Replit CEO says it dropped Anthropic; insider disputes it

Replit chief executive Amjad Masad said on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt that the coding platform no longer works with Anthropic, TechCrunch reported on October 16, 2026. He pointed to cost and performance and named OpenAI as the better partner. A person familiar with the arrangement told TechCrunch the partnership is still in place. For developers who build on Replit Agent, the open question is which company's models will write their code.

Replit is a browser-based coding platform. Its main product, Replit Agent, is an AI assistant that writes and changes code for users.

What Masad said

The interviewer asked whether Replit's August partnership with OpenAI meant it no longer worked with Anthropic. "Yeah. I mean, yeah," Masad answered, according to Unite.AI, which cites the session recording.

He gave three reasons. "It was a decision based on both cost, partnership, and performance," Masad said, according to TechCrunch. He added that Replit publishes a public benchmark, and that OpenAI's Sol and Astra models consistently score better on it.

Masad also shared how Replit's business has changed. He did not give revenue totals.

Measure	Figure Masad gave
Enterprise contracts, share of revenue last year	About 2%
Enterprise contracts, share of revenue this year	About 15%
Business-to-business share of revenue	More than 50%
Annual recurring revenue	"Not sharing" yet

Why the claim is disputed

TechCrunch found little sign that Replit had left Anthropic before the interview. A person familiar with the partnership, who asked not to be named, told TechCrunch it is still in place. TechCrunch's report includes no statement from Anthropic.

Replit's own material also pointed the other way until recently. Its website, blog and social posts showed Anthropic products in use a few weeks before the interview, TechCrunch reports. A late-September Replit blog post said Replit Agent ran Claude Fable 5 and Fable 5.1 in production. Anthropic released Fable 5.1 in early September.

Unite.AI reports that Replit's model documentation lists both Claude and OpenAI models across the agent's modes, including Claude Fable 5.1 and Claude Opus 5.5.

What the OpenAI partnership covers

Replit announced Free Mode on August 18, 2026, in a blog post titled around its work "with OpenAI." Free Mode runs on OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Luna model.

According to Replit's post:

• everyday Free Mode tasks do not use paid credits
• usage limits reset every 5 hours
• Core subscribers, at $20 a month, get 30 times more creation and up to 30 hours of chat a month

The post does not mention Anthropic. It also gives no financial terms for the partnership.

Masad told the Disrupt audience that Replit has no immediate plans to raise more money and sees a stock market listing in its future, Unite.AI reports.

What this means for developers

• Check which model your agent runs. Replit's agent has several modes, and each can use a different provider. Open the model selector and note which model handles your work today.
• Do not plan around one CEO quote. The CEO and a person close to the deal disagree. Until Replit or Anthropic says more, treat Claude access on Replit as unconfirmed rather than gone.
• Run your own benchmark. Masad cites Replit's public benchmark for the switch. Results on your own codebase matter more. Run the same tasks through each available model and compare.
• Review data terms if you are an enterprise customer. Enterprise contracts are now a bigger part of Replit's business. If your company approved one AI provider to see its code, confirm which provider processes it now.
• Watch Replit's model documentation. If Claude models disappear from the mode list, that will settle the question faster than any interview.