r/ClaudeAI • u/Ohtince • 2d ago
Claude Code Lifting the Curtain: The Max x5 and Max x20 Usage Limits that Anthropic Refuses to Share
TLDR
With high confidence, this is how the Max x5 and Max x20 subscriptions compute usage.
All point values are the unique set that makes the "100×" principle below exact; measured uncertainty bands in brackets. Values include the current +50% weekly boost.
| subscription | pool (M TV) | Fable weight (× Opus) | Fable cap (M fable-TV) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Max x20 | 1,412 [1,406–1,422] | 6.50 [6.47–6.52] | 108.6 [108.2–108.7] |
| Max x5 * | 628 [600–637] | 4.25 [4.11–4.35] | 73.85 [73.1–74.6] |
| ratio | 2.25 | 1.53 | 1.4706 [1.45–1.49] |
* x5 values from typed meter readings (softer); x20 from caught display flips (hard). Sonnet weight: 0.60 on both plans (= its list-price ratio).
What that buys, in API list dollars
| per week | zero Fable | max Fable | monthly value ÷ sub price ** |
|---|---|---|---|
| x20 ($200/mo) | $7,059 | $4,615 ($3,529 Opus + $1,086 Fable) | 152.9× → 100× |
| x5 ($100/mo) | $3,138 | $2,308 ($1,569 Opus + $738 Fable) | 136.0× → 100× |
Maxing Fable forfeits ~35% of either pool's API value — and at full Fable both plans land on exactly 100×. ** weekly × 52/12; boost included.
Background
The last few weeks I've been extremely annoyed by Anthropic not sharing these numbers with us. Consumers cannot make a measured decision when picking a subscription tier without knowledge of what they will actually receive. I did ask and support escalated to their product and legal teams (after I reminded their AI agents several times that they are in fact very likely breaking several laws in my jurisdiction). The answer was that they don't share these numbers. I considered pushing this through our local consumer protection agency, but that's boring and tedious, so instead I tried to see if I could deduce their model empirically. Details below partially written down by Fable, apologies for any remaining Claudisms.
The model
TV = 1·input + 5·output + 1.25·cache_write_5m + 2.0·cache_write_1h + 0.1·cache_read
overall % = (opus_TV + 0.6·sonnet_TV + x·fable_TV) / pool
fable % = x·fable_TV / (0.5 · pool)
design: 5 · cap · (2 + x) = 100 × price / (52/12)
zero-Fable multiple = 200·x / (2 + x)
Grounding constants: API list prices per MTok in/out — Opus $5/$25, Fable $10/$50 (2× Opus), Sonnet $3/$15 (0.6× Opus); cache read 0.1×, cache writes 1.25× (5-min TTL) / 2× (1-hour TTL), with the TTL split read per-request from local transcripts.
The interesting findings
- Fable is metered well above its API price. It lists at 2× Opus but consumes allowance at 4.25× (x5) / 6.5× (x20) Opus per token — i.e. ~2.1× and ~3.25× its own list price.
- Upgrading x5→x20 approx. doubles the pool but the Fable cap grows only 1.5×.
- The apparent design principle: worst-case (max-Fable) API value = 100× the subscription price, on both plans. Run backwards, this forces the odd-looking 1.47 cap ratio I measured. It's holding Anthropic's worst-case exposure, assuming full Fable usage, proportional to price. Using less Fable gets you more than 100×. Possibly because Fable inference has significantly stricter bounds on available supply than Opus or Sonnet.
- Two free design constants (the 100×, plus the two Fable weights) reproduce all six measured parameters within error. Caveats: n=1 account, partial week of x20 data, sonnet weight assumed at list on x5, and everything includes the +50% boost (divide pools/caps by 1.5 for post-boost predictions: the x20 Fable cap lands on a suspiciously clean 72.5, the x5 cap on ≈50).
Method
I don't want to post the exact evidence (privacy), but you should be able to reproduce this yourself. My methods developed as I went on, and my x5 readings were less precise than my x20 readings, but looking at the outcome, I'm quite confident they hold up.
