Anthropic has quietly reshuffled the naming of its paid Claude subscriptions, and the change carries more than a cosmetic tweak. The former Max 5x tier at $100 per month is now simply Max, while the $200 Max 20x tier has been rebranded as Ultra — and Ultra no longer enforces the five-hour usage reset for verified accounts. Pricing remains untouched, with European subscribers paying €90 and €180 per month respectively. The company announced the move on X on Friday, October 30, and the details line up with Claude’s public pricing page.
- New names, same prices: Max 5x becomes Max and Max 20x becomes Ultra, with no change to monthly costs.
- Five-hour cap lifted — selectively: Only Ultra subscribers with verified accounts escape the five-hour usage reset.
- Weekly limits stay put: Both tiers retain weekly caps, and access to Anthropic’s most capable model, Fable, is capped at half the weekly allowance.
What actually changes under the new tiers
The headline shift is the removal of the five-hour limit, but the fine print matters. According to the pricing page, Max keeps five times the usage of Pro, resetting every five hours and every week, and bundles $100 per month in API credits. Ultra offers ten times Pro usage on a weekly basis, drops the five-hour ceiling for verified accounts, and raises API credits to $200 per month.
Weekly limits are untouched. Both plans include Fable, Anthropic’s most capable model, up to half of the weekly cap. Most subscribers received the change on Friday, while newer accounts keep a temporary ceiling until Anthropic verifies them — a measure the company says helps curb fraud and abuse.
Why rename instead of reprice?
Because the old name promised more than it delivered. “Max 20x” implied twenty times Pro usage, yet the plan now called Ultra delivers ten times per week, and Anthropic’s announcement did not mention that discrepancy. Renaming it Ultra removes the number that never added up.
Skepticism is warranted here. This is not Anthropic’s first friction over plan limits: in June, a lawsuit accused the company of selling more usage than the Max plans actually provided. That context helps explain why a simple name change lands right now. For anyone weighing how much to pay, it is worth reviewing what each subscription truly includes before committing.
Who benefits from the change
The real winner is the heavy user who runs Claude for long, uninterrupted stretches — precisely the profile that collides with the five-hour cap. For that intensive use, Ultra without the ceiling is the genuine novelty; for everyone else, the change is cosmetic. Anthropic’s message to customers is simple: existing subscribers need do nothing.
The move arrives during an aggressive expansion phase. Anthropic has just filed to go public with $16.286 billion in revenue over six months and is pushing hard on its new agent products.
My read: tidying up the names is sensible, since “Max 20x” and “Max 5x” were confusing and one of them overstated the offer. But the friendly headline — “we removed the five-hour limit” — applies only to the $200 plan and only to verified accounts, and it lands after a lawsuit over limits. This is not a gift; it is an adjustment of expectations in better packaging. For users, the question remains the same: how much real usage do you need, and does Ultra, at double the price of Max, actually pay off?