your team's agents. Upsy Meet gives a task its own channel, where teammates and their agents, such as Claude Code, Codex and Cursor, work together. It's free, it's not in Slack, and agents pause after 200 messages without a person. See AI agents talking to each other.

Claude Tag itself isn't open source. Anthropic's claude-tag-plugins repository holds plugins for it, not a version you can run yourself, and the open-source "Claude Tag" projects on GitHub aren't Anthropic's.

Prompts to try

• "@Claude what can you access from this channel?"
• "@Claude turn this thread into a decision doc with the options we discussed and what we picked."
• "@Claude in acme/web, reproduce the bug from the first message, fix it and open a draft PR."
• "@Claude every weekday at 9am Pacific, post a summary of open threads in this channel."
• "@Claude remember that releases go out on Tuesdays and need a changelog."
• "@Claude using Upsy, summarize my unread email from customers today. Show me before you post."

Troubleshooting

Messages from Claude's troubleshooting page, with the fix.

"Claude isn't on in this channel yet"

Setup isn't finished. A Claude Owner completes it and clicks Launch Claude Tag.

"This workspace isn't set up for Claude Tag yet"

The Slack workspace isn't paired with a Claude organization. A Slack workspace admin sends @Claude connect, and a Claude Owner pastes the code. If you see "Only Slack workspace admins (or Enterprise Grid org admins) can link this workspace", the person who sent it isn't a Slack admin.

"Claim code is invalid, expired, or already used"

The pairing code lasts 15 minutes and works once. Send @Claude connect again.

"Claude Tag is unavailable because Routines aren't enabled"

An Owner turns on Admin settings › Capabilities › Remote sessions › Routines.

"The legacy Claude in Slack bot is retired effective October 5, 2026"

The channel still uses the earlier app. An admin sets Claude Tag version to New for the channel or workspace.

"Claude doesn't respond in channels that include guests"

That's the default. Remove the guests, or an Owner changes How should Claude work in channels with guests.

"You've reached a Claude Tag spend limit"

An Owner raises the limit in Claude Tag's admin settings. Then mention @Claude again. "This request needs usage credits that aren't available" means the balance is empty: an Owner buys credits.

"Your Claude account is connected, but it doesn't have access"

DMs need a seat that includes Claude Code, or on Enterprise a Standard or Usage-Based Chat seat with Cowork. Ask an Owner, or tag Claude in a channel, which bills to the organization.

"Your Claude admin has disabled sending direct messages to Claude."

An Owner turned off Allow direct messages. Use a channel instead.

"Claude isn't available for organizations with restricted compliance settings."

Your organization uses Zero Data Retention, customer-managed keys or the HIPAA configuration. There's no fix in settings; talk to your Anthropic account team.

"This conversation is too long"

Start a new thread, and link the old one if Claude needs it.

Claude replies when nobody tagged it

Respond automatically is on. Click Configure in the footer of a Claude reply, turn it off and click Save. Claude then answers only when mentioned.

Claude says it needs Claude Opus 5 to use your connectors

On Enterprise, Claude checks personal-connector tasks with Claude Opus 5. An Owner or Admin turns it on under Model access on the organization's Models page.

Security and privacy

• Training: Anthropic says Slack conversations with Claude aren't used to train its models by default.
• Where it runs: in sandboxes hosted by Anthropic. Outbound traffic is blocked unless allowed, and connector credentials never enter the sandbox (security and data).
• What crosses channels: workspace notes and public-channel search. A private channel's content stays in it.
• Your connectors serve only your requests, and each task runs under your name. Results Claude posts are visible to the channel, and the sensitive-content check is "a screen, not a guarantee", per Anthropic. Use Allow with review for anything private.
• Deleting: disconnecting a workspace deletes its Claude-side data. Messages Claude posted stay in Slack under Slack's retention.
• Through Upsy, Claude never gets your Google or other tokens. It calls Upsy, Upsy calls the app, and Upsy's access levels, history and alerts apply. To cut Claude off, set an app to No access for Claude, or click Remove Claude in Upsy.

FAQ

What is Claude Tag?

Anthropic's Slack app for teams, launched in beta in June 2026. Anyone in a channel tags @Claude with a task, and one shared Claude works on it in the thread, where the channel can watch and steer.

How much does Claude Tag cost?

There's no per-seat price. It needs a Claude Team or Enterprise plan, and channel work bills by usage from your organization's balance, under a monthly spend limit you set. Anthropic doesn't publish a cost per task. DMs use your own seat.

Is Claude Tag free?

No. The launch credit ended on October 1, 2026. Claude reading channels isn't billed, but the work it does on tasks is.

Does Claude Tag work on Pro or Max?

No, only Team and Enterprise. On Pro, Max and Ultra, the earlier Claude app still answers in Slack workspaces that aren't paired with Claude Tag.

Does Claude Tag work in Microsoft Teams?

Not yet. Anthropic lists Teams as coming soon, with a waitlist.

Which model does Claude Tag use?

The Opus and Sonnet models your organization allows. The launch post named Opus 4.8. Ask Claude to switch in a thread, or set a channel default. Each reply's footer names its model.

Can Claude Tag open pull requests?

Yes. With GitHub connected, it opens draft pull requests through the Claude GitHub App, in the repositories an admin granted.

Can Claude Tag use my Gmail or calendar?

Yes, for your own requests. Connect them on your claude.ai account, directly or through Upsy, and allow Claude when it asks in the thread. An admin can also attach shared Google connectors to a channel.

What's the difference between Claude Tag and Slackbot?

Slackbot is Slack's own assistant, on Slack's Business+ and Enterprise+ plans, and helps each person with their Slack. Claude Tag is Anthropic's, billed through Claude, and takes on tasks for a whole channel, including code and scheduled work.

Is Claude Tag open source?

No. Anthropic publishes plugins for it in claude-tag-plugins. The open-source "Claude Tag" projects are other people's.