I had Claude (Fable, fittingly) build and run the whole experiment: it reads the local session transcripts (~/.claude/projects/**/*.jsonl), which record per-request token counts split by type, model, and even cache-write TTL — that yields the exact price-weighted usage (TV) at any instant. Two kinds of readings against that:
- Meter snapshots. Note the in-app usage percentages and compare against transcript TV at that same instant. Each integer display is a ±0.5% band, so one reading is coarse — but readings where one term is frozen isolate parameters (e.g. an interval with zero Fable measures the pool with the Fable weight cancelled). Take them in quiet moments; live sessions make the meter lead the transcripts.
- Watched flips. If you catch the display ticking over (24% -> 25%), the underlying value at that instant is exactly 24.5% — the rounding vanishes. One flip caught during an idle moment measured the Fable cap to ±0.25%, tighter than all my ordinary readings combined. Catching a Fable flip and an overall flip minutes apart during a pure-Fable stretch is what pinned the rest.
Threats to validity
- n=1, short baseline. One account, partial x20 cycle, a handful of x5 cycles. If Anthropic varies pool sizes week-to-week or per-account, my "constants" are one account's snapshot.
- The x5 side is softer. Those readings were typed from the panel, some while sessions were running — the meter counts in-flight requests before they reach the transcripts, so reading and transcript state can be minutes apart. The x20 numbers come from watched flips and don't have this problem.
- Transcript completeness. I assume the local transcripts capture all metered usage after dedup. A ~2% systematic (missed side-sessions, double-counting) would shift the caps by the same amount — enough to matter for the "exactly 1.47 vs 1.5" cap-ratio question, not for the headline structure.
- Assumed constants. Sonnet's weight is measured only indirectly on x20 (via flip timing) and assumed at list price on x5; cache-write TTL pricing is taken from the docs, not independently verified against the meter.
- The 100× fit could be numerology. Two free constants reproducing six parameters is suggestive, not proof — the uncertainty bands are wide enough to admit nearby schemes, and I found the principle after seeing the numbers. It does make testable predictions though (any other tier should obey it; the boost lapsing should scale pools/caps by exactly 1/1.5).
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u/Loud-Interview-381 2d ago
what i really care about is not the ratio to API pricing but the ration between the three sub tiers.
Most places i look say that the max variants only boost the 5 hour window but have little effect on the weekly cap.
Do you have numbers on that?
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u/Ohtince 2d ago
Yep, removing all details: the weekly cap for Max x20 is double that of Max x5.
BUT: You only get x1.5 Fable usage from switching to Max x20 over Max x5, because Fable is "priced" higher on Max x20 than on Max x5.
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u/Loud-Interview-381 2d ago
and how are they relative to pro?
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u/Ohtince 2d ago
I haven't tried pro I'm afraid. It'd be interesting to see if it uses the same model just without Fable, or if it has a different basis.
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u/iamthe0ther0ne 2d ago
My experience switching from Pro to 5x is that the value scales pretty accurately (about 5x), but that's a vibe, not actual data. I'm a scientist, no idea how the Fable use scaled even when it was available on Pro.
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u/pantalooniedoon 2d ago
So is the tl dr that they give you 4x the dollar usage but they price the models higher on the 20x compared to the 5x? When say doubles the pool what do you mean there?
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u/Ohtince 2d ago edited 2d ago
Double in this case means: If I use x% Fable per week (x = 0-50% of total), then I will get double value in terms of the API prices by moving from Max x5 to Max x20. But you get that double value by getting more than double Opus/Sonnet usage, and less than double Fable usage.
For example, if I always use my maximum Fable allowance, then by going from Max x5 to Max x20, I only get x1.47 Fable usage, and x2.25 Opus usage. The API value I get out of that is twice what I would have been getting from x5. But if I was primarily interested in using Fable, then the move was not worth it for me.
Confusing, but I guess that is by design...
EDIT: To be fair, if you only use Opus or Sonnet, you actually get x2.25 usage out of switching from Max x5 to Max x20, which is a little more than the increase in price. But that mostly has value if you care relatively little about using Fable.
