Anthropic Removes Rolling Five-Hour Claude Code Cap for Verified Ultra Subscribers

Anthropic said Claude Code users on its $200 plan will no longer face a rolling five-hour usage cap if their accounts are verified and they have weekly usage left. The company announced the change Friday while renaming its two top consumer plans: Max 5x is now Max, and Max 20x becomes Ultra. The plans still cost $100 and $200 a month, and current subscribers do not need to take action to switch.

What the five-hour cap meant

The five-hour limit capped usage within a rolling window, and a demanding task could use that allowance much sooner. Claude Code users could hit it during debugging or a large refactor and wait for a reset despite having weekly usage left.

Verification and weekly limits

Some Ultra subscribers will need to wait for Anthropic to verify their accounts before the cap is removed. The company says the checks help prevent fraud and abuse, and it will email users when the cap is lifted. Verification happens automatically based on account and payment history, and users cannot request or speed it up. Ultra users still have the same weekly allowance, listed at 10 times Pro's weekly usage, compared with five times Pro's weekly usage on Max. Chats with Claude count toward the same weekly limit as Claude Code sessions across web, desktop, and mobile. Once the allowance is used, users can turn on usage credits to keep working at standard API rates for extra cost.

API credits and plan value

The pricing page lists monthly Claude Platform API credits of $100 with Max and $200 with Ultra, bundling credits equal to each plan's monthly price. Claude Code creator Boris Cherny highlighted the limit change in his own post. If users keep hitting the session limit with weekly usage to spare, avoiding those interruptions could make Ultra worth the extra $100 a month over Max, but if they already run out before the week ends, removing the session cap will not provide more included usage.

OpenAI also eased limits

A day earlier, OpenAI's Thibault Sottiaux announced higher usage limits for Pro subscribers and Business Premium. OpenAI also dropped a planned cut for existing $200 Pro subscribers after customers objected. In a separate pricing decision, the company abandoned an idea to replace token-based billing with flat per-job fees after developers pushed back.

Sources: The New Stack