Anthropic Academy is free, and it just moved. Anthropic's courses now live on a site called Claude Academy, which promises "free courses, tutorials, and use cases from Anthropic's education team," and as of October 31 it lists 28 courses.
That's a lot to sort through, and many of them are for developers. Here are the four I'd point a VA to first, plus the catch about certificates that's easy to miss.
Is Anthropic Academy Free? Yes, Under a New Name
If you search "Anthropic Academy," you'll probably still land on the old course site. Open Claude 101 there and a banner says the course "now lives on Claude Academy." The old site stays up for people who learn through their employer. Everyone else goes to academy.claude.com, and anthropic.com/learn now opens Claude Academy too.
You don't pay to enroll. You sign in to save your progress, and most courses expect a Claude account so you can practise as you go. For Claude 101, a free Claude account is enough, though a few lessons cover features that need a paid plan.
The Claude Academy courses page, showing Claude 101, Claude Code 101, Introduction to Claude Cowork, Introduction to Claude Tag and Claude Platform 101 with lesson counts and completion badges
The 4 Courses I'd Start With
- Claude 101 (13 lessons, 1 quiz, about 2.5 hours). This is the starting point. It goes from your first conversation and better prompting to Projects (folders that give Claude standing context about a client), artifacts, skills and connectors, then finishes with use cases by role.
- AI Fluency: Framework and foundations (14 lessons, 1 quiz, 4 hours). This one isn't about buttons. It teaches the "4D framework": Delegation, Description, Discernment and Diligence. In plain words: what to hand to AI, how to brief it, how to check what comes back, and how to own the result.
- AI Fluency for small businesses (8 lessons, 1 quiz, 3.5 hours). Most VA clients are small businesses, so this is the client's view. It covers privacy when you share business data with AI, which tasks should stay human-led, and drafting an AI use policy for a business. The course says any chatbot works for the practice, not only Claude.
- Introduction to Claude Cowork (14 lessons, 1 quiz, 2.5 hours). Cowork is Claude working directly with your files, folders and apps on multi-step tasks. You need a paid Claude plan (Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise) for this one. On September 16, Anthropic announced that Cowork and chat are merging into one Claude, and the Academy says what you learn here still works.
If your client's team works in Slack, add Introduction to Claude Tag (11 lessons, 2.5 hours). It teaches you to tag Claude in Slack channels and hand it work, but it only helps if Claude Tag is already installed in their workspace.
Do You Get a Certificate?
Here's the catch. The old site promised a "certificate of completion." On Claude Academy, finishing a course and passing its quiz earns you a completion badge. A few short courses, like Introduction to agent skills, don't list a badge at all.
[MAYE (optional): finish Claude 101 and add a screenshot of your completion badge here. Note whether there's a "share to LinkedIn" option.]
Then there are the real exams. Anthropic runs paid Claude certifications: Claude Certified Associate ($99), two Foundations exams ($125 each) and Architect – Professional ($175). But its certification FAQ says certification "is currently available only to organizations in the Claude Partner Network," and you need a partner company email to register. A personal email won't work.
So as a freelance VA, you can't sit those exams yet. If a post tells you to "get Claude certified for free," it's mixing up the free badges and the paid, partner-only exams.
The Ones You Can Skip for Now
The developer side of the catalog covers Claude Code, the Claude API, Claude on Amazon Bedrock and Google Cloud, and two courses on MCP (Model Context Protocol, the plumbing that connects AI to other apps). They're free too, but they assume you're comfortable with code.
If you want the "how does AI actually work" background without code, take AI capabilities and limitations (13 lessons, 3.5 hours). It explains what large language models (the AI brains behind Claude and ChatGPT) can and can't do, including how much they can hold in mind in one conversation.
What This Means for VAs
A badge won't get you hired on its own. What it gives you is a structured way to learn Claude properly instead of picking up tips from random videos, plus something concrete to mention when a client asks, "Do you know Claude?"
The 4D framework is the part I'd take straight to clients. It gives you words for the work they're really paying for: deciding what to delegate to AI, briefing it well, and checking the output before it reaches their inbox.
Claude 101 plus AI Fluency comes to about six and a half hours, which fits in one weekend. If you're brand new to Claude, my beginner's guide to Claude for VAs is a good warm-up first.
Comparing this with other providers? Here's which courses are really free across Anthropic, OpenAI, Zapier, HubSpot and more, in my roundup of free AI courses for virtual assistants. And if you're weighing a paid option, here's my breakdown of Google AI Essentials vs the AI Professional Certificate.
Open Claude 101 this week and finish the first section. It's free, so all it costs you is one evening.
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