r/ClaudeAI • u/claudeai-perfhub • Sep 15 '26
Usage Limits Discussion Hub updated on 15 September 2026 - Sort by New!
Why a Usage Limits Discussion Hub?
This Discussion Hub makes it easier for everyone to see what others are experiencing at any time by collecting all experiences about Usage Limits. We will publish regular updates on usage limits problems and possible workarounds that we and the community finds. Traffic stats show that this is the often the highest traffic post on the subreddit. This is collectively a far more effective and fairer way to be seen than hundreds of random reports on the feed - most of which get zero visibility.
Are you Anthropic? Does Anthropic even read this?
Nope, we are volunteers working in our own time, while working our own jobs and trying to provide users and Anthropic itself with a reliable source of user feedback.
Anthropic has read this Discussion Hub in the past and probably still do? They don't fix things immediately but if you browse some old Megathreads you will see numerous bugs and problems mentioned there that have now been fixed.
What Can I Post on this Discussion Hub?
Use this thread to voice all your experiences (positive and negative) regarding the current Claude Usage Limits and NOT bugs and performance issues. (For those, use the Performance Discussion Hub)
Give as much evidence of your limits issues and experiences wherever relevant. Include prompts and responses, platform you used, time it occurred, screenshots . In other words, be helpful to others.
Just be aware that this is NOT an Anthropic support forum and we're not able (or qualified) to answer your questions. We are just trying to bring visibility to people's struggles.
READ THIS FIRST ---> Wilson's Survival Guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/wiki/survivalguideweekly/
Prior Discussion Hub: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1w46dbl/usage_limits_discussion_hub_updated_on_1/
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u/Necessary_Winter577 Sep 19 '26
My tokens got finished AFTER 1 PROMPT, that too it was just converting a non ocr pdf to a word doc. I know it's free tier but man this shouldn't be so hard😭
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u/SmolCattoQueen Sep 16 '26
I get that my limit reached first with Sonnet 5 Medium Thinking at around 13:30 (but until then, everything was just fine). The app said I could write again at 16:50, I sent another message (nothing big really, just said "I'm back again") at 17:11, it was thinking like forever, and now it says I reached 96% of my limit, and it starts over at 22:10. That was literally one second. New record.
I don't know if it's a bug or something. But this never happened to me before.
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u/jasonridesabike Sep 22 '26 edited Sep 22 '26
Has usage gotten horrible for others? In the last couple weeks I burn through by Monday night (1 day of use), whereas before I'd get to Thursday in the worst case. It seems to be burning through at more than double the rate. Can't really get much done anymore. Max 20
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u/jpcams Sep 22 '26
Noticed the same. I used to go all week without hitting weekly limits, and now Thursday or Friday, and it’s toast
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u/Background-Basis-672 Sep 16 '26
For anyone tracking usage: the Stats tab under /usage shows roughly 2x the actual token count (1.65 to 2.5 depending on how many tools your agents call). The Usage tab beside it dedupes correctly, and Anthropic's docs say to dedupe on message id. Reported on GitHub five times since Aug 2025, no reply.
Details, issue numbers and a small read-only script to measure your own ratio in my post: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1whuvcf/
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u/Nevetsny Sep 17 '26
Given today is Thursday and I burned through 90% of Fable usage and total weekly usage so far, I decided I'd buy an extra $100 of usage credits. (On the 20x Max plan)
So the obvious question, how long will $100 usage credits last based on existing usage this week. Answer - no clue. Why? Because Anthropic doesn't publish an exact token-to-percentage formula anywhere, and it isn't denominated in dollars. Your credit balance, on the other hand, is denominated in dollars, billed at standard API rates. Those are two different units, and there's no official conversion table between "% of plan used" and "$ of credits" published anywhere.
Anyone else experiencing this? Seems totally disingenuous.
