Your company applies for free at claude.com/partners. Anthropic asks for a registered business with 10 or more employees, in a supported region, that offers consulting, implementation or managed services to customers. You start at Registered, then move up to Select, Preferred and Global Premier as your certified headcount, production customers and public customer stories grow.
Everything below comes from Anthropic's own pages: the Partner Network launch (12 March 2026), the Services Track and Partner Hub announcement (3 June 2026), the application page, and the Partner Academy FAQ. Where Anthropic has not said something, I say so.
What is the Claude Partner Network?
It is Anthropic's programme for organisations that bring Claude to customers, launched on 12 March 2026 with a $100 million commitment for 2026. Anthropic says it expects to invest more over time.
The launch announcement lists the support partners can get:
- Direct financial support for training, sales enablement and market development
- Applied AI engineers for customer deals, and technical architects for complex implementations
- Localised go-to-market support internationally
- A partner portal with training materials, sales playbooks and co-marketing documentation
- A listing in the Services Partner Directory, where enterprise buyers look for help
- Priority access to new certifications
It is also the gate for Claude certification. Anthropic's Partner Academy states that certification "is available to people at Claude Partner Network organizations." If your company is not in the network, your people cannot sit the exams. I cover that in detail in can you take Claude certification without a company email.
See the study system in action
How StudyTech AI works
Watch how your answers become a focused daily plan, targeted practice and flashcards. See how StudyTech AI tracks your progress before you decide when to book.
Ready to explore? Visit StudyTech AI to see supported certifications and choose your next step.
Explore StudyTech AIWho can join?
Firms that deliver Claude to customers as a service: consultancies, systems integrators, agencies and professional services firms. The launch announcement names enterprises, consultancies, professional services firms and specialist AI firms.
The application form is more specific. Your company should:
- Be a registered business with 10 or more employees
- Operate in a supported region
- Offer consulting, implementation or managed services to customers
Two groups are not a fit for this route:
- Individuals. A company joins, not a person. There is no individual membership.
- Software companies that only build their own product on Claude. The application page points them to the Claude API instead. A software firm that also delivers Claude implementations for clients fits the services criteria above.
Anthropic does not publish the list of supported regions on the application page. Check the form itself before you apply.
How much does it cost?
Membership is free. Anthropic's launch announcement says so directly.
The costs you will actually carry are certification exams and the time your team spends preparing. Before discounts, per the Partner Academy FAQ:
| Exam | Price (USD) | Counts toward tier? |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Certified Associate | $99 | No |
| Claude Certified Developer – Foundations | $125 | Yes |
| Claude Certified Architect – Foundations | $125 | Yes |
| Claude Certified Architect – Professional | $175 | Yes |
The full exam breakdown is in what are the four Claude exams and what do they cost.
How do you apply?
One application, submitted by the company, at claude.com/partners.
- Go to claude.com/partners and open the Partner Network application.
- Confirm you meet the criteria above: registered business, 10 or more employees, supported region, services offering.
- Submit the form. Anthropic's application page does not describe what happens next or how long review takes.
- Once accepted, you start at Registered. Existing partners log in to the Partner Hub at partnerhub.anthropic.com.
- Make sure every company domain your staff use is on your partner record before anyone books an exam (more on that below).
What are the Claude partner tiers?
There are four: Registered, Select, Preferred and Global Premier. Anthropic introduced the tier structure in the Services Track announcement on 3 June 2026. That announcement says partnership in the full sense begins at Select.
| Tier | Active certified people | Joint customers in production | Public customer stories | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Registered | Minimum commitment to 10 | — | — | Entry level for new applicants |
| Select | 10+ | 2+ (trailing 12 months) | 1+ | — |
| Preferred | 100+ | 15+ | 3+ | — |
| Global Premier | 1,000+ | 100+ across three or more regions | 15+ | Joint business plan with named executive sponsors |
Anthropic measures every firm on the same three numbers:
- Certified practitioners: people who hold a current Anthropic certification and have used Claude in the past 90 days
- Customers running Claude in production
- Published customer stories
Two details matter here. First, "active" means both conditions. A certificate held by someone who has not touched Claude in 90 days does not count. Second, only three exams count toward tier: Developer – Foundations, Architect – Foundations and Architect – Professional. The Associate does not.
