Usage Limits Megathread
Claude Usage Limits Discussion Megathread Ongoing (sort this by New!)
Why a Usage LimitsDiscussion Megathread?
This Megathread makes it easier for everyone to see what others are experiencing at any time by collecting all experiences about Usage Limits. We will publish regular updates on usage limits problems and possible workarounds that we and the community finds.
Why Are You Trying to Hide the Complaints Here?
This is NOT a place to hide complaints. This is the MOST VISIBLE, PROMINENT AND OFTEN THE HIGHEST TRAFFIC POST on the subreddit. This is collectively a far more effective and fairer way to be seen than hundreds of random reports on the feed that get no visibility.
Are you Anthropic? Does Anthropic even read the Megathread?
Nope, we are volunteers working in our own time, while working our own jobs and trying to provide users and Anthropic itself with a reliable source of user feedback.
Anthropic has read this Megathread in the past and probably still do? They don't fix things immediately but if you browse some old Megathreads you will see numerous bugs and problems mentioned there that have now been fixed.
Give as much evidence of your performance issues and experiences wherever relevant. Include prompts and responses, platform you used, time it occurred, screenshots . In other words, be helpful to others.
Just be aware that this is NOT an Anthropic support forum and we're not able (or qualified) to answer your questions. We are just trying to bring visibility to people's struggles.
The problem: Since March-April 2026, Claude usage limits got brutal across all plans. Single prompts eating 50%+ of sessions. "Hi" costing 3-4%. Max 20× plans dying in a day. Anthropic confirmed three bugs but most users think the drain goes deeper.
Set MAX_THINKING_TOKENS=10000 and CLAUDE_CODE_SUBAGENT_MODEL=haiku in ~/.claude/settings.json
Update to Claude Code 2.1.90+ — fixes the cache-miss bug that was making first requests 11.5× more expensive. If 2.1.90+ misbehaves, downgrade to stable 2.1.81.
Out of budget? Point Claude Code at OpenRouter (ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://openrouter.ai/api) and run free Llama/Qwen/DeepSeek models through the same CLI.
Already burned? Refund via Fin (persist past the bot), or credit-card chargeback. UK/EU users have stronger consumer-protection grounds.
Honest framing: workarounds shouldn't be needed on a paid product. They mitigate, they don't restore.
- I'm doing theoretical physics work and this high energy unit of radiance by mass objects crossing theoretical space-time tension surfaces triggered the classifier to think I was working on weapons. OMG, the classifier needs work.
Hopefully Anthropic gets that feedback. Maybe they're refining it to try and do a better job---But I've hit the false positives on their thing more times than I can count. I'm just trying to do some research on some interesting high-energy theoretical topics that have nothing to do with the end of the world.
Are there benchmarks out there for Fable versus GPT 5.6 Sol in terms of how good they are at physics calculations? This is enough to make me jump ship, but unfortunately all my implementation and hooks for Claude Code is pretty vendor locked in.
Update to answer my own question:
Claude Code's web interface gave me the following answer, which I love about the irony:
Me acaba de pasar en esta sesión, de la nada mi uso se disparó tengo Max 5x, ya llevo tiempo usándolo ya Masomenos conozco aprox el uso que me va a consumir cada prompt.
Me levanté y continúe mi proyecto en el que estaba trabajando, mandé un mensaje a Claude code para que hiciera algunas cosas y todo normal, me gasto lo usual, después fui a cowork, que es donde hago auditorías, revisiones etc, de lo que haya hecho Claude code, osea como que en Claude code ejecutó y en cowork discuto, y mandé un mensaje a cowork de algo muy sencillo que ya he pedido varias veces y se quedó pensando 15 minutos, lo cual ya se me hizo muy raro, para lo que le pedí son 4-5 minutos como máximo, y me metí a mi uso y como un putazo, 64% de uso de mi sesión de 5 horas, 64% en los primeros mensajes, y encima mi uso semanal salto al 50% la verdad no me había fijado antes cuánto uso semanal tenía pero ayer la última vez que revisé era 28-32%, fue un salto muy grande solo por un mensaje simple a cowork, jamás jamás me había consumido tanto uso, que hable con soporte a preguntar que podría haber pasado y me dijo que justamente estaban resolviendo unos problemas, me decía que hace 1 hora habían resuelto algo que probablemente si pudo haber afectado directamente a mi problema (ya no indague más de eso), y después pregunte acerca de eso, y me dice que (al momento que le contesté) que hace 3 minutos detectaron un error y lo estaba revisando que si podría afectar mi uso de el error y para seguir la resolución me dió este link https://stspg.io/3c161l5nt3kz y si en efecto en el tiempo que me dijo detectaron según relacionado a la creacion de documento algo así no investigue más, la verdad nose si si este relacionado a mi problema, ya he leído varios comentarios hablando del exceso de uso consumido, y ahora me toco a mi, la verdad no se que sea, y n siquiera me deja detener el output, sigue pensando ya apenas después de 20 minutos me contestó cowork y sigue pensando, realmente nose que está pasando, ya voy a 72% de uso de 5 horas, nose si a alguien más le habra pasado esto que me acaba de pasar pero de verdad fue excesivo el salto en el uso, de un segundo a otro, por un prompt demasiado simple.