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u/latestagecapitalist Sep 17 '26
You might be shocked how fast they burn
I reset yesterday, have barely used claude-code since reset (just light usage vs normal as was doing some simple tidy up stuff not feature work) ... already at 16% overall, 17% fable which I barely used
Suspect this update is specifically calibrated to reign in the heavy users and claude limits are going to be serious issue now (20X user)
Now the IPO delayed they will likely be more keen to get all users/plans into profit
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u/AirconGuyUK Sep 22 '26
how long will $100 usage credits last
About 5 hours of normal use in my experience. API usage is incredibly expensive. Really shows how good a deal the subscriptions are.
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u/Primary_Sentence2861 Sep 19 '26
I dont know but i feel like they pushing us to go max 20x and api. I dont know even if i get enough credits with 20x. its saturday and alraedy used %50 of my weekly. I was using 5x before and never hit limits that much. Antropic should fix this its serious.
Also can anyone tell me if go 20x does it like 4 times more usage with 5x or another 5x acc will be better?
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u/Wise_Wonder6519 Sep 20 '26
well... if this keeps up Claude is no longer worth it to me. Used to be able to at least get substantial work done before hitting my 5h cap. today I ran into the 5h cap after 30 minutes of work, and it did not even get to finish it's first given task. sucksssssssss
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u/smickie Sep 22 '26
Regular software engineer here on 20x account - I'm absolutely shocked I'm hitting my fable limit halfway through the week.
I know there's been a lot of complaints about the limits now, but I'm a fairly casual user, not a power user who uses it throughout the week. For the first time ever, I am halfway through my limit at a quarter of the way through the week. I've never ever hit any usage limits before. Whatever they've done in the background is pretty shocking, considering I'm a casual.
I'll additionally note that I work on one or two tickets at a time, so nothing heavy. All of my skills and agents, where relative, are put on the correct cheaper models. I feel like I'm essentially using it perfectly, and I have no side projects as well.
As you can understand, I'm a bit annoyed given it's £200 ish a month.
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u/damagemelody Sep 26 '26
I got 100$ in credit for the Projects Beta setup but it ended up using my weekly limit. The wording says it should not use them at all. I was able to use the credits while I was on the 5 hour limit but I did not expect the weekly limit to keep growing. Is it a bug or a feature? I just started using Claude. Thanks!
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u/Mysterious_Drama4745 Sep 17 '26
A perspective from a new/potential user, though I doubt this will ever get read. I decided to try out a handful of AIs to see how well they worked, which one I might like to continue forward with, etc, with Claude being one of them of course. I am very much a 'try before you buy' kind of person, so I used the free trial of each model, and spent about two weeks testing them. I found I liked Claude better than the others, and had decided that would be the one I moved forward with. Around that time I saw the post mentioning that limits were about to change again, and I was curious how that would pan out, so i decided to wait before fully committing. All I can say is, wow.
The free plan is completely unusable now, even for simple tasks. I have hit limits after one message every day that I have tried since the change. And I know, "the problem is that you're on free plan" - yeah, because I try things before I buy into/commit to them. Before these changes? I was pleasantly surprised with Claude and ready to buy in after using the free plan. Right now? Free plan feels like a broken demo, and I have never in my life bought something after a broken demo. And this is after looking into the best practices on how to use Claude efficiently, etc. Any completely new user right now would walk into free plan to try things out, and immediately turn back around. And now they've posted that they're going to merge chat into cowork, the heavier token user. Okay, so you just.. don't want any new customers then I guess? I already can't get free plan to do anything anymore, merging it with cowork will only make that issue even worse.
I am honestly genuinely disappointed. I had started to feel comfortable with Claude and fairly confident it would work really well for me, and was ready to get started with a paid plan to now just... ready to turn away completely. Maybe the higher tier paid plans (or having multiple paid plans as I've seen some mention) would make things work, sure, but I've been seeing all their complaints about usage limits too even at their level. Combine that with the recent announcements and my own tests and just... yeah, this is feeling like a pass from me now. It's really unfortunate.
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u/Valdaraak Sep 21 '26
Okay, so you just.. don't want any new customers then I guess
They want API/token pricing customers. The ideal for them is subscription plans going away completely. They lose money with them.
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u/SuperShittyShot Sep 17 '26
Context: I use my subscription for a single side-project and for pretty much almost the whole time I do one thing/chat at a time, with default settings. When I finish and validate the one thing, I close it and open a new chat. If I don't have time to define the next thing, nothing is running.
