Claude drops the five-hour limit on Ultra as Max 20x gets a new name
Anthropic renames its most expensive Claude plan Ultra and removes the five-hour limit for verified accounts. The price stays at 200 dollars a month, and the weekly limit still applies.
Anthropic is removing the limit that cuts off Claude's heaviest users after a few hours of intensive work. Its most expensive individual plan, until now called Max 20x, is renamed Ultra and no longer has the five-hour limit for verified accounts. The price is unchanged at 200 dollars a month, and the weekly limit still applies.
The announcement came from Claude's official account on X on Thursday, October 30, at 17:29 UTC. When hogby.ai checked on Saturday morning, the post had more than five million views and over 2,300 replies.
Two plans get new names
Anthropic is tidying up the names of its two Max plans. Max 5x is now simply Max and still costs 100 dollars a month. Max 20x is now Ultra and still costs 200 dollars a month. According to the company, existing subscribers do not need to do anything; the rename happens automatically.
The rename itself is cosmetic. What changes day-to-day use is how usage is measured.
The five-hour limit goes away on Ultra
Claude has long limited usage in two layers: a limit that resets every five hours, and a limit per week. The first sets the ceiling for how much you can get done in one long, continuous session, for example with the coding tool Claude Code.
On Ultra, Anthropic is now removing the five-hour limit. According to the announcement, this applies from October 30 for most existing subscribers. Newer accounts keep a temporary five-hour limit until they are verified. Anthropic says this helps prevent fraud and abuse, and that users will get an email when the limit is removed. The post does not say how verification works or how long it takes.
Weekly limits remain unchanged, Anthropic stresses. Ultra is therefore not unlimited: users can work for longer stretches, but the total weekly allowance stays fixed.
What the pricing page shows now
Claude's official pricing page, checked on Saturday, October 31, describes the two plans as follows: Max gives five times the usage of Pro, both per five hours and per week. Ultra gives ten times the usage of Pro per week, with no five-hour limit for verified accounts.
The pricing page also shows that both plans include Anthropic's top model Fable for up to half of the weekly limit, plus a monthly credit for the Claude Platform API: 100 dollars on Max and 200 dollars on Ultra. Both items are marked as new on the page, but they are not mentioned in the post on X, and the pricing page does not say when they were introduced. Anthropic states on the page that prices and plans are subject to change at its discretion and that prices exclude applicable tax.
What it means for leaders
Our assessment: For developers and analysts who use Claude for hours at a time, the five-hour limit was the most noticeable brake. With it gone on Ultra, the 200-dollar plan becomes more predictable for long working sessions, while the weekly limit still sets the ceiling.
Three things are worth noting. Ultra and Max are individual plans, not Team or Enterprise, so organisations that let employees use them should know which terms and data settings apply. New accounts do not get the benefit until they are verified. And as Anthropic bundles API credit into the subscriptions, the line between a personal tool and a development platform blurs, which makes it more important to keep track of who pays for what.
Sources and media
- Claude on X: Max plans renamed, five-hour limit removed for verified Ultra accounts (October 30, 2026)
- Claude: official pricing page for Free, Pro, Max and Ultra
Illustration: AI-generated with Grok Bot / hogby.ai
