Anthropic rolls out weekly limits for Claude users

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Anthropic is introducing new weekly usage limits for its paid users starting August 28. 

This move is meant to stop a small group of users from overloading Claude’s coding tool, Claude Code, by running it non-stop around the clock. 

It’s also trying to crack down on people who are sharing their accounts or reselling access, both of which go against its rules.

Currently, Anthropic already has limits that reset every five hours, and those will stay in place. 

But now, two new weekly limits will be added: one that caps total use, and another just for their most powerful AI model, Claude Opus 4. 

These new limits apply to subscribers on all of Claude’s paid plans, the $20/month Pro plan, and the $100 and $200/month Max plans. 

For those on Max plans, there’s an option to buy more usage if they go over their limit.

These changes come after Claude Code has struggled with frequent outages, likely due to very heavy usage by a few “power users.” 

According to Anthropic, most users won’t notice a difference, and less than 5% of people will be affected.

We’re rolling out new weekly rate limits for Claude Pro and Max in late August. We estimate they’ll apply to less than 5% of subscribers based on current usage. pic.twitter.com/X8FAss3jIC

— Anthropic (@AnthropicAI) July 28, 2025

To give an idea of what users will get each week:

• Pro plan users can expect 40–80 hours of use with Claude’s mid-level model, Sonnet 4.
• $100 Max plan users get 140–280 hours of Sonnet 4 and 15–35 hours of Opus 4.
• $200 Max plan users get 240–480 hours of Sonnet 4 and 24–40 hours of Opus 4.

Anthropic claims that the $200 plan offers 20 times more usage than the Pro plan, but based on these new numbers, it’s closer to 6 times more, at least when measured in hours. 

It’s unclear how Anthropic is calculating usage, but they may be referring to technical metrics like “tokens” or computer power.

Other companies, like Replit and Cursor, have also recently changed their pricing to stop misuse, as demand for AI coding tools grows. 

Anthropic says they’re working on long-term solutions but hope these limits will keep Claude reliable for everyone in the meantime.

Do you think weekly usage limits are a fair way to manage AI service demand? Or should companies find better technical solutions rather than restricting paying customers? Tell us below in the comments, or reach us via our Twitter or Facebook.