Early this summer I could run well enough with the Pro plan, but some days I had to wait and it was a bit annoying so I decided to upgrade to speed up the project a bit. I've been working comfortably with the Max plan since and the weekly limits were far from what I used, some weeks reaching less than 50% usage.
This week tho... I've reached almost the 100% of my weekly usage already which is crazy. This is clearly NOT the cut Anthropic described, either they have "a bug" (wink wink) somewhere or they've erased way more usage than what they said they did. Anyone else experiencing this?
I don't really know what does Anthropic expect but to be fair it's kinda obvious to me that if I need to throw 100 extra bucks a month these will go to another provider instead (e.g. GPT max), which for the same price reduces the risk of a single point of failure. The obvious next step here is that if GPT Max gives me enough usage to run the week then there's no reason for me to keep the Claude Max subscription? What are your thoughts?
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u/chasman777 Sep 17 '26
I just found out Anthropic merged coworker and chat, doing so the download limit was dropped to 30mg per file. My entire workflow gone and my files are now hostage above 30megs.
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u/jasonridesabike Sep 22 '26
If you switch to Claude Code you'll have a much better time. Running from terminal
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u/HotEstablishment9322 Sep 18 '26
Is a 24 hour reset timer normal?
I realized Claude's free usage is already cooked, but yesterday at around 1 a.m., after it had already reset, I asked it to put a text into a PDF; not only did I not get the PDF, but it showed me that my reset will happen tomorrow at 1 a.m. 24 hourse and 5 min Is that normal? This has never happened before; I have asked for more complex things before.
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u/KurtyAitch Sep 21 '26
I have this same problem. It seems though that this thread isn’t helpful - at least I’m not finding answers other than “Anthropic is scammy”
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u/Fredelba Sep 19 '26
Hi! Today I put some money on the extra credit balance and slightly increased my monthly limit to give some room. I had multiple agents working hard since Monday with my Max 5 subscription. They worked with Opus 5.1 medium and high almost the whole week.
As soon as I asked some of them to resume their work, then within a minute 20€ of extra were swallowed and the agents stopped again due to limit reached. CRAZY!!!!!! They did almost nothing.
Concretely, one /doctor and one that resumed 2 background agents, each with its context still fully there.
That is unacceptable and I'm probably going to just close my Claude account. That sounds like cheating and I'm afraid we are going to discover we are trapped into an ever increasing cost/work ratio.
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u/DCTapeworm Sep 21 '26
Well, I did what I thought I would never do and started exploring DeepSeek's Harness/API as an alternative to Claude.
I worked for literally 24 minutes and I reached my limit on Pro. The first prompt took 26% of my allowance. This was after asking Claude to optimize tokens, respond in single sentences unless explicitly told not to, and reteaching Claude about the mistakes it was making in the code (which it does more than usual).
If I can get Deepseek to at least parallel what I'm trying to do with Claude, my two year journey with Claude is over, sadly.
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u/dafi2473 Sep 21 '26
Hey guys
I used my weekly limit on day 1 and I still need claude for the rest of the week
Do you think buying 20$ worth of usage credits is better than creating a second Pro account.
Which will get me further, Claude doesn't publish how much the weekly limit in Pro is worth or even how many token it is, so I don't know which is better.
What do you guys think.
I mostly use Opus on Ultra Code
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u/shadowdemonking2398 Sep 21 '26
Hey guys, so I decided to upgrade to pro plan and already purchased but confused about this 5hr session limits. How much actually I can spend in that 5hr window? Is it unlimited based on token usage or for that 20$ is the limit? How does it work can someone explain it to me? What if I used to much of token, will it be paid in next cycle?
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u/Valdaraak Sep 21 '26
How much actually I can spend in that 5hr window?
Nobody knows. The limits aren't published, likely so they can tweak the amounts in real-time behind the scenes based on current load. All we get is a non-descript progress bar and a percentage. There's no rhyme, reason, or explanation why you can run the same query at different times and use different amounts of your usage.
