Anthropic has reorganized its two large Claude subscriptions for individuals: Max 20x becomes Ultra, and Max 5x simply becomes Max. Verified Ultra accounts no longer have a five-hour limit and are subject only to a weekly limit that is ten times as large as with Pro. According to the help page on the Ultra plan, Anthropic is automatically switching existing Max 20x subscriptions to Ultra at no change in price.
What changes with Ultra in everyday work?
Two limits apply to the paid Claude plans: a quota that renews every five hours, and a weekly limit. With Ultra, the first limit no longer applies to verified accounts. A long session in Claude Code or a large research task therefore no longer ends after a few hours with a forced break. Chat, desktop app, mobile app, and Claude Code continue to draw on the same quota.
Instead of a break every five hours, all that matters with Ultra is how you distribute the weekly quota across the days. If you work very intensively on one day, the quota may run short for the rest of the week, because no five-hour limit slows you down beforehand. Claude shows when your weekly limit will be reset under Settings > Usage.
How do Max and Ultra differ?
Max stays with the previous model with both limits: subscribers get five times the quota of Pro, every five hours and per week. Both tiers include the top model Fable up to half of the weekly limit and a monthly API credit for your own applications on the Claude Platform. With Ultra, this credit is twice as high as with Max.
Max and Ultra compared
The two large Claude subscriptions for individuals since Anthropic's renaming
Max
- Five times the Pro quota every five hours
- Five times the Pro quota per week
- Fable up to half of the weekly limit
- Monthly API credit
Ultra, formerly Max 20x
- No five-hour limit for verified accounts
- Ten times the Pro quota per week
- Fable up to half of the weekly limit
- Twice as much API credit as with Max
Unverified Ultra accounts temporarily have a five-hour limit
Sources: Claude Help Center, Claude pricing page
Like Max, Ultra can only be booked as a monthly subscription. A switch from Max to Ultra is charged proportionally for the rest of the billing period. The German pricing page lists prices in dollars and excluding taxes; Anthropic does not show a euro price there. These prices apply to subscriptions on the web; in the iOS and Android apps, Anthropic may charge different amounts.
When is your account considered verified?
Anthropic checks Ultra accounts automatically, among other things based on account and payment history, in order to prevent fraud and abuse. Until approval, a temporary five-hour limit applies, which then disappears without any action on your part. Confirming your phone number at sign-up is a separate step and does not lift this limit.
You can see whether your account is already included under Settings > Usage: if the bar for the current session is missing there, the check is complete.
What this means for you
If you have had Max 20x so far, you don't need to do anything. After the switch, it's best to take a quick look at the usage display to see whether the session bar has disappeared. If it remains, the check is still running, and until then the old break after five hours applies.
Do you regularly hit the five-hour limit with Max, but rarely the weekly limit? Then Ultra is worth it for you the most. You can let larger tasks such as reports or spreadsheets run in the background in Claude Cowork; how that works is shown in the course on Claude Cowork.
If you are currently comparing with ChatGPT, it is worth looking at the other side: OpenAI has doubled the quota for the ChatGPT Work and Codex features in the Pro tiers, but additionally retains a separate weekly limit there for messages to GPT-6 Pro. It's best to sign up for your subscription on the web, where the prices from the pricing page apply.
Anthropic announced the change on October 30, 2026.
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