A new startup called Lobsteady wants to kill API bill anxiety for good. Launching on Hacker News today, the service lets you run Claude Code directly inside Telegram, Discord, or Slack — no terminal required, no cloud accounts to manage, and crucially, no per-message charges that can blindside you at month end.

How It Works

The setup takes under five minutes according to Lobsteady's marketing. You subscribe to their hosted plan ($9.99 first month, then $19.99/mo), connect your existing Claude Pro ($20/mo) or Max ($100/mo) subscription from Anthropic, paste in a bot token for your messaging platform of choice, and the assistant goes live on a dedicated DigitalOcean VPS. The company handles server provisioning, auto-restarts, and uptime monitoring — you just chat.

Pricing Model

This is where it gets interesting for heavy users. Most hosted AI assistants charge per message or per token, which creates that dreaded spreadsheet moment when billing cycles close. Lobsteady flips the script: you bring your own Anthropic subscription (unlimited at flat rate), they handle infrastructure. For $40/month all-in ($20 Pro + $19.99 hosting), power users get full Claude Code access — file editing, shell commands, web browsing — from their phone via Telegram or desktop via Discord/Slack. No credits to buy, no thresholds to monitor.

Privacy and Security

Lobsteady is clear that conversations route directly between your messaging platform and the AI provider's API — they don't log or inspect messages. The server runs on an isolated DigitalOcean VPS, so your data doesn't co-mingle with other customers. For organizations already paying for Claude Pro/Max company-wide, dropping a bot into Slack could be more practical than provisioning individual API keys for every developer.

Claude Code Integration

Unlike basic chat bots that only handle text generation, Lobsteady exposes the full Claude Code toolkit. That means your assistant can read and edit project files, execute shell commands, search the web, and work against any directory you point it at. The setup wizard currently supports Telegram, Discord, and Slack — switching platforms later requires editing a config file via SSH, though a dashboard for this is apparently on the roadmap.

Key Takeaways

  • Flat $19.99/mo hosting fee on top of your existing Anthropic subscription (~$40/month total)
  • Full Claude Code tools available from messaging apps — not just text chat
  • 5-minute setup with no terminal or cloud account required
  • Dedicated VPS means always-on availability, even when your laptop is closed

The Bottom Line

Lobsteady isn't reinventing anything revolutionary — it's packaging Claude Code access in a way that sidesteps the API credit grind. For teams already deep in Anthropic's subscription ecosystem, this could be the path of least resistance to putting an AI coding assistant where developers actually live: chat. Whether $40/month beats per-message pricing depends entirely on your usage volume, but at least now you can run the numbers without logging into a billing dashboard.