Claude renames Max 20x to Ultra and removes the 5-hour limit for verified accounts
Anthropic has renamed its two Claude Max subscription tiers and, with the change, removed one of the usage limits that heavy Claude users run into. The plan previously sold as Max 5x is now simply called Max, and the plan previously sold as Max 20x is now called Claude Ultra. Prices do not change: Max stays at $100 a month and Ultra at $200 a month, and existing subscribers are moved to the new names automatically, with nothing to do on their side.
The substantive part of the announcement concerns Ultra. Verified Ultra accounts no longer have the 5-hour session limit that governs how much Claude can be used inside a five-hour session, and they now work only against a weekly allowance. Anthropic announced the change on its official Claude account on X on October 30, 2026, saying it is removing the 5-hour limit for verified Ultra accounts "starting today with most existing subscribers" and that weekly limits remain unchanged. The updated Claude pricing page and a new help center article titled "What is the Ultra plan?" now describe the plan in the same terms.
The weekly ceiling is the part that the old name obscured. The official Ultra description sets the plan at 10 times the Pro plan's usage every week, and Anthropic says weekly limits are unchanged, which means the "20x" in the old Max 20x name referred to the five-hour window rather than to weekly capacity. Removing the five-hour limit therefore does not raise the total amount of Claude an Ultra subscriber can use in a week. What it changes is how that weekly amount can be spent: an Ultra user can now concentrate a large share of the week's usage into a single long working session instead of being stopped every few hours.
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WHAT CHANGED IN CLAUDE'S INDIVIDUAL PLANS.
The table below compares the paid individual plans as they were sold before October 30 with the plans as they appear on Anthropic's pricing page after the change. Values are those published by Anthropic; usage multiples are expressed relative to the Pro plan.
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Item | Before October 30 | After October 30 |
$100 plan name | Max 5x | Max |
$100 plan usage | 5x Pro per 5 hours and per week | 5x Pro per 5 hours and per week |
$200 plan name | Max 20x | Ultra |
$200 plan 5-hour limit | 20x Pro | None for verified accounts |
$200 plan weekly limit | 10x Pro | 10x Pro (unchanged) |
Monthly prices | $100 and $200 | $100 and $200 (unchanged) |
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The Pro plan is not affected by the rename. It still costs $20 a month on monthly billing or $17 a month on an annual subscription billed up front at $200, and it keeps both a five-hour limit and a weekly limit. The Free plan likewise keeps limited usage every five hours and every week.
Anthropic's pricing page now lists the two upper tiers with distinct benefit sets. Max includes 5x Pro usage, access to Fable models up to half of the weekly limit, $100 a month in Claude API credits for the Claude Platform, early access to advanced features and priority access at high-traffic times. Ultra includes everything in Max, with the five-hour limit removed for verified accounts, 10x Pro usage every week, $200 a month in API credits and Fable access up to half of the weekly limit. The help center adds that Ultra is currently sold as a monthly subscription only, that the $200 price applies to web subscriptions, and that pricing on mobile app platforms may differ.
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HOW ULTRA ACCOUNT VERIFICATION WORKS.
The removal of the five-hour limit is tied to account verification, and Anthropic explains the condition as a fraud and abuse control. According to the official announcement, newer accounts keep a temporary limit until they are verified, and subscribers receive an email when the limit is removed. Anthropic says the removal began on October 30 with most existing subscribers.
The Ultra help article describes how verification is decided. Ultra accounts are verified automatically on the basis of signals such as account history and payment history, so there is no form to fill in and no document to upload. Anthropic also clarifies a point that is likely to cause confusion: verifying a phone number at checkout is a separate step and does not by itself remove the five-hour limit.
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Ultra account status | 5-hour limit | Weekly limit | How the user can tell |
Verified | None | 10x Pro | No "Current session" bar in Settings > Usage |
Not yet verified | Temporary limit applies | 10x Pro | "Current session" bar still shown |
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For users who want to check their own status, the practical test is in the Claude settings. Under Settings > Usage, a verified Ultra account no longer shows the "Current session" bar that tracks the five-hour window. If the bar is still there, the account is still on the temporary limit, which Anthropic says is removed automatically once verification completes.
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WHAT CHANGES FOR CLAUDE AND CLAUDE CODE USERS.
For most subscribers the rename is cosmetic. A Max 5x subscriber is now a Max subscriber at the same $100 price, with the same limits, and a Max 20x subscriber is now an Ultra subscriber at the same $200 price. Anthropic states that no action is required from existing customers, and there is no new checkout or migration step.
