Anthropic renames Claude Max 20x to Ultra, drops 5-hour limit

Anthropic has renamed the top two paid consumer tiers of its Claude AI assistant. According to the company's announcement on X on October 30 (US time), the $100-a-month Max 5x plan is now simply Max, and the $200-a-month Max 20x plan becomes Ultra. Prices are unchanged, and existing subscribers move to the new plans automatically without any action.

Ultra drops the 5-hour cap

Alongside the rename, Anthropic removed the usage limit that resets every five hours on Ultra for verified accounts. The change began rolling out the same day to most existing subscribers. Newer accounts keep a temporary restriction until verification is complete, a measure meant to prevent abuse. Verification runs automatically based on account and payment history, and users receive an email once the limit is lifted.

The help page says this check is separate from the phone-number verification at purchase. An account counts as verified if the "Current session" bar does not appear under "Usage" in settings. Weekly limits remain as before.

What the numbers mean now

According to the pricing page, Max offers five times the usage of the $20 Pro plan, both per five-hour window and per week. Ultra offers ten times Pro's usage on a weekly basis. The old "20x" figure referred to the five-hour allowance, so the new 10x weekly figure uses a different yardstick and is not a cut.

Both plans allow use of the high-performance model Fable up to 50% of the weekly limit. Each also includes monthly API credits for the Claude Platform developer service: $100 for Max and $200 for Ultra.

The Max plan launched on April 9, 2025, in two tiers, 5x and 20x Pro usage, which the pricing page and app labeled Max 5x and Max 20x. For heavy users, such as developers running long coding sessions, the removal of the five-hour window on Ultra is the practical change, while weekly caps still set the overall ceiling.