Claude Ultra replaces Max 20x and drops verified accounts’ five-hour limit
Claude’s $200 subscription is now called Ultra, and verified accounts are losing the five-hour usage ceiling. Anthropic announced the change on October 30 alongside a simpler name for its $100 plan: Max. The weekly allowance is not being removed or increased by this announcement.
The official announcement says the rollout starts with most existing Ultra subscribers. Newer accounts retain a temporary limit until verification, with an email notifying them when it is lifted. Existing subscribers do not need to take action for the name change.
What Max and Ultra cost now
Max replaces Max 5x, while Ultra replaces Max 20x. Anthropic’s Ultra guide says existing Max 20x subscriptions migrate automatically without a price change. The current pricing page separates the session and weekly allowances:
| Plan | Monthly web price | Five-hour allowance | Weekly allowance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Max | $100 | 5x Pro | 5x Pro |
| Ultra, verified | $200 | No five-hour limit | 10x Pro |
| Ultra, not yet verified | $200 | Temporary limit remains | 10x Pro |
Do not read the old 20x name and the current 10x weekly figure as proof that Anthropic halved the allowance. Its announcement explicitly says weekly limits are unchanged. The relevant change is when eligible subscribers can spend that weekly capacity, not a newly unlimited supply.
How to check whether your Ultra account is verified
Open Settings, then Usage. Anthropic says an Ultra account is verified when the Current session bar is absent. Verification is automatic and considers account and payment history. There is no manual step to complete for this limit removal, and verifying a phone number at checkout is a separate process that does not remove the temporary ceiling.
That distinction matters before starting a long job: a new Ultra subscription is not evidence that the five-hour limit has already disappeared. Check the account’s actual Usage screen rather than assuming the plan name settles it.
What still stops a long Claude session?
The usage-limit documentation says Claude on the web, Claude Code and Claude Desktop draw from the same allowance. A weekly reset occurs at the account’s assigned time, which is visible in Settings, then Usage. Changing the surface you work in does not create another subscription budget.
Ultra also retains a separate weekly Fable limit. Anthropic can impose additional capacity, model or feature limits and does not promise uninterrupted service. Removing one session ceiling is therefore not the same as guaranteeing that an agent will finish every task without stopping.
For example, a coding project that previously encountered the five-hour ceiling could now use more of a verified Ultra account’s remaining weekly budget in one stretch. That is an illustration of the policy change, not a ByteForward performance test or a guarantee about how much code a particular project can produce.
Should Max subscribers change anything?
The Max plan guide still lists both five-hour and weekly limits. Moving from Max to Ultra is a paid upgrade, not part of the automatic rename, and the guide says the charge is prorated for the remainder of the billing cycle. The practical decision is whether session timing is your constraint or whether you are already exhausting a weekly allowance.
Featured image: Conceptual editorial illustration by ByteForward, generated with AI and composited with the official Claude wordmark. Claude mark: Anthropic.