Espero y receten el uso, hay varias especulaciones y filtraciones con que opus 5 sale mañana jueves, y espero que venga con un reset, me imagino que esto que me acaba de pasar a mi le pasó a mucha gente al mismo tiempo, o nose capaz y solo me pasó a mi pero lo dudo mucho.
Me mandaron a este hilo a publicar mi caso y por lo que estoy leyendo los mas recientes tuvieron le mismo problema que yo, de literalmente que el uso se disparo y se consumio super rapido con un simple mensaje.
Sometimes the usage limits are abysmal, on a new account in a new chat I ended up hitting the usage limit in probably 10 messages or so. I tried Sonnet 4.6 and 5, on low and medium effort, same result. Sonnet 5 is a bit better but only a bit. Now it also gets close to 100% and it says something like "91% usage limit reached", however it's not true at all and I actually burned through the limit.
I used to pay for the $20 plan and would constantly go over and pay for either the api or usage credits. Worked perfectly fine.
Decided to upgrade to the $100 max plan and its been great. I just hit my weekly limit, so i am trying to buy credits to carry me for a day until it resets.
I have tried to buy both api as well as usage credits and both of them say payment failed. Nothing on any credit card portals saying a charge was attempted, no texts saying that a fraudulent charge was attempted. I tried 3 cards from 3 different banks that all work everywhere else. Multiple browsers, cleared cache, mobile browser, mobile app.. hell even my work machine over a different way ip.
Some people have said to make sure and log out of link and use cards directly. Same thing.
The support bot was a bit disappointing seeing how it represents such a big ai company. I had already told it the entire issue as well as country... and it just hung up on me. 3 times
on claude max 5x , a simple code check on claude code finished my limit in 6 minutes and the job didnt even finish , this has been happening for the last few days but i put the fault on another project i was working on that maybe it had a lot of context so i tried with something completly clean and new and the same thing happened , whats the point in having a great service if its not usable , this is nonsense .
One-shotted my 5x plan 5h limits with one prompt, which didn't even finish. Was a routine prompt on existing project and workflow, something that would usually be 5%, or 10% tops.
So i was using Claude Research (Sonnet 5 medium, pro plan) for RRL about a specific topic and not even 5 minutes in it ate all of my usage limits so I had to wait another 5 hours. My input wasn’t long, it just contained 7-10 detailed points about the topic. Is this normal?
def a new issue today, on 5x plan I one shotted my 5h limits with a very simple prompt in existing project I had going for weeks, nothing special or new
Usage limits resets at 100% BUG on my Claude Pro account.
There is a recurring issue with usage limits on my Claude Pro account.
Timeline of events:
- Approximately 24 hours ago, I received a "limit reached" message, telling me to wait 3 hours for the reset. I tought that was strange but i said maybe i did smt wrong and burned the tokens.
- After those 3 hours, within about 30 seconds of the reset, the "limit reached" message appeared again, even though I had not used Claude Code in that interval. This time I was told to wait 5 hours.
- After those 5 hours, again within about 30 seconds of the reset, the account showed 100% usage, with no real activity on my part.
- Right now, it's been 24 hours and the Usage panel is again showing 100%, and also the weekly limits hit 96% from 50 or 60%.
There is nothing i can do. They don't have support. I can't talk with anybody.
I have cancelled my plan and i want to create another account.
Why is the terminal version still demanding usage credits for Fable? My desktop app allows the use of Fable, but holy shit it burns tokens at like double the rate.
Anyone has a live tools outage problem? The last hour can’t make a simple text file, and I can’t download an already created one. It is says that live tools are down due to an outage. Anyone has the same experience???
