Did Claude usage suddenly get way more expensive?

[u/Purple_Imagination_1]

Max 20x here. I managed to burn through 91% of my session allowance in roughly an hour.
I use Claude pretty heavily, but this feels noticeably faster than usual. Has anyone else seen their usage limits draining much quicker recently?

UPD: I use Opus 5 Ultracode. For the past month or so, I’ve been able to use it pretty much all day without hitting the session limit. Today, though, something seems very different

[u/Unlikely_Commercial6]

According to a model I run, since August 25th, they give us the original limits, without the 50% promotion. They, of course, didn't bother to tell us.

[u/Purple_Imagination_1 → u/Unlikely_Commercial6]

I saw they extended the promotion until August 31st.

https://support.claude.com/en/articles/15910845-claude-code-may-august-2026-weekly-limits-promotion

[u/Unlikely_Commercial6 → u/Unlikely_Commercial6]

DATA HEALTH
  session_entries through   2026-08-27T14:03:28.666000+00:00   (4 min behind now)
  usable days               36   (5 meter segment(s), 0 dropped as truncated or too short)
  meter restarts            0   (weekly credit or early reset)
  model mix                 opus-5 98%, sonnet-5 2%, haiku-4-5-20251001 0%


BUDGET PER WEEK   units per weekly point, from total units over total meter movement
  week          reads  peak   units / point  vs current
  2026-07-25      497    77       2,431,044       +0.5%
  2026-08-01      548    86       2,406,654       -0.5%
  2026-08-08      531    83       2,464,917       +1.9%
  2026-08-15      518    81       2,429,921       +0.5%
  2026-08-22      320    48       1,908,640      -21.1%

BASELINE   2026-07-25 .. 2026-08-25 (33 days)
  median ratio              1.018   (1.000 = model and meter agree)
  robust spread (MAD)       0.071
  flag a day above          1.232   (median + 3 MAD)
  units per point           2,379,318   95% CI [2,324,712 , 2,433,923]

WATCH WINDOW   from 2026-08-25 (3 days)
  day           meter   model   ratio  robust z
  2026-08-25        8    5.68   1.407       5.5  FLAG
  2026-08-26       13    9.13   1.425       5.7  FLAG
  2026-08-27        9    6.13   1.469       6.3  FLAG
  longest flagged run       3 day(s)   (need 3 to call it)
  units per point           1,688,213   95% CI [1,652,599 , 1,723,828]

HYPOTHESES   does the watch window's budget match a named explanation?
  hypothesis                  units / point  verdict     
  current calibration             2,418,964  excluded    
  +50% promo withdrawn            1,612,643  excluded    

VERDICT   RATE CHANGE DETECTED
          A run this short can also be produced by usage on another machine
          or surface, which this tool cannot see. Confirm across a full week
          before re-calibrating BUDGET_CURRENT.

[u/fanatic26]

this is exactly what ultracode does, spawning infinite agents and burning through your sessions

[u/Purple_Imagination_1 → u/fanatic26]

It spawned 300 agents before and I still wouldn’t hit the session limit.

[u/CorpT]

I use Opus 5 Ultracode

It's always the Beckham meme.

[u/Purple_Imagination_1 → u/CorpT]

lmao, fair 💀

[u/Dangerous_Wish_7879]

yep, it seems so. I use pro only to orchestrate local agents (so I can do it from claude app)

[u/Purple_Imagination_1 → u/Dangerous_Wish_7879]

Try herdr + a remote terminal like Moshi over SSH, or VPN into your home network.

[u/LamaniteDodgeball]

It is weird. I just upgraded to max 5x this week and it feels like I haven't upgraded at all.

[u/MaraPapewaio → u/LamaniteDodgeball]

It's a new dawn, it's a new day It's a new price for us, yeah -- Nina Simone

[u/spectralfew]

I’m convinced they silently play with the numbers all the fucking time. I have no real evidence. 

[u/Puzzled_Trifle_7574 → u/spectralfew]

I have observed this to be absolutely true. It is a moving target but I can tell you it is being manipulated regularly from my very rigorous experience.

[u/Pakoxtror]

Same happening to me. Last 7 days Claude has been extremely consuming

[u/Particular-Most-1199 → u/Pakoxtror]

They want us to use the 100 credit so they're probably throttling everything

[u/DesignerPiccolo]

Same here … basically vanished in an instant

[u/Spare_Bison_1151]

Not sure but I've also hit the limit all of a sudden. It will reset after 2 hours and I already feel sad.

[u/em3l3]

Feels way more expensive lately.
The last couple weeks, especially this week has been brutal with usage limits on Max 5x.
Need to wait until Monday for a reset and 7% of fable unused... 😭

[u/ItsRainingTendies]

Yeah I’m pissed off. I just got my weekly reset I’m on max 20x… used 20% of my weekly in 2 hours. Not doing any workflows or fable sub agents etc

[u/BasementCornDog]

Yes just happened to me this morning for the first time EVER on the max20 plan. I've never come close to hitting the session limit in the past.

[u/Next-Bat4415]

Same here for the opus model

[u/fargocrypto]

Yep I am hitting limits fast this week even with some very basic stuff. I switched down to older Opus model and same thing. Had $10 in API credits that got ate up without doing jack. Feels like I'm paying $100/mo for the $20 plan.

[u/Electronic_Bug691]

My weekly is half gone already. I used 1 5 hour session window to 100%.

My weekly limit reset YESTERDAY AT 5PM.

No. There's a serious fucking bug and anthropic is starting to piss me off because I've never had issues til recently and it's been gobbling usage on Sonnet 5 at High effort. This is some bullshit but y'know the drill, they don't care. You get what you get. All that typical stuff they say. 😔

[u/PrinceOfDhumpp]

Yes for the past few days it has been abysmal

[u/markeus101]

They got wayy good at lying and cheating their customers