What is Agent Skills?
Anthropic's open SKILL.md format for packaging what an agent knows how to do.
Who is Agent Skills best for?
Agent Skills is best for teams who want Claude and other agents to follow the same steps, templates and scripts.
Teams with house rules
Brand guidelines, templates and review steps written once in a SKILL.md file load whenever a task calls for them, so Claude applies them the same way each time.
Office documents
Anthropic's own skills create and edit Excel, Word, PowerPoint and PDF files, and Claude picks them up without being asked.
Developers building agents
Skills plug into the Claude API, Claude Code and the Agent SDK, and the open spec lets other agent products load the same folder.
Large skill libraries
Only each skill's name and description sit in context until a task needs it, so many skills can stay installed without crowding the context window.
How much does Agent Skills cost?
Agent Skills is free: the format is an open standard, and Claude runs skills on every plan including Free, with paid Claude plans from $20 a month for Pro.
- Skills included once code execution is turned on
- Anthropic's skills for Excel, Word, PowerPoint and PDF files
- Upload your own skills as a ZIP file
- Everything in Free, with more usage
- Claude Code included, which also loads skills
- 5x or 20x more usage than Pro
- Claude Code included
- Owners can deploy skills to the whole organization
- For teams of 2 to 150 people
Agent Skills itself has no price: the spec is published at agentskills.io, and any agent that supports it can load the same skill folder. Billed yearly, Pro is $17 a month ($200 up front) and a Team standard seat $20; Team premium seats cost $125 a month, or $100 billed yearly. Enterprise is $20 per seat a month billed yearly, plus usage at API rates. On the Claude API, skills run through the code execution tool: 50 free hours a day per organization, then $0.05 per container hour, on top of token costs. Prices exclude tax. Full pricing on claude.com. We checked these prices on .
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Articles about Agent Skills
One of our articles covers Agent Skills, with every price checked on the makers' own pages.
Questions about Agent Skills
What is Agent Skills?
Anthropic's open SKILL.md format for packaging what an agent knows how to do.
Who is Agent Skills for?
Agent Skills is best for teams who want Claude and other agents to follow the same steps, templates and scripts.
Is Agent Skills free?
Yes. The Agent Skills format is an open standard that anyone can use, and Claude runs skills on every plan, Free included, once code execution is switched on. Other agent products that adopt the standard can load the same skill folder.
How much does it cost to use Agent Skills?
Agent Skills adds no fee of its own in Claude: you pay only for your plan, from $0 on Free or $20 a month for Pro. On the Claude API, skills run through code execution, which is free for 50 hours a day per organization and then $0.05 per container hour, plus token costs.
Where can I try Agent Skills?
On its official website, anthropic.com.
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