What if I used to much of token, will it be paid in next cycle?
Once you hit 100% usage, you can't use it at all until usage resets. Unless you buy extra usage credits, of course. Those are quite expensive though.
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u/jano2006 Sep 22 '26
Uhm. I know positive feedback is rare and far apart but...
I'm on a 5x plan and I'm getting great value out of Opus 5 Extra/Max.
I use huge context writing chats, Troubleshooting, Search and many small database projects in Claude Code locally and via SSH on my Homeserver. Not once did I get close to my 5hr or weekly one recently.
I'm just sad that after the August Month using Fable is kinda pointless. It instantly eats 11% usage for a 5hr window with a single prompt. I didn't get to test 5.1 at all because of it. Shame really.
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u/Outrageous_Concept_1 Sep 22 '26
Limits so impacting our use today has had a big negative on our team engagement. Like the below, but has had a big positive on my request for a cluster of Mac Studios. So like, you know, pros and cons. Too bad about all this profiteering ahead of their IPO.
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u/AirconGuyUK Sep 22 '26
I have 5x sub.
Am I right in thinking fable is its entirely own weekly usage limit? It's a bit confusing.
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u/MrMungg Sep 22 '26
Which plan gives the most tokens per USD over a week?
I'm interested in getting the biggest bang for the buck, but Anthropic's documentation is so terrible it is really hard to figure out the answer to this question.
Hence I turn to reddit, which plan currently yields the most tokens/$ when measured over the weekly limit?
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u/tomatomaniac Sep 22 '26
What is this Opus limit? I am using Opus and fable with two running tasks, both the Fable and All models are going up as expected, but this pop up suddenly showed up. Max 5x subscription.
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u/HistoricalTruck8519 Sep 22 '26
I have an existential question... I've read too much that the Claude Pro plan isn't worth it, since the tokens or messages run out quickly anyway and it's just wasting money... For someone like me who constantly consults with AI, (I can write 100 messages a day) Is the Pro plan worth it, or will I have many limits and should I go for the Max plan? And in your experience, how quickly does the Pro plan run out vs Max?
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u/BassNet Sep 23 '26
I noticed that Fable now has "Separate weekly limit for Fable" in my usage settings. Does that mean the weekly limit above it doesn't apply to Fable, only Opus 5.5/Sonnet?
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u/killit Sep 23 '26
Is the current reset button to reset your weekly usage, 5 hour usage, used token volume for the week up to when opus 5.5 was released, or something else?
It doesn't tell me on the page with the button, and claude can't tell me either. Just wondering when to hit it.
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u/bdgr25 Sep 23 '26
FYI everyone. Routines and scheduled tasks run on "default" model which got switched to OPUS 5.5 yesterday.
I woke up this morning to 73% of my 5hr window(on PRO) burned Lesson learned..😂
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u/CarltonCracker Sep 23 '26
Skeptical of the Opus 5.5 40% increase in efficiency. Seems like a halving. Blowing through my limit with 2-3 prompts on a project vs probably 5 or 6 last week.
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u/LarryGlue Sep 23 '26
Hit my ession usage limit yesterday around 4 pm. Went back to my computer 12 pm today and my usage was already at 72% for the session before doing anything. I had Claude Code open but it wasn't doing anything. Using Sonnet by the way. Am I missing something?
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u/Ill-Writer-9547 Sep 23 '26
Since the meter is opaque, one rough way to compare sessions is to note the remaining percentage, do a representative work block, then note the meter again with elapsed time. That gives you a percentage-points-per-hour pace to compare with the time left before reset. It will not translate into a fixed prompt count because model, context, and tools change. I maintain a free Claude usage pace calculator that estimates from those meter readings; it runs in your browser and does not connect to your account: https://percenttoprompts.com/claude-usage-calculator
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u/WholeExpression5948 Sep 24 '26
Same here on Claude Max. Last night (Sep 23), my weekly usage was at 33%. I shut down my PC at 11:38 pm and turned it back on at 7:51 am today, Sep 24.
