Anthropic renames Claude's $200 tier to Ultra and removes the 5-hour limit for verified accounts
On October 30, Anthropic announced that it is renaming the two Claude Max plans: the $100-per-month Max 5x plan to Max, and the $200-per-month Max 20x plan to Ultra. The price remains unchanged, existing subscriptions will switch automatically, and users do not need to do anything. At the same time, the 5-hour reset limit for verified Ultra accounts has been removed, taking effect first for most existing subscribers that day; newer accounts will retain a temporary limit before verification. The company said this is to prevent fraud and abuse, and it will notify users by email when the limit is removed. The weekly limit remains unchanged.
An official product lead explained that when the original Max 20x was launched in April 2025, it only had a 5-hour window limit (20 times Pro), and a weekly limit was later added and set at about 10 times Pro, while the 5-hour window still remained 20 times. Some users mistakenly believed that the 20x multiplier also applied to the weekly limit. Ultra retains the weekly limit (10 times Pro). After the 5-hour window is removed, that multiplier no longer applies, so the multiplier label was removed from the name. The pricing page and help center confirm that Max remains 5 times Pro for both every 5 hours and every week; Ultra is 10 times Pro per week, and verified accounts have no 5-hour limit. Verification is completed automatically based on the account and payment records, and users do not need to submit any additional materials; phone number verification is unrelated. On the settings usage page, if there is no progress bar for the current session, that means the account is verified.
This adjustment changes the usage rhythm for heavy users, especially in scenarios involving long Claude Code sessions: under the old mechanism, users could still be interrupted by the 5-hour window even if weekly quota remained, while verified Ultra users can now use the product continuously within the weekly limit. For users who had already exhausted their weekly quota, there is no increase in total amount. The $100 Max tier still retains two limits. ChatGPT Pro's $200 tier has always had only a weekly limit, and Ultra now aligns with it on this dimension. The company did not further explain the motivation for the renaming, but the product lead clearly attributed it to the mismatch between the original name and the actual limit structure.
Original source:
Title: We’re renaming our Max plans
Publisher: Claude (@claudeai)
Publication date: 2026-10-30
URL: https://x.com/claudeai/status/211622...（官方公告帖）
Source nature: Official company account announcement
Verification status: Original text read
Supported content: Renaming, price unchanged, automatic switch, removal of the 5-hour limit for verified Ultra accounts, weekly limit unchanged, explanation of the verification mechanism
ABAB AI Insight
This renaming and limit adjustment by Anthropic is, in substance, a public alignment of the original Max 20x's actual constraint structure (weekly limit as the main constraint) with the product name and pricing page, rather than a mere marketing rename. The product lead explicitly acknowledged that the early name created user expectation bias, indicating that internally the gap between the "20x" label and the real weekly limit (about 10x Pro) had already been identified; third-party testing such as SemiAnalysis also previously pointed to the $200 tier's monthly usable amount being about twice that of the $100 tier, consistent with the weekly-limit ratio. After removing the 5-hour window, the multiplier based on the window no longer has meaning, so removing the multiplier from the name becomes a necessary correction.
For heavy coding users, especially those with long Claude Code sessions, the constraint shifts from a "two-window" structure to a "single weekly cap." Under the old mechanism, users were often forced to stop even when their weekly quota had not been exhausted, waiting for the 5-hour reset; verified accounts can now consume continuously within the weekly limit, and the usage rhythm is closer to a product measured purely by week, such as ChatGPT Pro. However, the total cap has not increased, and users who have already exhausted their weekly quota get no additional amount. The verification mechanism gives priority to accounts with an existing history and payment records, while newer accounts retain temporary restrictions, reflecting the platform's simultaneous control of fraud and abuse risk while expanding continuous usage rights.
Compared with competitors, Anthropic had previously maintained both a session window and a weekly limit in its high-priced tier, whereas OpenAI's ChatGPT Pro has long had only a weekly limit. This adjustment brings the $200 tier into alignment in terms of limit structure while retaining the weekly limit as the final hard cap. The company did not disclose the specific threshold for verification or when verification is completed, and users can only determine for themselves whether the "current session" progress bar appears on the settings page, but cannot predict in advance when a new account will be released.
This change also reflects the evolution of AI subscription products in usage metering: early on, short windows were used to control peak load and cost, and later, as user behavior stabilized (long-duration coding, agent tasks), restrictions gradually moved to the weekly or monthly level, while risk and revenue were managed through supporting tools such as verification and API credits. The renaming itself does not change the price or the weekly total, but it reduces the information asymmetry between the name and the actual restrictions.