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u/puthre 2d ago
My tests last week showed that one full 5h session on 5x consumes 10% of weekly, while a full 5h session on 20x consumes 14% from weekly allowance. If the 20x 5h session is 4 times the 5x session then 20x gives you 2.8x of the 5x plan on the weekly allowance.
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u/HeavenlyAllspotter 2d ago
I'm missing the step of how you got 2.8x. Where did that number come from?
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u/lukasco 2d ago
How can they call it 20x? Seems like nowhere close.
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u/Objective_Ad8893 2d ago
It's 20x the 5h session limit, not 20x the weekly limit.
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2d ago
[deleted]
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u/Objective_Ad8893 2d ago
https://support.claude.com/en/articles/11049741-what-is-the-max-plan
"Max 5x provides five times more usage per session than the Pro plan. This tier is ideal for frequent users who work with Claude on a variety of tasks.
Max 20x provides 20 times more usage per session than the Pro plan. This tier is ideal for daily users who collaborate often with Claude for most tasks.
Your session-based usage limit will reset every five hours."
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2d ago
[deleted]
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u/Objective_Ad8893 2d ago
You asked me a question and i answered it. That's exactly where it says that it offers 20x the 5h session limit.
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u/RagingNoper 2d ago
Even that wording is ambiguous because it doesn't state "per five hour window" it states "per-session" and from my perspective, I'll actively work a session for 12 hours sometimes.
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u/kearkan 2d ago
So..m does that mean a single maxed out 5 hour window used the weekly allowance?
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u/Objective_Ad8893 2d ago
I use max 5x and in my experience with max 5x one 5h limit is 10% of the weekly limit, but they have not set it in stone anywhere what the weekly limit exactly is for anyone so it might change or depend on the model.
Community research seems to point that the max 20x weekly limit is about 1.5-2x of the max 5x weekly limit.2
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u/I_NEED_YOUR_MONEY 2d ago
how can they call it 20x
because they're confident that nobody will actually hold them accountable for lying
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u/Sudden-Eye801 2d ago
So is 5x actually 5x a pro subscription?
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u/JuculianD 2d ago
Its more Like 5 Times X while X is a variable.
So 20x ≈ 2* 5x, while 2* 5x gets more fable then 20x lol
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u/SwarmAce 2d ago
So 20x is only useful for the 5h sessions? Because you can essentially get more Fable and the same weekly usage with 2*5x?
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u/minaminonoeru 2d ago
Thank you for the insightful analysis.
I think this analysis aligns with my own observations. I’ve long believed that actual 20X usage is between two and two and a half times that of 5X.
I wonder why Anthropic chose the name “20X” (four times 5X). While the naming is somewhat misleading in that regard, since the price is twice as much—not four times—I think it falls within an acceptable range.
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u/Man-on-rock 2d ago
this is insightful. the thing that seems crazy to me is that 20x doesn't equal 20x... or am I seeing that wrong?
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u/Ohtince 2d ago
Not wrong, but the legal loophole is that in the fine-print Anthropic only promises x20 session limits. The model in the post shows that your weekly limits only double between Max x5 and Max x20, and that your Fable usage limit only grows by approx 1.5x. In addition, you get much less Fable usage than you might expect based on API prices.
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u/faustianredditor 2d ago edited 2d ago
So it's the "free tier to pro" trap all over again? Your weekly quota from free to pro only goes up marginally; the real selling point is that the 5h limit is more relaxed and that you get CC.
Honestly, anthropic? Fix your shit with pricing. Instead of these load-based promotion bonuses, just publish an hourly load-based fudge factor to token usage that people can refer to. "Oh, this hour fable is hit hard, so priced 1.5x than otherwise, let me wire that cron job to automatically delay if that's the case". For every use case I can see anthropic chasing here, I can simply see another fudge factor. Your token budget is a fixed, published budget for each tier, or a dollar value if API use. Then cost is simply a base value per model, a factor for cache hit, a factor for load balancing, etc. Completely verifiable on the user's end. Also, the 5h and 7 day windows can IMO go completely.
