Anthropic kills Claude's most hated limit: no more forced breaks

On Friday evening Anthropic renamed its top Claude plans and quietly delivered the thing heavy users have been begging for. Max 5x is now just Max, and Max 20x is now Ultra. Prices stay the same at $100 and $200 a month.

The real news sits in the second half of the announcement. Verified Ultra accounts no longer have a five-hour limit. Before, you burned through your session allowance and then sat there waiting for the window to reset. Now you can keep working as long as you like until you hit the weekly ceiling. That ceiling stays, and according to Anthropic's help page it equals ten times the Pro plan's usage per week.

The change starts today, beginning with most existing subscribers. Newer accounts keep a temporary five-hour limit until they are verified: Anthropic checks account and payment history to fight fraud and abuse, and sends an email once the limit is lifted. Verifying a phone number at checkout does not count. To check, open Settings, then Usage. If there is no current session bar, you are verified.

The $100 Max plan keeps its five-hour window. Existing subscribers don't need to do anything, everything switches over on its own.

For anyone who runs Claude Code for hours on end, this is the nicest news of the week. Everyone else gets to be jealous.