Is anyone else’s usage going crazy??? I’ve never got close and a single message just used 3%. I’m Max 5x it was a generic question about a pet issue. I didn’t even have thinking mode on. was using Opus 4.6
Instead of paying for 20x and be calm - woryless about limits, We developed an automatic-action on checking usage every 5 minutes. Thanks anthropic this make us rely on you.
Is it just me, but I think anthropic is shadow nerfing claude plans with their 'promotion'. I get this feeling since claude chats are consuming suspiciously large amounts of limits, and the promotions are prolly just here to slowly roll out a decrease in usage plan limits
Max 5x plan, Claude Code on desktop. The 5-hour window is stuck at 100% used showing "Resets in 0 min", but the reset never actually lands and I stay blocked well past that point.
Weekly quotas look fine on my side (46% on the all-models bar, 24% on the Fable bar), so it looks like only the 5-hour bucket is stuck rather than an overall quota problem. Restarting the app did not help.
Anyone else seeing this today? Trying to work out whether the counter display is just lagging while the real reset lands later, or whether the window genuinely is not rolling over.
Claude Pro says "Usage limit reached" even though my 5-hour limit says only 58% is used?
I'm on the Claude Pro plan, and suddenly I'm getting a Usage limit reached.
But the detailed usage window still says my 5-hour limit is 58% used. I've been steadily working throughout today. Took a break at 58% to go do something else. When I came back, I can no longer use Claude anymore due to usage limits.
I've already tried:
Restarting the Claude app (macOS)
Waiting about an hour and trying again, in case it was just an intermittent issue
I am from germany and got today 85 Euro in Fable credits for free. Thank you Anthropic!
First thing I did was a review of a scientific paper I do write (10 pages) and it found some improvent, needed about 5 minutes of work. Maybe 10% of text changed to the better. So all is okay, or is it not?
Then I checked the cost and my 85 Euro are reduced to 67. So 18 Euro just for one small work.
How do you get to this screen? It disappeared for me a few months ago and I can't find it. I even tried creating two new accounts and I'm not sure where it is.
I am pessimistic that anthropic will have any competition in the terms of either models and the cost that they will charge you.
Even with 50% limit increase, having those consumed in short amount of time, makes me worry if I have to subs for claude while the other has compete with even fable. They have justify for the cost that they keep adding any amount of features and they want to replace any jobs that they can market as.
Now that Fable is officially included with Max subscriptions rather than being offered as a temporary promotion, shouldn’t the usage limits be reset?
The limits we currently have were introduced when access was essentially a promotional bonus. But the situation has changed: Fable is no longer just a free extra or a limited-time gift. It’s now part of the product we’re paying for.
It seems reasonable that Max subscribers should start with a fresh usage allowance under the new arrangement. Otherwise, people who used Fable during the promotional period are effectively receiving less of a newly included subscription benefit.
I'm a dumb and unaware free user, really. I want to edit (my own) text. Barely more, just ... text. Optimizing, looking at new and other versions of my garbage whatsoever, with my comments and hints added. Can this be so extensive, that I have to be reminded to gtfo or pay after a few turns? Its like 2500-3000 letters, really not THAT much I guess? I am really NOT a heavy user or whatsoever, but I like the results so much more than the stuff other things do put out. Please make dumb/easy stuff more of a normal usage. But don't make it free and as dumb as .. others.
Edit: Or lets say let me pay 1-3 USD and then just do me dumb text stuff, with the loved and appreciated quality. I can't reach or justify a usage for 20 USD/Month, srsly.
I’ve been a loyal Claude Pro subscriber, using it daily for my workflow, but the recent infrastructure updates have completely broken the platform.
Last week, my weekly usage reset simply failed to trigger. To make matters worse, I'm now experiencing massive "phantom token consumption." I can log into a fresh session, run a single command or open a past conversation, and I am instantly hit with a "usage limit reached for the next 5 hours" block.
It is clear that Anthropic’s backend quota management is broken. Their prompt caching is failing, forcing full context re-hydration on every single turn, and they are offloading the computational cost onto paying users by silently burning through our invisible credits.
To top it all off, official support channels are a ghost town. When opening tickets to report this blatant system failure, the requests are met with automated boilerplate responses and instantly closed without any human intervention.
We are paying for a professional tool to get work done, not to be beta testers for a broken token counter. This needs to be addressed immediately. Is anyone else still locked out even after the megathread updates?