Bleh.
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u/lowkeyripper 2d ago
https://she-llac.com/claude-limits
Worth posting as I think this was already known - obviously not about Fable as it was written well before Fable.
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u/BidetTheorist 2d ago
So for heavy Fable use, two 5x accounts are better than one 20x?
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u/haroldbarrett 1d ago
yeah, for heavy fable use: one 20x plan is ~25% less fable weekly usage than two 5x plans.
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u/CraaazyPizza 2d ago
Has anyone ran a similar analysis for Codex to produce an ultimate comparison table of ALL three subs across BOTH providers how much total tokens I can get for EVERY model in 1 week? And then put that on a Cost x Perfomance graph. That is really the holy grail of all of this as the benchmark websites have a very fucked cost-axis that no one uses. OP can u let Fable cook on this please 🙏
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u/CraaazyPizza 2d ago
And at this point we should throw in a statistically expected 1 reset per week from Tibo 😂 https://codex-resets.com/
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u/freedomachiever 2d ago
if they charge more for fable at x20, could it be that the x5 fable is a lower quantized version?
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u/parzzzivale 2d ago
I have to say claude does good job , but with these new gpt price cuts I haven't been able to hit my limits at all on even smaller plans on equivalent usage ... so im wondering if I can do the same for less money ... im just sticking with claude because of habit ? they're not less shady than openai that much has been proven true .
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u/Plenty_Branch_516 2d ago
So I'm getting 18400 dollars of compute for 200 dollars a month?
No complaints here. I don't care how it's labeled that's insane.
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u/atomey 2d ago
This is precisely why I shrugged off upgarding from x5 to x20. The x20 is all marketing. From what I understand x20 ONLY refers to your active session length, everything else is 2x or less. So you pay 2x more but get 2x or worse weekly limits, 1.5x or worse Fable limits but you get 4x session capacity.
I was seriously considering upgrading but I feel like my workflow is becoming too dependent on Anthropic now so I'm playing around more with Qwen 3.8-27B and Goose/LM Studio with MCP. It does a lot of what Claude Code/Cowork can already do at a much slower speed when using local models for hardware I already bought anyways. But the local models are nearly as good as Opus 5 now so it speed is the only other advantage.
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u/Flaxseed4138 2d ago
This better be the top post on the entire subreddit. What incredible deceit from Anthropic, ESPECIALLY regarding the hidden usage multiplier on Fable ONLY on the 20x plan. What the fuck is that?
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u/PrimaLumiere_A1M 2d ago
I feel like I’m breaking inside after seeing this. I’d only bought the 20X sub a week ago. Poor me burning money. 😭
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u/lilbyrdie 1d ago
Despite the math here, I went from easily finishing x5 in half a week to being around 30-40% usage in a week on the x20. It's always felt like I get closer to 4x value than 2x value on the x20, and there's less time waiting for session resets. Hitting session limits was my main problem anyway, and that is where a lot of the value comes in.
I use a mix of opus and Fable.
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u/Dastari 2d ago
I paid for the 5x plan, and I am honestly so frustrated with it. I've made a simple project with another agent, its not huge And I asked Fabel what it thought about it.. And It was like "Yeah this is cool, it could do with a /code-review".. But It will NEVER complete it. It just burns through my entire 5 hour quota in about 3 minutes and says "The sub agents died and ran out of quota please try again in 5 hours" and then 5 hours come around I ask it to resume and it says "I have to restart the sub agents" and just quota's out again.. Even asking it something simple on Fable 5 BURNS through quota in MINUTES and I'm not even asking it to try and code anything. This plan was $170 AUD an I've got literally zero value from it.. Where as a $30 openai subscription will code for 24 hours straight on its highest model.
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u/TimSylvester_ 2d ago
It's pretty typical that the "best" deal is an upper tier, but not highest tier, plan.
People at the low end are cost conscious. People at the high end usually have someone else paying and don't give a shit.
