$200-a-month plan renamed "Ultra," five-hour limit removed
Anthropic announced on Oct. 30 (Oct. 31 Japan time) that it would change the names and usage limits of the top-tier individual plans for its chat AI "Claude." It renamed the $200-a-month "Max 20x" to "Ultra" and the $100-a-month "Max 5x" to "Max," leaving prices unchanged. Existing subscribers move to the renamed plans without taking any action.
On Ultra, Anthropic removed the five-hour usage limit only for accounts it has verified. Until now, the amount users could use was set by a five-hour window starting from the first message, and once it was used up they had to wait for the window to reset. Most existing subscribers are covered from the day of the announcement, and they are notified by email when the limit is lifted.
Total usage does not increase, weekly limit stays at 10 times Pro
The weekly limit has not changed. The amount Ultra users can use in a week remains 10 times that of the $20-a-month Pro plan. Separately from the weekly limit shared across all models, the top model "Fable" has its own weekly limit. Removing the five-hour window allows longer continuous use within a single day, but the total that can be used in a week does not increase.
The relationship between monthly price and weekly limit is also unchanged. The weekly limit for the $100-a-month Max is 5 times that of Pro, and the $200-a-month Ultra is twice that, at 10 times Pro.
Outside assessments are split. BigGo Finance described it as close to a de facto price cut for users who code for long periods or process large volumes of documents. On the other hand, Sovereign Magazine pointed out that without the five-hour window, a single long task can use up a whole week's allowance, which could increase load during busy hours.
Anthropic states on its support page that it may add weekly or monthly limits and restrictions on specific models or features for capacity and fair use.
New subscribers keep the limit until verified
There is no application for identity verification; Anthropic carries it out automatically based on account and payment history. Until verification is complete, a temporary limit applies, and it is not lifted by confirming a phone number at purchase. Anthropic says the temporary limit is intended to prevent fraud and abuse.
The company has not disclosed the verification criteria or how long it takes after a new subscription for verification to be completed. If "Current session" is not shown under "Usage" in settings, verification is complete.
The $100-a-month Max is not covered by this removal, and both its five-hour and weekly limits remain 5 times those of Pro. Max and Ultra come with $100 and $200 a month in developer API credits, matching their monthly prices. On both plans, the top model Fable can be used for up to half of the weekly limit. Ultra is available only with monthly billing, and the price may differ when subscribing through the smartphone app.
Class action over the "20x" label
The old name "20x" meant that the amount usable within the five-hour window was 20 times that of Pro. Anthropic launched Max in April 2025 and added weekly limits in August of that year. The weekly limit for the $200-a-month plan has been 10 times that of Pro since then.
On Sept. 8, a user filed a class action alleging that Max's labels of 5x and 20x Pro compared only the five-hour window and did not adequately disclose the weekly limits. According to Engadget, an estimate that circulated on Reddit found that once weekly limits are included, the $200 plan offers only about 1.7 times the usage of the $100 plan.
According to Sovereign Magazine, Anthony Overell, head of subscription products, wrote that some users had understood "20x" to apply to both limits, adding that the company could have done better and apologizing. According to the magazine, Overell did not mention the lawsuit. Anthropic has asked the court to dismiss the suit, arguing that the multiplier is per session and that the session and weekly limits are separate limits.
- Max launched. Labeled 5 times Pro at $100 a month and 20 times at $200Official
- Weekly limits introduced. $200 plan at 10 times ProOfficial
- Five-hour limits tightened during weekday peak hoursOfficial
- Computing resources secured, Claude Code five-hour limits doubledOfficial
- User files class action over Max labelsReport
- Max 20x renamed Ultra, five-hour limit removedOfficial
On Oct. 28, Boris Cherny, who is in charge of Claude Code, reported that after receiving reports that usage was being consumed too quickly, he examined shared sessions, found several small bugs that sped up consumption and was fixing them.
OpenAI doubled ChatGPT Pro limits the day before
Rival OpenAI also changed the limits on its top-tier plans in the same week. OpenAI sells "ChatGPT Pro" in three tiers at $100, $200 and $500 a month, and on Oct. 29 (Oct. 30 Japan time) it doubled the limits for all Pro tiers. From December, it will combine the limits for ChatGPT and its AI coding tool "Codex" into a single allowance counted in tokens.
According to Sovereign Magazine, OpenAI says Pro has no five-hour limit. The magazine reported that xAI, Cursor and Google also have top-tier plans in the same price range, some of which use the name "Ultra."
Flat-rate plans account for 20% of revenue
According to the IPO registration statement (S-1) Anthropic made public on Oct. 26, revenue for January-June 2026 was $16.286 billion. Of that, usage-based revenue such as from the API was $13.064 billion, about 80%, while flat-rate revenue such as from Claude plans was $3.222 billion, about 20%. Computing and infrastructure costs for the same period were $8.945 billion. The company did not disclose the number of paid plan subscribers.
- Usage-based revenue
- Flat-rate revenue
