Claude’s $200 Max plan is now called Ultra, and it drops the five-hour limit

Anthropic has renamed its top Claude subscription and scrapped the limit heavy users hit most. The $200-a-month Max 20x plan is now called Ultra, and verified Ultra subscribers no longer have a five-hour usage limit, Anthropic announced on X on Friday, with the details in a new Ultra help page.

The cheaper Max 5x plan becomes plain Max, still $100 a month. Neither price changes, and existing subscribers move across automatically.

Max 5x is now Max, Max 20x is now Ultra

The announcement came from the official Claude account at 17:29 UTC on October 30:

We’re renaming our Max plans:

Max 5x → Max
Max 20x → Ultra

Max is still $100/month, and Ultra is still $200. If you’re a subscriber, there’s nothing you need to do.

We’re also removing the 5-hour limit for verified Ultra accounts, starting today with most existing subscribers. Newer accounts keep a temporary limit until they’re verified, which helps us prevent fraud and abuse. You'll get an email when it's removed.

Weekly limits remain unchanged. View our plans here: claude.com/pricing

— Claude (@claudeai) October 30, 2026

For anyone who lives in Claude Code, the five-hour change is the big one. Every paid plan has had two limits: a session limit that resets five hours after your first message, and a weekly cap. Hit the first and you wait, often in the middle of a task; Claude Code now wraps up its work instead of stopping dead when that happens. Ultra subscribers now have only the weekly limit to watch, which Anthropic pitches as working “at your own pace within your weekly limit”.

What a “verified” Ultra account means

The catch is verification. Anthropic says it checks Ultra accounts automatically, “using factors like your account and payment history”, to prevent fraud and abuse. Most existing subscribers get the change from today. Newer accounts keep a temporary five-hour limit until they qualify, and get an email when it is lifted. There is nothing to apply for, and Anthropic warns that verifying your phone number at checkout “is a separate step and doesn’t remove this limit”.

To check your own account, open Settings > Usage in Claude. If there is no “Current session” bar, your account is verified and the five-hour limit has gone. Anthropic hasn’t said how long new subscribers will have to wait.

Weekly limits stay, and Ultra is “10 times” Pro

Weekly limits are unchanged, Anthropic says, and that is where the rename gets interesting. The new help page describes Ultra as “10 times the Pro plan's usage every week”, not 20 times. Max, by contrast, is listed on the pricing page as five times Pro’s usage “every 5 hours and every week”. With weekly limits untouched, that suggests the old “20x” label described the five-hour window rather than the weekly allowance. Anthropic hasn’t addressed that directly.

Ultra also has a separate weekly limit for Fable, on top of the one that covers all models. The pricing page says Max includes Fable “up to half your weekly limit”, while Pro subscribers pay for Fable with usage credits. Anthropic still reserves the right to add other caps “at our discretion”. Max subscribers, who keep the five-hour limit, can still make their usage last longer, and anyone with a limit reset can use it to refill a weekly allowance.

Price, API credits and where you can get it

Ultra costs $200 a month and Max $100, both billed monthly only and before tax. Anthropic says those are web prices and that “mobile pricing may vary” on iOS and Android. Both plans keep their monthly Claude API credits: $100 on Max and $200 on Ultra, the same as before the rename. OpenAI copied that perk for ChatGPT Pro this week.

The plans are sold wherever Anthropic offers Claude, which includes the US, the UK, Canada, Germany and the rest of the EU, Australia, India, Japan and Brazil, according to its supported countries list. Claude isn’t available in China or Russia. The announcement doesn’t mention any regional differences in the five-hour change.

Why it matters

The five-hour limit is the one heavy Claude Code users run into mid-task. Dropping it for the $200 tier turns Ultra into a plan for long, unattended agent runs, but the weekly cap, now spelled out as 10 times Pro, is the ceiling that really counts.

Sources: Claude (@claudeai) on X; Anthropic, What is the Ultra plan?, What is the Max plan? and Usage and length limits; Claude pricing; Anthropic supported countries.