Claude's top-tier subscribers can now work without the rolling session cap, though the weekly ceiling stays put
Anthropic is scrapping the rolling five-hour usage limit for verified subscribers on its Ultra plan. The weekly cap is staying exactly where it is.
The change, announced on October 30, 2026, targets the people paying the most for Claude. For them, the dreaded mid-session timeout should now be a thing of the past, as long as they stay under the weekly ceiling.
What actually changed
Ultra is Anthropic’s highest subscription tier. It costs $200 per month and was previously known as Max 20x.
Under the old model, Ultra subscribers got 20 times the usage of the Pro plan within each five-hour window. Once you burned through that allowance, you waited for the window to roll over.
That rolling session limit is now gone for verified Ultra accounts. Individual users can run long, uninterrupted sessions without watching a five-hour clock.
The weekly limit is the one thing Anthropic did not touch. It remains set at 10 times the Pro plan’s allowance.
The verification catch
There is a condition attached. Newer Ultra accounts will still face a temporary five-hour limit until they are verified.
Anthropic frames this as a fraud prevention measure. Removing a usage cap on a $200 plan is generous, and generosity tends to attract people looking to exploit it.
Existing Ultra subscribers do not need to do anything. There are no price changes, no billing changes, and limits adjust automatically on the account side.
Where the rest of the lineup sits
Ultra is not Anthropic’s only paid tier above Pro. The Max plan, previously called Max 5x, costs $100 per month.
Max offers 5 times the Pro plan’s usage per five-hour session. The announcement covers Ultra specifically, so Max users still live with the session window.
How we got here
This is not the first time Anthropic has reworked its usage rules. Since 2025, the company has introduced weekly limits and made periodic adjustments to its tiers.
Those earlier changes had specific goals. They were meant to curb excessive account sharing and to manage service delivery during peak hours.
What this means for users and Anthropic
For heavy Claude users, the practical difference is about rhythm rather than raw volume. The weekly allowance is unchanged, so the total amount of work you can do in a week stays the same.
What changes is how you spend it. A developer deep in a long coding session or a researcher working through a big project no longer gets cut off just because the clock ran out.
Someone might barely touch Claude on Monday and then spend most of Tuesday leaning on it hard. Under a five-hour window, that Tuesday gets interrupted. Under a weekly cap alone, it does not.
