Case · 2026-09-01
You bought credits. The API still said you were broke.
The card cleared. The balance did not. The model sent a poverty notice.
Summary: From 12:10 to 21:35 UTC on 1 Sep 2026, users who hit a zero usage-credit balance saw delays before newly purchased credits became available. Some Claude API requests returned a credit-balance-too-low error in error. Status marked it resolved on 2 Sep.
Source: status.claude.com · 1 Sep 2026
What landed
On 1 Sep 2026 at 23:26 UTC, status.claude.com said it had identified and resolved an issue where users who reached a balance of zero usage credits saw delays before newly purchased credits showed up.
Result: some requests to the Claude API received “credit balance is too low” errors erroneously.
Window named in the update: credits purchased from 05:10am PT / 12:10 UTC to 2:35pm PT / 21:35 UTC.
Resolved note posted 2 Sep 2026 at 01:24 UTC. Affected component: Claude Console (platform.claude.com). The failure mode described is API requests.
Why it matters
A paid top-up that does not unlock requests is a billing bug with an outage shape. The user did the correct thing and still got refused.
Satire margin
Insufficient funds, sponsored by a successful purchase.
Primary source
← Timeline· All cases· See a sibling failure? Submit it