The practical difference appears in long sessions, which matter most for developers who use Claude Code. Anthropic's documentation states that usage limits are shared across Claude and Claude Code, so a long agentic coding session in the terminal or the IDE draws on the same allowance as chat use in the Claude apps. Under the old Max 20x structure, an intensive coding session could hit the five-hour cap and force a pause even when plenty of weekly capacity remained. A verified Ultra account now avoids that interruption and is limited only by the weekly budget, which also means that a user who spends heavily early in the week can exhaust that budget sooner and then wait for the weekly reset.
Several limits stay in place. There is still a weekly limit across all models, and Ultra also has a separate weekly limit for Fable models. Anthropic's help center says the company may apply other limits, such as weekly or monthly caps or model and feature restrictions, and does not guarantee uninterrupted service. When a session or weekly limit is reached, paid plans can continue on purchased usage credits if those are enabled, which remains the main way to extend usage beyond the plan allowance without upgrading.
The monthly API credits included with Max and Ultra follow separate rules. The Claude help center specifies that the $100 (Max) or $200 (Ultra) monthly credit is applied to a linked Claude Console organization and can be used for the Claude API, including the Messages and Message Batches APIs, the Console Playground, Claude Managed Agents and the Claude Agent SDK. The credits cannot be used for interactive Claude Code sessions or for extra usage inside Claude apps, they do not roll over between billing cycles, and they require the subscriber to have been on an eligible plan for seven days. Readers following Claude's developer platform can find more context in our coverage of the Claude API 128 MB request size limit and the new Usage and Cost Analytics API.
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UPGRADING TO ULTRA FROM PRO OR MAX.
The help article also explains what happens to subscribers who move from Pro to Ultra. A user on an annual Pro plan whose remaining balance exceeds the Ultra price receives a credit for the difference, applied to future charges. The billing address must match the one on the previous subscription; if it has changed, the user must cancel Pro, wait for it to end and then subscribe to Ultra. Subscribers who pay through Google Play are charged the full new price, and the unused value of the old plan is converted into extra days, which pushes the renewal date a few days beyond a full month.
Since Ultra is now the only individual plan with no five-hour window, the choice between Max and Ultra comes down to usage shape as much as volume. A subscriber whose work is spread evenly across the week may find the five-hour limit on Max rarely binding, while a user who runs long Claude Code sessions or extended agentic tasks gains the most from Ultra's single weekly budget. Both plans keep priority access at high-traffic times, and Ultra keeps Max's early access to new features.
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HOW THE CHANGE FITS ANTHROPIC'S SUBSCRIPTION STRATEGY.
The change is mainly a clarification of a pricing structure that had become harder to read as limits were added over time. A plan named "20x" that delivered 10x Pro usage per week invited the kind of misunderstanding that the new name removes, and Anthropic now describes Ultra purely in terms of its weekly allowance. The removal of the five-hour window also aligns Claude's top consumer tier with how subscribers increasingly use it, for long agent runs and background tasks rather than short chat exchanges.
Competition on top-tier AI subscriptions has been active this week. OpenAI separately announced that it had doubled ChatGPT Pro and Business Premium usage limits and cancelled a planned Pro 200 reduction, and it also began giving ChatGPT Pro and Business subscribers up to $500 a month in API credits. Anthropic's move differs in kind: it does not increase the total weekly amount of usage, but it changes how freely Ultra subscribers can schedule it.
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WHAT IS CONFIRMED AND WHAT REMAINS OPEN.
The facts established by Anthropic's own pages are clear. Max 5x is now Max at $100 a month, Max 20x is now Ultra at $200 a month, prices are unchanged, existing subscribers move automatically, verified Ultra accounts have no five-hour limit, Ultra's weekly allowance is 10x Pro and weekly limits have not changed. Verification is automatic and based on account and payment history, and the rollout started on October 30 with most existing subscribers.
Some details are not documented. Anthropic has not published how long verification takes for new Ultra subscribers, which specific signals it uses beyond account and payment history, or when the staged rollout will reach every existing subscriber. Anthropic does not express Pro's usage in absolute terms, so the 5x and 10x multiples remain relative measures whose real value depends on the model, the length of conversations and the size of attached files. Those are the variables that will determine whether the end of the five-hour window makes a noticeable difference for a given Ultra subscriber.
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