How promotion and demotion work
Promotions happen twice a year, on 1 January and 1 July, with an extra review on 1 October 2026 in the first year. Anthropic's wording: a firm moves down "only at the annual review on December 31, only if it no longer meets its tier's published requirements, and only after 90 days' notice and a chance to close the gap."
Progress is tracked in the Claude Partner Hub, which Anthropic says updates daily. Partners can also connect the Hub to Claude through an MCP connector and ask about their partnership in conversation.
Referrals sit on a separate track. Anthropic says sending new business to it is rewarded "through referral credit and deal protection", independent of tier standing.
What does each tier get?
The clearest published difference between tiers is the exam discount. Per the Partner Academy FAQ:
- Registered: full price
- Select, Preferred and Global Premier: 50% off, applied automatically
- Global Premier: 100% off all exams through 31 December 2026, then 50%
Beyond exam pricing, Anthropic's announcements describe partner benefits (funding, technical support, co-marketing, directory listing, partner portal) at programme level. They do not publish a tier-by-tier benefits matrix. If you need that, ask Anthropic's partner team directly rather than relying on third-party summaries.
How do employees get certification access?
They register with an email on a domain that is listed on your organisation's partner record. The Partner Academy is explicit that "personal email addresses will not work."
The common trap is subsidiaries and regional domains. The FAQ says certifications earned under an unrecognised domain, including subsidiary and regional variations, will not credit to your partner account. So a certified person can exist and still not count toward your tier.
To fix it before your team books:
- Email partner-support@anthropic.com with your parent company domain and the other domains you need consolidated
- Allow 7 to 10 days for processing, per the Partner Academy
After that, candidates must be 18 or older with a government-issued ID. Anthropic sends a Pearson VUE link after payment, and each exam can be taken online or at a test centre. The step-by-step booking path is in how to register for the Claude certification program.
Who is already in the network?
Anthropic has named Accenture, Deloitte, Cognizant and Infosys in its launch announcement, and added KPMG and PwC in the June announcement, as firms building Claude practices. Anthropic reports Accenture is training 30,000 professionals on Claude.
Anthropic has not publicly stated which tier each of these firms holds, so I am not going to guess.
Why certified headcount is the number to plan around
Every tier above Registered starts with a certified-people threshold, and that is the number your firm controls most directly. Customers and case studies take time to land. Getting 10, or 100, of your people through a tier-counting exam is a training problem you can start on today.
It also has a shelf life. Certifications are valid for 12 months, and a person only counts while they keep using Claude. Treat it as an ongoing programme, not a one-off push.
Getting your team exam-ready with StudyTech AI
StudyTech AI is a personalised AWS and AI certification prep platform. It finds your knowledge gaps, builds your practice around your skills and gaps, turns your mistakes into flashcards, scores your readiness for every exam domain, and tells you when you are ready to take your exam.
It has prep paths for all four Claude exams: Associate, Developer – Foundations, Architect – Foundations and Architect – Professional. Each one works the same way:
- A free assessment that scores you by exam domain
- Practice that starts with your weakest domain
- Wrong answers turned into flashcards
- A readiness score by domain, so you know where you stand
- Personalised mocks built around your gaps
That matters when you are counting heads toward a tier: you want people booking when they are ready, not paying for retakes. StudyTech AI costs $29 a month or $297 a year. It does not register anyone for the exam or for the Partner Network; that still runs through Anthropic and Pearson VUE. For a broader study plan, see how to prepare for a Claude certification exam.
Start a free Claude assessment on StudyTech AI
Verified 7 November 2026 against Anthropic's Partner Network and Services Track announcements, the Partner Network application page and the Anthropic Partner Academy FAQ. Partner programmes change quickly; confirm on claude.com/partners before you act.