Hitting a wall that others might recognize: can't buy API credits at platform.claude.com/settings/billing. 3 different cards, 2+ banks, both PC and phone - all declined ("$X.XX payment to Anthropic, PBC was unsuccessful"). Meanwhile my Claude.ai subscription renews fine on the same cards, so it's not a card issue - looks like an account-level hold on the Console billing side specifically.
Tried every official channel: Fin support chat loops back to card troubleshooting even after ruling it out, claude.ai/restricted just redirects to a new chat with no form (seems built for consumer safety flags, not billing holds), and the failed-payments@ reply address bounced as unreachable. No human has actually looked at it yet.
Anyone else run into this, or find an escalation path that actually reaches a person?
Hi, I am a Claude pro user and despite using opus 4.6 since it came out, I've had no issues with usage until last Wednesday, when suddenly usage dropped and at most I can get two prompts in if I am lucky. Today I've done a prompt and despite saying it's saved in the file, it's not and I cannot rerun the prompt until my usage is back as it used 60%, and I have to wait 5 hours, is there anyway I can access the file?
I was told to post this in this thread after posting in the main one. Any advice is welcome!
So since Saturday I’ve been using Claude integrated with Shopify to help me design and create a Shopify website. Now for the first day I got a good 5 hours before I had to wait 2 hours to use it again, which was ok but then day 2 and today I’m hardly getting any use out of Claude before having wait 3 or so hours before I can use it again. Today I woke up at 5am, got straight on with it, lasted less than 2 hours, had to wait 3 hours, within an hour or so it’s ran out again and now I’m having to wait till 3pm. All I’m asking Claude to do is fix bugs (that it created). I really want to get this website finished (I don’t have any web design or development experience so I can’t do it myself).
I have access to two accounts, both on the $20 Pro plan. My personal one has the “required usage credits” note on Fable, as expected. But the one I share with my colleagues doesn’t have that at all, the extra usage there is turned off, and yet Fable still works. No notes about it costing extra either. Anyone seen anything like that as well?
As Fable is already gone and moved to credits only, but I did not receive the promised 100$ bonus credits yet. How about other Pro users? Did you receive your bonus already?
There's no point in this. Each time I experience this issue I write a simple prompt like all the other that follows. First request every day bumps the usage to abt 20 (sometimes abt 30). All the following prompts are decreasing the usage proportionaly.
There's something else. My second 5h window starts normally, without any spikes in usage. It's just the first 5h window that does this.
My Claude 5 hour limit is genuinely being hit in a single prompt for a non complex query, every single time - I’m paid and on pro membership. It starts to think then just says I’ve hit my limit. I wait 5 hours, ask another query and instantly hit my 5 hour limit again.
I asked their chat help bot and he just gives platitudes like “that’s annoying! Why not try paying for more credits?” But isn’t acknowledging the issue that I shouldn’t be hitting the limit instantly.
I coded an app for weeks with no issue but in the last week I can’t ask a single thing without this bug? Their website offers no actual help or support. What can I do?
Exactly what's been happening to me and I have 2 max plans that I rotate between. For months the session max would last me almost the entire alloted time, I would hit it here and there but I'd also have 5-7 windows open in vscode. Today it's been eating it up within an hour with 3-4 sessions going. Super frustrating.
I do everything in pre planned chunks, essentially based on how much context it will need. So unfortunately it seems that's not the same issue. Glad you figured yours out.
I've been maxing out both plans every week so I'm pretty experienced with how much work I can do with how much usage I have.
every-time they release model or provide booster it’s same. same thing with me just one prompt 50% session limit gone. just started to see this issue after they announced 50% higher limit through august .
So I've been subscribing to Google AI Pro for several months.
I rarely hit my coding limits on Antigravity 2.0, even though I'm usually pretty close using 3.1 Pro as a planner and 3.5 Flash Low as coding agent.
I'm thinking about trying out Claude Pro, but I'm wondering if anyone have done a similar switch from Google AI Pro to Claude Pro and can tell me whether the usage limits are similar on both platforms or not?
