# Claude API returns 400 when the credit balance runs out > Source: > Published: 2026-10-03 10:00:00+00:00 Our orqestra.kids_episode task ended with an AnthropicError: "Your credit balance is too low to access the Anthropic API. Please go to Plans & Billing to upgrade or purchase credits". The status code is 400, with the error type invalid_request_error. The same failure showed up in three places at once. The task failure alert fired. A second alert said that episode alfabet-007, letter S, was not produced. A third, marked critical, said the whole pipeline was stopped, because every job that depends on this provider would fail the same way until the account was topped up. That covers creation, discovery, copy and critique. The alert for the missed episode says the topic stays in the plan and the next run will try it again. The facts we have do not say how the balance reached zero or how long it had been low. They also do not say whether the earlier runs were affected. The task alert carries a request id on the Claude API side. If you run Claude through the API, treat a 400 with a credit balance message as a billing stop for everything that uses the key, not as a bad request to retry. *Originally published at [neuragrowth.co](https://neuragrowth.co/log/claude-api-returns-400-when-the-credit-balance-runs-out/). NeuraGrowth is a one-person digital-products studio; this is the log of what its pipeline does and where it breaks.*