Claude Ultra plan: price, limits and what changed

Anthropic has renamed its two most expensive Claude subscriptions. Claude Max 5x is now simply Max, and Claude Max 20x is now Ultra. Prices haven't changed: Max is still $100 a month and Ultra is still $200 a month, and existing subscribers were moved to the new names automatically.

The rename came with one real change. Verified Ultra accounts no longer have the five-hour usage limit that has capped Claude sessions since the top plans launched. Claude announced the change on X on October 30, 2026, and Anthropic's help center now explains how the new plan works. Here is what Ultra costs, what limits are left, and how to tell whether the five-hour limit is gone on your account.

What changed: Max 5x is now Max, Max 20x is now Ultra

Anthropic's help center says plainly that "the Max 20x plan is now called the Ultra plan" and that existing Max 20x subscribers move to Ultra "with no price change." The cheaper Max 5x plan keeps its $100 price under the shorter name Max. You don't need to do anything if you already pay for either plan.

The bigger news is for Ultra. Until now, every paid Claude plan worked with a rolling five-hour window: use up that allowance and you had to wait for it to reset, even if you had plenty of weekly usage left. On Ultra, verified accounts now only have to watch the weekly limit, so you can work through a long day without being cut off around lunchtime.

The Verge reported the change on October 30, and Notebookcheck noted that Anthropic says it applies to most existing subscribers right away.

Claude Ultra price and what's included

Ultra costs $200 a month. Anthropic says that price is for subscriptions bought on the web, and pricing in the iPhone and Android apps may differ by app store. Ultra is only sold as a monthly subscription for now, with no annual option.

According to the help center and Anthropic's pricing page, Ultra includes:

10 times the Pro plan's usage every week, with no five-hour limit once your account is verified.

Priority access to new models, features and products, plus Claude Code and background tasks in Claude Cowork under the same subscription.

$200 a month in Claude API credits. These cover the Claude API, Claude Managed Agents, the Claude Agent SDK and the Console playground, but not Claude Code or extra usage in the Claude apps. They refresh each billing cycle and don't roll over.

Max, at $100 a month, gets 5 times Pro's usage both per five-hour session and per week, and $100 a month in API credits. Pro stays at $20 a month, or $17 a month billed annually at $200 up front.

Claude Ultra usage limits: what's left

Ultra is not unlimited. Its weekly limit is still 10 times Pro, the same total amount of usage Max 20x subscribers had before. If you burn through that budget in two long days, you will wait for the weekly reset like anyone else.

There is also a separate weekly limit for Fable, Anthropic's most powerful model. On Max and Ultra, Fable can use up to half of your weekly usage. Anthropic's help center also warns that it may add other caps, such as monthly limits or limits on specific models and features, to manage capacity.

Usage is shared across Claude on the web, desktop, mobile and Claude Code. When you hit a limit, Anthropic gives you three choices: wait for the reset, upgrade your plan, or turn on usage credits, which are billed at standard API rates.

How to check if your Claude Ultra account is verified

The five-hour limit only goes away for verified accounts. Anthropic says it verifies Ultra accounts automatically, using factors like your account and payment history, to prevent fraud and abuse. There is no form to fill in.

If your account isn't verified yet, a temporary five-hour limit stays in place until it is, and Anthropic removes it automatically. The help center is explicit that verifying your phone number at checkout "is a separate step and doesn't remove this limit."

To check, open Settings, then Usage, in Claude. If you don't see a Current session bar, your account is verified and the five-hour limit no longer applies to you.

Why Anthropic renamed Max 20x

The old name caused confusion. Mike Overell, who leads product for Claude subscriptions, explained on X that the top plan launched in April 2025 as Max 20x because it offered 20 times Pro's usage within the five-hour window. Weekly limits came later and were set at 10 times Pro, and some subscribers assumed the 20x figure applied to both. He apologized for the confusion and said the rollout of the change is staged.

Dropping the five-hour window on Ultra, while naming the plan after something other than a multiplier, removes that mismatch: the only number that now matters on Ultra is the weekly 10x limit.

Should you upgrade to Claude Ultra?

For most people, Pro at $20 a month is still enough for everyday chat and writing. Max at $100 makes sense if you regularly hit Pro's limits, use Claude Code heavily, or want some Fable usage and API credits included.

Ultra is aimed at people who work with Claude for many hours at a stretch, especially in Claude Code, and kept running into the five-hour cutoff on Max 20x. If that was your main frustration, Ultra fixes it once your account is verified. If you mostly hit the weekly limit instead, Ultra gives you no more total usage than Max 20x did, so the rename alone won't change much.

If you are comparing AI subscriptions, OpenAI and Google have also reshuffled their models and plans this autumn, and we cover those changes below.