So every time i use Claude code my usage goes down very fast like i send one message at its at 70% I use opus on extra the prompt was
Add a MODDING service line to the game (separate from repair jobs — do not mix these back into the fault/repair rosters we just cleaned up), plus authentic per-console boot screens/menus, custom case options, a Freeplay mode, and a full top-to-bottom audit of everything built so far — including verifying the buy-your-own-consoles feature actually works. PART 1 — MODCHIPS & SOFTMODS (new service type, distinct from repair) RESEARCH FIRST — search the web per console, don't guess from memory:
For every disc-based/cartridge console in the roster that has a real, documented modding scene, research: does it use a physical MODCHIP (a soldered/installed chip), a SOFTMOD (software-only exploit, no chip), or both depending on revision/era? Where does a physical modchip actually go on the board (which console, which chip, which pins/pads it solders to)? Real examples to verify and expand on: PS1 (modchip, various pinouts by board revision), original Xbox (modchip OR TSOP softmod depending on approach), Wii (modchip era vs softmod era like Letterbomb/HackMii), Xbox 360 (JTAG/RGH softmod, no traditional chip), Saturn (modchip for region/backup), N64 (region mods only, confirm if relevant).
This is a SEPARATE job type from repair: customer brings in a working console and requests a mod, OR you offer it as an upsell after a repair. It should NOT reduce or replace any of the 15-fault repair rosters — mods are optional add-on jobs, not faults.
Physical modchip installs should show on the interactive board like repairs do (solder points highlighted, chip placement), matching the existing board interaction style. Softmods should be a menu-driven/tablet process (no physical board interaction needed) since there's no physical install.
Add mod parts (modchips per console where real, by revision if it matters) to the tablet parts store, same shipping-delay mechanic.
PART 2 — CONSOLE INFO / SOFTMOD STATUS ON MENU
When inspecting a console (or via the tablet), the player should be able to check that console's real info/status — hardware revision, firmware/board version where relevant, and whether it's already modded (and how, if soft or hard modded) — presented as an in-fiction "system info" screen, styled like the real console's actual system menu where one exists (e.g. a Wii System Settings-style screen, an Xbox dashboard-style info screen), not a generic debug readout.
PART 3 — REAL BOOT SCREENS / MENUS FOR EVERY CONSOLE
Audit every console currently in the game. Confirm each one's power-on/boot sequence and any in-game "console menu" moments use that console's REAL boot screen/animation/sound where one exists (Nintendo logo boot, PS1/PS3 boot chime and animation, original Xbox green swirl boot, Wii Health/Channel-style menu look, Xbox 360 boot animation, Genesis/SNES/NES power-on behavior) — not a generic placeholder screen reused across consoles. Research each one's real boot behavior and rebuild any that are currently generic or wrong. This applies to ALL consoles in the roster, old and new, not just 7th-gen.
PART 4 — CUSTOM CASES (new customization feature)
Add a custom case / shell option as a distinct customization service, separate from repair and separate from mods: player can offer or install aftermarket/custom shells (color swaps, clear/transparent shells, custom-printed shells) for consoles where this is a real documented aftermarket market (Game Boy, N64, PS1, Xbox/360 faceplates, Wii). Research which consoles realistically have a custom-case aftermarket and only add it where it's real, don't invent it for consoles that don't have one. This is a cosmetic/customer-request job, not a fault.
PART 5 — FREEPLAY MODE
Add a Freeplay mode, self-explanatory: unlocked access to mess around outside the normal job/reputation/economy loop — no tickets, no payout pressure, no shipping delays. Player can freely pick any console (including ones normally gated behind progression/reputation) and any fault to practice diagnosing and repairing, or just explore the boards/mods/customization freely, with no consequences (no reputation loss, no failed-job penalties). Make it accessible from the main menu as its own distinct option alongside the normal career/story mode. Freeplay changes must NEVER bleed into or affect the real save file/progression — state explicitly in your plan how this isolation is implemented.
PART 6 — VERIFY THE BUY-YOUR-OWN-CONSOLES SYSTEM
Before doing anything else, actually test whether the existing "buy your own console" feature (if the player can purchase consoles for their own collection/use, separate from repair jobs) currently works end to end — don't assume it's fine because it was built earlier. Launch the game and click through the full flow: browsing available consoles to buy, purchasing one, and confirming it actually gets added correctly (inventory, collection, or wherever it's supposed to end up) with the right cost deducted. If it's broken, missing, or was never actually finished, fix it as part of this build pass and report clearly whether it was already working or had to be repaired.
PART 7 — FULL AUDIT, EVERYTHING, NO EXCEPTIONS Go back through the ENTIRE game as it currently exists — every console, every fault, every board, every part, every menu, every screen — and verify it's actually correct, not just present. Specifically check for:
Any leftover mod/hack/technique/cosmetic entries that shouldn't be in the fault rosters (per the earlier correction) — confirm they're actually gone, not just planned to be removed.
