Set up Claude before your first lesson

1. Create your account

   Open claude.ai in your browser. Choose Continue with Google, or type your email address and choose Continue with email.

   With email, Claude sends you a sign-in link. Open it on the same device and you are in. If you open it on another device, it shows a code to type into the first one. There is no password to set or remember.

2. Verify your phone

   New accounts are asked for a mobile number, and Claude texts a code to it. Internet-calling numbers and landlines are not accepted. One number can verify up to three accounts.

3. Choose a plan

   Start on Free. It is enough for the first lessons. Free usage is limited and resets every five hours, so a long session can run out before you finish.

   Pro and Max are the paid plans for one person and give you more usage. Some lessons in Tiers 2 and 3 use features that need a paid plan, and each lesson says where that applies. Current prices are on claude.com/pricing.

4. Make your privacy choice

   Open Settings, then Privacy. Under Help improve our AI models, choose whether Anthropic may use your chats to train its models. You can change it at any time. If you are unsure, switch it off.

   This switch is for the Free, Pro and Max plans. On Team and Enterprise plans, Anthropic does not use your chats for training by default.

5. Tell Claude about your work

   Still in Settings, find Instructions for Claude. What you write here applies to every conversation, so you do not have to repeat it. Copy this, fill in the brackets and paste it in.

   I work in [your role] at a [type of fintech company, for example a payments company].
   I write for [customers / colleagues / senior managers].
   Use UK spelling and plain words. Keep answers short unless I ask for detail.
   When you state a fact, a figure or a rule, tell me how I can check it.
   Do not guess prices, dates or regulations. Say when you are not sure.

   Copy

6. Send your first prompt

   Start a new chat and paste this. It needs nothing confidential, and it shows the habit the courses teach: Claude drafts, you verify.

   I'm new to Claude and I work in [your role] at a fintech company.
   
   Ask me three short questions about my working week, one at a time. Then suggest three tasks where an AI assistant could help me, and for each one tell me what I must check myself before I use the result.
   
   Don't ask for customer names, account details or anything confidential.

   CopyOpen in Claude

   Read the three suggestions. Notice what it tells you to check. That list is the part most people skip.

7. Add the apps, if you want them

   Claude also has a desktop app for Mac and Windows and mobile apps for iPhone and Android. Sign in with the same email address and your chats follow you.

Checked against Anthropic's help pages on 12 October 2026. Sign-up screens change. If yours looks different, follow the screen, and see Get started with Claude in Anthropic's help centre. Upskill AI Academy is independent of Anthropic.