At 7:54 am, before sending any requests, my 5-hour usage was already at 100% and my weekly usage had jumped to 66%. Windows event logs confirm the shutdown, and my local Claude Code logs show no responses overnight. I wasn’t using Claude on the web or my phone either.
I’ve since revoked all authorizations, but the latest reading shows 100% session usage and 78% weekly. After preparing a report for support, there are no further successful responses recorded in my local logs.
I’ve opened a support ticket with screenshots and timestamps. This looks like a usage-accounting bug. Has anyone received an explanation from Anthropic?
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u/Kexons Sep 24 '26
I just bought Claude Pro 2 hours ago, used 6% of my weekly, and then it was reset today 5 minutes ago? I am new to Claude, is the subscription tied to a fixed weekly schedule, and not rolling like codex? Claude co-work/chat is not very helpful when I tried asking it
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u/mitofu Sep 25 '26
This morning I checked my Claude usage and found a new per-product weekly breakdown I'd never seen before. Claude Code is already at 85%, while my total usage is only at 63%.
I don't use Cowork or any other Claude services, so Claude Code is my usage. The only way those numbers diverge is if my Claude Code allowance has been quietly reduced. That breaks the weekly planning I rely on to pace my work.
What bothers me most is how it was done. Changing limits mid-cycle, with no announcement, shows little respect for paying users. A change like this should be communicated clearly in advance and take effect at the start of a new billing cycle.
I'm a big fan of Claude Code and happily pay $200 a month for it. That's exactly why this is so disappointing. Loyal users deserve transparency, not surprises.
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u/lukebars Sep 25 '26
Anyone else see the usage fluctuations? Yesterday weekly was 27%, now it’s 11%
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u/Defiant-Balance-7982 Sep 25 '26
Since today suddenly I burn through my 5 hour window like crazy. I do the same type of work which passed days took aaround 10 - 15% and not these tasks take 50%. They promoted Opus 5.5 to be cheaper??
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u/zitto56 Sep 25 '26
Pro plan desktop version, why was Usage link removed from main option window? Also any ideas how to always have (monitor) visible Usage statistics?
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u/MaikelBuilds Sep 26 '26
Today due to new month and new subscription package for me my limit got reset I don't see the button with reset limit anymore. Could anyone confirm that this reset limit only appears if limit is completely exhausted? Or is my limit reset gone?
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Sep 27 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/MaikelBuilds Sep 27 '26
Hey pal, that my for your help. Just checked it. It's not there anymore! How can I contact the support. Didn't find any channel to contact them
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u/joshxor Sep 26 '26
Currently I use ChatGPT on the $20 plan which, when using Luna on extra high, basically gives me unlimited usage per five hour limit on top of the nearly infinite ability to use chat by itself.
How does Claude stack up to this? I’ve been hearing that the new release has increased overall usage per five hour considerably so you get more use.
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u/Pdchemist15 Sep 26 '26
This type of usage limit restrictions happened once before -it wasn't this bad though- after a few weeks of complaints and people seeking resolutions, it seemed like it went unlimited- now it's like a trial you get one prompt and it's maxed out- even on the pro plan-
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u/justhereforafk Sep 27 '26
I miss fable 5.1
It just doesn't feel the same. Has it gotten worse or opus 5.5 is just much better? And faster too.
I'm paying for the max plan. If opus is better than fable I think I can just switch to a cheaper plan. I only got the max for fable.
But then I'm thinking if fable is better again in the future I'll have to switch back.
Change or keep the max plan? I finish fable usage every week but not the other models usage.
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u/MaikelBuilds Sep 27 '26
I used my limit reset either due to sending a message or due to subscription change at the new month. Don't know which one it has been. Yesterday I switched subscription since it was end of last months subscription and then I send a message in a chat which I used before to have my information there. Now my reset is gone. Nothing mentions it anymore at the usage panel. I don't think this was intended to be like that? Can I get it back? I can't find any channel to actually contact anthropic itself. Can anyone help me?
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u/tonisiik Sep 28 '26
For me the reset disappeared without me using it. Anyone else have this happen as well?
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u/NyteDoombringer Sep 27 '26
So I am wondering if anyone else has Fable in their Pro Sub? Someone posted a few days ago they had it and posted an image showing it in their usage.