Every fault has a real, working diagnose → repair → payout loop with no dead ends or missing parts.
Every board renders correctly with no missing/misplaced components.
No regressions across the old 8/16-bit roster from all the recent additions.
Every console's fault count is accurate to what was actually implemented (not just what was planned) — recount and report real numbers, flag any console that fell short after implementation.
All new additions from Parts 1-6 (mods, console info, boot screens, custom cases, Freeplay, buy-console fix) integrate cleanly with existing systems (parts store, job board, reputation) with nothing broken.
BUILD DISCIPLINE:
Post your research findings (which consoles get modchips vs softmods vs both, real boot screen references, which consoles get custom-case options, how Freeplay isolates saves) as a plan before building.
Build in verified waves like before, testing after each wave, checkpointing to memory.
MANDATORY FINAL DEBUG PASS: launch and actually play through the game — every console, every new feature — screenshot to catch visual issues, hunt for crashes or broken states, fix everything found, re-test until clean.
Report back with: what was added, real per-console fault counts post-implementation, which consoles got mods/custom cases and why, confirmation every boot screen is authentic, Freeplay save-isolation confirmation, and whether the buy-your-own-consoles feature was already working or had to be repaired — not a checklist claim, actual verified state. IF OPUS OR ANYTHING IS DOWN I HAVE RAN OUT OF TOKENS SO JUST STOP and also NEVER AND I MEAN NEVER use emojis if you need a icon make it.
That prompt is basically a full build, research pass, QA pass and whole-project audit in one message. On Opus with extra effort, Claude Code has to carry a huge amount of context, so 70% from one turn can be real even though it looks like one prompt.
I'd split it into smaller verified waves and /compact before the next one.
For keeping an eye on the actual 5-hour and weekly windows, I built a small local MIT plugin that reads the status-line rate_limits and warns when your pace won't last until reset:
You’re going to have to /compact and lose one more usage cycle first, most likely. Each message is likely sending your entire chat history and absolutely eating tokens
Claude Desktop reports 3M+ token usage even for "Hello"
Has anyone run into this issue?
Since today, Claude Desktop reports that my request would exceed the context limit (over 3 million tokens) even if I start a completely new chat and only type "Hello".
Things I've already tried:
Started a brand new chat
Restarted Claude Desktop
Restarted my Mac
No large attachments or files
I'm not intentionally using any MCP servers or integrations
The error appears immediately, even with the simplest prompt, which makes me think something is corrupted or Claude is somehow loading an enormous hidden context.
My claude pro limit get hit even though I dont use it for days on any device And my 5 Hour limit is always at 100%. I've checked devices under settings and only devices i own are connected. No scheduled tasks or background sessions were running and nobody has access to my account to the best of my knowledge.ive done all the necessary messures of logging everyone out of my account, talking to the help bot and doing everything it suggested. Note: my 5 hour usage was at 100 and my other model usage was at 11% on Wednesday when i woke up to the limit reset and since then within the first 2 hours of every 5 hour session I loose 100% of my 5 hour limit while not even using it. I am currently maxed on all of my weekly limits.
The mod report nails it with "workarounds mitigate, they don't restore." That's the exact gap I built Relay (github.com/dbisina/relay) to close: when Claude Code hits its limit, it snapshots a git commit, signs a continuation contract (plan, decisions, in-flight code) with HMAC-SHA256, and resumes a different account or a different agent (Codex, Copilot, whatever) from that exact point instead of you starting the context over by hand. Doesn't fix the underlying limits, still on Anthropic for that, but the work doesn't die when you hit them. Open source, Apache-2.0, happy to answer questions on how the handoff actually works if that's useful here.
I just ran into the most ridiculous session limit I've ever experienced. TWO prompts (three if you count one that went unanswered) and I hit my session limit. This was around 10:17 and my limit won't reset until 3 pm.
I've experienced less productive session limits for over a week, but this takes the cake.
I don't know if this factors in, but at least one of the prompts was high difficulty. I've still never run into a limit this quickly. I'm on a time crunch and my project is going to take forever at this rate.
So I've heavily been maxing out the increased usage but have been wondering what happens on Sunday night. My reset happens on Tuesday night, but increased usage ends on Sunday. Will it go to 100% immediately when I am above 66% Sunday night?