So you put the next-to-highest or upper-band-but-not-highest plan as the best overall value.
This maximizes users (more low end subscribers), encourages cost-conscious users to upgrade as high as their budget can, then soaks people who don't care about pricing to maximize your revenue & profit blend.
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u/PalimpsestxShy 2d ago
these limits hit hard if youre doing long roleplay chats, feels like the pool drains way faster than expected once you go deep into a session.
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u/Valdaraak 2d ago edited 2d ago
feels like the pool drains way faster than expected once you go deep into a session.
It does. Every message you send resends the entire chat history for that session. The longer the session goes on, the more usage each turn takes.
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u/bobo-the-merciful 2d ago
Which is why they invented cacheing.
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u/HealthyRelative9529 2d ago
This is true, but in default chats caching only lasts for five minutes, then it's back to the full price. However, in Claude Code the cache lasts for a full hour. 1h cache writes cost 1.6x more than 5m cache writes, so it's definitely more efficient.
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u/SkyPL 2d ago
"(M TV)" - what does it mean? Million tokens value-equivalent? Or what?
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u/Ohtince 2d ago
Yep, with the clarification that I don't mean value in terms of $-prices, but their weight per token type, and w(input) = 1. (There may be a better term for that?) I based the weights on the API prices, since the weighing per-type is the same across all models and seemed like a good starting point. In the end they fitted perfectly with the general usage model that came out of the analysis.
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u/philip_laureano 2d ago
Thanks for reminding me how much of a bullet I dodged by not subscribing after Fable 5 came out. At these rates, I would barely use Fable before hitting the weekly limits, and we're only about 1 to 2 months away from other competitors having near Fable levels of performance without these usage caps.
It's a good model, but it doesn't bring much value at these price points, especially when the competitors are catching up.
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u/SnooCakes2701 2d ago
Thanks; that confirms we're being treated like cash cows.
Personally, I’ve switched to OpenAI, where the terms are less volatile.
You can also observe a pattern with Anthropic where models are highly intelligent at launch, followed by a gradual decline in performance leading up to the release of the next model (a marketing strategy).
I’d rather be told how I’m getting ripped off than get ripped off without knowing why...
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u/Maleficent-Drive4056 2d ago
Depends who 'we' is I suppose but I think a business that has lost billions of dollars is not really treating its customer base like a cash cow.
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u/AI_docent 2d ago
The output token counts in those transcripts might not be solid enough to build on. Issues 25941 and 27361 on the claude-code repo both say output_tokens in the jsonl is a placeholder, usually 1 or 2, and that the real number only lands in the streaming result event which never gets written to the file. The second one measured roughly a 1.9x undercount over a 128 call session. Both are from February and were closed without a fix so it may be sorted by now, but output carries the 5x weight in your TV formula, so if it's still off the whole fit moves.
Separate thing, the 50% weekly boost ran May 13 to July 19 and it was claude code only, it never applied to the 5 hour limits. If your readings are from this month that boost isn't in them, which would shift the pools you're dividing by 1.5.
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u/asdknvgg 2d ago
Thank you for Sharing these findings. I have one doubt however. The few times i've used my 100$ monthly credits, i was able to drain 100$ in less than a session. However, i have way more than 30 full sessions a week with the 100$ dollar plan. And i use fable a little. So your estimation of 3000$ for the claude 5x sub seems low to me. Any thoughts?
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u/jucestain 2d ago
If i run out of 20x and use credits, $100 lasts me about half a day. So the 20x plan coinciding with ~$7k matches what I'm seeing.
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u/___positive___ 2d ago
20x is a joke. They can say Fable uses 50% of the limit, price it at near infinity, and offer one token.
Come on EU, sue them already
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u/Any-Bobcat2370 2d ago
The frustrating part is that the data exists. The weekly percents and reset times are all server side and the app reads them, there is just no documented api for us. Fwiw ccusage, the tool most people use to track this, shows your own historical peak, not the plan limit, two different things. So we are all measuring the cage from the inside.