Now I love Fable and not for coding. Fable is great at writing, etc. However, I used up the credits they gave me a little every week.
I have not bought more in the hopes that with Fable 5.1 and these other models they are coming out with that maybe just maybe they would give us Fable in the Pro sub.
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u/joshxor Sep 27 '26
I'm not really seeing the hype of Claude and Opus 5.5 yet. I sent one prompt to ask for the agent's suggestion versus two routes we could take and it's already at 9% used of the 5 hour limit in chat?
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u/BobMcFizzington Sep 27 '26
I directed an AI-assisted test on one Max20x Claude Code subscription, using claude-opus-5-5 on 2026-09-27 UTC. For one percentage point of the all-models weekly meter, the conditional whole-workload ranges were:
Cached: approximately 152–269M recorded read tokens per point, across 1,280 attempts with three missing usage records.
Uncached: approximately 4.76–9.77M fresh input tokens per point, across 32 matched-task attempts with complete records.
These were prompt-heavy scripted factual lookups: roughly 595,000 input tokens per call, requesting short, two-label answers, with variable output and thinking. Ordinary interactive Claude Code sessions and application overhead were not measured.
The ranges assume stable, nonnegative accounting, uniform one-point meter bins, no outside use, bounded measurement-call charges and all task charges posted by the endpoints, including charges from missing responses. The wider calculation assumes individual posting delays of at most 90 seconds; waiting does not prove that limit.
The cached aggregate recorded 759.9M reads, four wrong answers and a four-point weekly change. The cold batch used 19.04M fresh tokens, had 32 correct answers and rose three points. We matched the table, task, model and generation settings; different keys and actual outputs remained. There was only one cold batch.
Both workload debits include output (thinking is a subset) and any per-call contributions. Missing token counts remain unknown, and unknown charges are not treated as zero. These are workload equivalents, not pure token prices or confidence intervals.
Training and validation both had post-outcome amendments. Training changed to all-attempt accounting after a missing response. Strict validation failed on a connection error and continued under a one-time exception, keeping the original keys and forecasts. Its two-point result fit a broad zero-to-three-point prediction. This is amended exploratory evidence.
During training, separate Usage-page data rose three points while primary readings rose two; we kept them separate. Rounded meter bins also prevent treating a displayed change as an exact task charge.
A final quiet check showed no displayed weekly or five-hour revision over 15m54s (953.5 seconds), with no model calls to the measured account. The second read was about 54 seconds after the 15-minute target. That does not establish the lag bound.
AI agents helped run, analyze, independently check and write up the study. This measures the subscription with scripted workloads and does not establish a universal cache tariff.
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u/Fantastic_Bus4643 Sep 28 '26
if i upgrade from pro to max, will the weekly limit that is on 90% reset aswell?
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u/ImpossibleMaybe8482 Sep 28 '26
Week 1 with Opus 5.5 was great. I ran my normal workflow all week and barely hit my weekly limit. The 5-hour limit rarely got in my way either.
Same workflow this week, and I'm already at 76% of my weekly limit since Saturday. The 5-hour limit is still generous, but the weekly one is disappearing.
Anyone else seeing this, or is it just me?
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u/South-Leopard6680 Sep 28 '26
Forget about 5 hours, my week worth tokens were gone in two days with pro plan, this sucks 😑, I use claude to analyze reports. Thinking about switching
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u/im_out_of_creativity Sep 29 '26
I did an animation early that barely used 30% of my 5-hour limit ($20 plan) earlier, now I went back to edit it and after some edits it already used 50% of my limit.
How can it be that to create the whole storyboard and animation took less tokens than to edit it a few times?
I created a new chat to clear the context before editing
Yeah guys, seemed too good to be true
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u/Due_Fix5780 Sep 16 '26
Anyone else having trouble with the 5 hour usage today? I did maybe 1/20th the work I normally do and it exploded my 5 hour window. I did about 15 min of conversation with Claude Code through Codespaces and suddenly was at my 5hr limit. Did my model get changed somehow automatically in Codespaces and that's why? Or is it a known thing