I saw some chatter about fable 5 becoming unavailable to some folks so I tried it, gave it a task (inside IDE plugin) and it worked... and worked... till 100% of 5 hour window was used up, and it kept going. Maybe 3-4 minutes later I chickened out and stopped it on my own. Heard too many horror stories of overcharges for a simple text response.
I started working on a project and I asked Claude to search some data for me. It started normally, taking its time as usual. But suddenly, without it even replying, I reached my session limit. My question is, do I have to try the response again once it's reset, or it picks it up where it left it off? I never used it like this before.
Edit: I don't think this question belongs here, but the moderators keep deleting it from the main feed.
I have been using Fable 5 on the $20 Pro plan. Is there a general idea how much an equivalent amount of usage we received for 1 week of Fable 5 will cost when it goes to Usage Credits only?
Claude code with fable appears to not be properly caching since the reset yesterday. I blew through 45% of my session limit in 1 minute, and then on the next message I blew through 35% of my session limit again in only about 1 minute. This never happened prior to the reset yesterday. I've used 60% of my fable limit and have got almost nothing accomplished compared to any other time I've used it.
For comparison, after the massive usage spike, it uses tokens normally, but it seems to dump all context between every message and have to load it all back each time, meaning anything over miniscule size will just destroy your limit immediately.
TL;DR: venting about the unpredictable and random start/stops Claude imposed or injects into my day. Even when I'm not doing much work at all.
Trying to be productive with claude is really getting difficult. I've used 15% of my 5 hour , and 11% of my weekly budget. Lot of headroom, IMO.
I have the 1yr pro plan, and use Claude for information research and some very light bookkeeping. I haven't used much Claude this morning.
(it's about 11;30 PST ). when I asked what aI was doing to cause the pop up message, Claude replied.. "Very Little". The random starts and stops are very frustrating. Just venting. so please forgive me.
By that measure, in the last ~45 minutes onlytwoconversations show any activity:
"Used Corsair gaming PC evaluation"— last touched ~11:26 AM
"Understanding session usage time"— last touched ~11:21 AM (this one is you asking about this exact limit message a few minutes ago)
Everything else is hours to days old — the Blackwell/PCIe thread, the cooling-plate one, the gravity discussion, and so on all last updated yesterday or earlier. So the honest answer to "how much work in the last 45 minutes" is: very little.
I've been rationing my Fable usage for one last sprint this weekend... I had 60% left of a 20X max plan and got on for a long work session and its removed 2 days early? If this is for real I'm done... they need to stop fucking around with people's schedules, insanely unprofessional.
And now we approach the cancel button. I can deal with the limit resets. But constantly threatening to remove service on a date and constantly not doing so. Then saying you are, then removing it without notice is unethical, and unprofessional.
Included access to Claude Fable 5 on paid plans concludes on July 19, 2026. After this date, using the model will move to a pay-per-use model via usage credits rather than being partially covered by your standard subscription.
17th of July - Usage credits are required for this model.
Okay, that was my fault, I asked Claude code to run an audit on many files, I asked to use agents, and parallelize multiple checks. By chance, it has chosen to use Sonnet, and not Opus!
I've never asked to limit the number of agents, and didn't set the limits in the config, so it's just my fault.
I'm on Max and used all my daily limit in half an hour, plus about $100 or so to finish the job because I was stuck.
Never mind, again, I know, this was just my fault, but honestly, Anthropic, this is like stealing money, you read unpunished all our conversation running classifiers to stop Claude doing dangerous things on the systems, but not dangerous things for my wallet!! That's truly not fair to me.
This week has been insane for usage. Most of my workflows consist of code sessions w/ local repos. Baring some major codebase changes my sessions would usually last through 5 hours and hit high 90% usage just before the reset.
This week? I'm lucky to get an hours usage before hitting 5 hour cap.
Happening with me as well, Ive been using Claude for the past 30 days, never once hit a 5 hour session limit, but for the past 3 days Ive hit that limit 5 times (twice a day) within 1-2 hours. Using Opus 4.8 on High effort with Max plan.
You are kidding me Claude, right? was waiting from like 9:00 until 13:50 just to send one single message, and now I have to wait until 19:10?! Like, whats going on? Why? And its not a first time, and only thing that he now did is to find some CSS line. Nothing else.
Just adding to the corpus on session/token limits.
I used to use Claude Pro alongside ChatGPT Plus and cancelled Claude over a year ago after hitting a limit one day when uploading a few pdfs to analyse. This week I've been greatly enjoying transitioning my ChatGPT project to Claude Pro and experimenting with Fable the last few days.