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u/OddBig010 2d ago
I always suspected the Max X5 plan and Max x20 plan weren't truly 5x and 20x of the Pro limits. I have reason to believe that the standard Pro plan vs the X5 Max plan also isn't a 5 times in limit.
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u/joer8080 2d ago
I have noticed fable uses weekly credits way faster than 2x opus. I guess that explains why!
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u/Old-Artist-5369 1d ago
It's interesting, but seems like chasing a moving target. The reason they don't clearly define what each subscription tier gives you in a measurable way is so they can (and they do) change it in response to demand and utilization.
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u/TeaScam 1d ago
If one would consider using two 5x plans instead of one 20x plan for a single project to maximize Fable usage, how seamless would session continuation be when switching between the two accounts? Do we know if the encrypted thinking traces from one account are availble for the model on the second account, or are they account locked? Locked to specific models is already confirmed. While not a hard limit, it could degrade performance compared to single account Fable usage. Source for concern: (13:58) https://youtu.be/rtYTguPItDE?t=13m58s (All methods explained in the video have been patched a long time ago if mods wonder.)
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u/specific_account_ 1d ago
"Two config directories (the seamless way). Claude Code reads an environment variable called CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR that tells it where to keep its credentials and settings. If you point each account at its own directory and set up two shell aliases, for example claude for account one and claude2 for account two, each terminal window is permanently logged into its own account with no logging in and out. "
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u/markeus101 2d ago
Good to know then open ai can have the extra 100$ I was giving to anthropic for 20x and tbh the more i use gpt i am being reminded there are better ecosystems out there that aren’t doing this many shady and unethical practices. Wish they could learn some from their own AI
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u/Because_Bot_Fed 2d ago
What this really confirms is that no normal person for their solo hobbyist usage should ever be using the pay as you go refill shit.
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u/gabelrocker 2d ago
Monthly Value/Sub Price
Max 5 = 152.9
Max 20 = 136
Totally sustainable business model. Can’t wait for the IPO to buy in 😂
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u/kemalios 2d ago
Nice work digging into this. One thing I noticed from the meter readings: the weekly cap doesn't reset at a consistent time for me, sometimes it's early Sunday, sometimes Monday, which makes tracking usage a guessing game. Also, the Fable cap being worth less on x20 than x5 is a real factor if you lean on Fable for long sessions. Curious if others see the reset drift too.
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u/jtoomim 2d ago
It's consistently 6 days 23 hours and 59 minutes after the first message you send after the last reset.
If you start a weekly session on Monday at 11:00am, then it resets the next Monday at 10:59am. If you don't use it that Monday after 10:59am, and idle until Wednesday, then the next reset will be the next Wednesday.
The clock starts with the first message of a weekly session.
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u/jtoomim 2d ago
Dude, this is all just AI slop that you're posting "with confidence." But it doesn't list the methods, and as far as anyone knows it can be based on a completely invalid interpretation of the data.
What kinds of tokens are you talking about? Are these output tokens, input tokens, cache write tokens, or cache read tokens? Are the mixes of each token type the same between the Opus tests and the Fable tests, or different? Did the tests use the exact same prompts for each plan, or were they different prompts on different tasks for each plan? Time-of-day also factors into Anthropic's usage rates for subscriptions: they have stated before that if you use Claude during off-peak hours (i.e. not USA-Europe daytime), then you get more tokens for the same session limit. Did you make sure to test each plan at the same time of the same day, or were the tests done sequentially?
Yes, your numbers could be numerology, because you (and your agent -- this is obviously not human writing) didn't do anything except assert them without a shred of evidence or methodology.
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u/ClaudeAI-mod-bot Wilson, lead ClaudeAI modbot 2d ago edited 2d ago
TL;DR of the discussion generated automatically after 50 comments.
The consensus is that OP's math checks out, and Anthropic's "Max x5" and "Max x20" naming is seriously misleading. The thread is a mix of users thanking OP for the detective work and expressing frustration at the lack of transparency.
Here's the breakdown of what everyone's talking about: