The Claude logo. Image: Anthropic
A federal judge has ruled that Anthropic must face claims that its Claude Max plans promised far more than they delivered. In an order on November 6, US Magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse of the Northern District of California found that the company’s pitch of “5x or 20x more usage than Pro” is “plausibly misleading”, and let a proposed class action by two subscribers go ahead.
The case, brought by Karl Kahn and Solomon Smith, is about the $100-a-month Max 5x and $200-a-month Max 20x plans, which Anthropic renamed Max and Ultra on October 30. Pro costs $17 to $20 a month. Some claims were thrown out, with a chance to refile. No class has been certified and nothing has been proven: at this stage the court treats the complaint’s allegations as true.
Per session, not per month
The dispute turns on what “more usage” means. Paid Claude plans have two limits: a cap on each five-hour session and a weekly cap. According to the complaint, Max subscribers get 5 or 20 times Pro’s allowance per session, but their weekly limits are not 5 or 20 times higher. The plaintiffs calculate that for Claude’s Sonnet 4 model, Max 5x gives about 3.5 times Pro’s weekly usage and Max 20x about 6 times.
The complaint alleges that Kahn found using Max 20x to the full in a single five-hour window could burn “a whopping 15%” of his weekly allotment, and that Smith had to “ration or postpone usage” after upgrading to Max 5x.
“The advertising in question is plausibly misleading”
Anthropic argued that customers should understand “more usage” to mean more per session, as its help pages explain. A Max help page says Max 5x “provides 5 times more usage per session than the Pro plan”.
Tse wasn’t persuaded. Because subscribers pay monthly, the order says, reasonable consumers could take the promise to mean 5x or 20x more usage per month. The judge likened that help page to the back label on a shampoo bottle, which shoppers don’t have to read:
Anthropic’s per session disclosure is located two hyperlinks away from the primary sales pages on claude.com.
Magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse, order of November 6, 2026
That disclosure “may persuade the fact-finder” later that the advertising isn’t misleading, the order says, “but it is not a basis for dismissal”. Nor did an asterisk reading “Usage limits apply” help, because it “says nothing about usage limits per session.”
What survived and what didn’t
- Going ahead: Smith’s claim under California’s Consumers Legal Remedies Act (CLRA), the negligent misrepresentation claim and the breach of contract claim.
- Dismissed, with leave to amend: Kahn’s CLRA claim, the claims under California’s Unfair Competition Law and False Advertising Law, and a claim that Anthropic broke its implied duty of good faith by changing limits during billing periods.
The CLRA covers personal, not business, purchases, and Tse found Claude Code is plausibly a “service” under it. Smith, a computer science student who used Claude for coursework and an IBM hackathon, counts as a consumer: “Educational use is plainly not commercial use.” Kahn said only that he used Claude Code “to accomplish computer programming tasks”, and the order notes that “he could be an entrepreneur who uses Claude Code to develop software for sale.”
The unfair competition and false advertising claims fell because both men are still Max subscribers, so they lack standing to seek an order changing the marketing, and they didn’t explain why damages wouldn’t be enough. The contract claim survived because Anthropic’s terms of service leave plan details to “the order process”, which plausibly includes the sales pages promising 5x or 20x.
The good-faith claim failed because the same terms let Anthropic “increase or decrease capacity limits”, and the complaint itself blames tighter limits on demand straining capacity. As Tse put it: “Anthropic didn’t tighten usage limits as a bait-and-switch.”
What happens next
If the plaintiffs don’t file an amended complaint by December 2, Anthropic must answer the current one by December 16. Anthropic hasn’t commented on the ruling. The claims are brought under California law, and the order doesn’t say whether any class would reach subscribers outside the US. Ultra has dropped its five-hour limit, but every plan keeps the weekly cap at the heart of the case.
Why it matters
Usage is what Claude subscribers are paying for, and a judge has now said Anthropic’s headline multipliers could reasonably be read as a monthly promise, one the plaintiffs say it doesn’t keep. The ruling is not a finding against Anthropic, but it puts the small print behind AI subscription plans in front of a court.
Sources: Order on motion to dismiss, Kahn v. Anthropic PBC, No. 3:26-cv-05763-AGT (N.D. Cal., November 6, 2026); case docket on CourtListener.
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