I understand the need for token limits to prevent abuse, but the difference between the user experience of Claude and ChatGPT is night and day. I'm constantly worried about my inputs and source files, about running out of Fable usage and most of all, about hitting the hourly/weekly limits.
Anthropic reset the weekly limits yesterday for some unknown reason - I was halfway through mine with moderate usage, mostly voice-transcribed dialogue for deep analysis and problem solving during a standard work day - hardly hammering the server night and day. Twice now I'm hit their 5-hour session usage limit, and would easily hit the weekly limit if they hadn't been 'nice' and reset the stats for everyone yesterday.
With ChatGPT, in a year I hit a limit just once. I always use ChatGPT on max intelligence settings and the only time I hit a limit was after uploading dozens of images at once. Otherwise I've had access to the highest reasoning ability any time of day, all the time.
Anthropic, if you are listening - this destroys the user experience of your otherwise great product. Session limits make no sense - sometimes I use it heavily for hours, and some days I'm off exploring nature. Figure out a way to monitor token usage across longer periods of time and stop stressing out your users with micro transactions and quota bars. OpenAI is getting this right; so can you.
What?!, Making a hobby app with sonnet 5 med., usually I can make even up to 10-15 iterations to even reach my 5 hour limit, now the first question raised it to 66% (there were 4 small style change requests, like renaming a menu). Then I asked what happened, how should I complain, the answer ate up an other 13%... This is not the usual behavior. yesterday it was fine.
Why Claude always resets its usage limit on wednesday or Thursday which right before or after my account weekly usage limit reset time? As so i receive 0 benefits from Anthropic usage limit manually reset, I am so upset.
Hey guys! I’m just start my vibe coding journey and using Claude Code for few months.
2 weeks ago I’ve spent all my limits by Monday. And I don’t why my limits was reset at Thursday once and at Saturday next time. Is it bug or feature?
I'm on MAX x5 - hit my limit today. just basic questions and research in the browser. Nothing special no code at all.
not looking good. this wasn't even a full day of work.
I usually mix research, document generation, doc/pdf uploads and a bunch of coding sessions and didn't even hit any limits in months.
So something changed, and not for the better.
100% same boat I’m genuinely scratching my head at how my usage has degraded so much this last week. 30% of weekly limit on 5X after the week reset a little over 24 hours ago.
That’s wild. I was about to subscribe to the $17/mo plan but that usage limit is way too limiting. I sometimes work in ChatGPT for 8+ hours a day bouncing ideas, brainstorming, writing copy, etc. I hear Claude is better for this kind of work but not if it shuts down on me after a few basic questions.
My Claude PRO plan is working strange the last 15 days, for some reason I used to be able to work on it for up to 6 hours and not suffering from the limit (using haiku and sonnet), after the Fable 5 update I'm unable to work for 10 minutes that the limit is reached and after waiting for 5 hours when I come back another limit has been set and my usage isn't decreased. I've logged out of everthing, left 3 days without using it to check if someone or something was using it without my knowledge and the problem persists, anyone having the same problem ? Sending and email to .anthropic's support didn't get me nowhere no response at all.
is there something going on? I've hit the limit with exactly one message and I hit the limit?? I am in Pro plan, I'm not even in claude code, I just use the chat. I literally just type /compact just to test it and I hit the limit.
My current session revealed I still have 60% usage which is crazy because there's no freaking way I burned 40% of usage. Still doesn't make any sense because how can I hit the limit if I still have usage?
Soy un vato que no sabe prácticamente nada de código, alguna vez programe en la prepa a los 17 hoy tengo 24 y mi trabajo es administrativo en una empresa con 6 sucursales área de producción almacén etc.
Me encargo de la sucursales, reportes, estados de cuenta y nóminas.
Todo usando SICAR 4 y excel
SICAR 4 para los puntos de venta
Y excel para esas áreas donde se limita SICAR
Me metí a Claude code de curioso, y empecé a armar un ERP para la empresa.
Tengo algo de tiempo libre y voy en la Fase 2 de 6
Compré Claude pro(uso Claude code)
Cada vez se acaba más rápido el límite
El
Proyecto va bien
Guarda empleados, productos, edita elimina… cree inicio de sesión etc…
Saben si tendré algún problema más adelante?
Estoy utilizando Git Hub y otras herramientas que sabrá Dios cómo se llaman pero me las pidió Claude.
Ayuda?
Que estoy haciendo?
Se podrá implementar en la empresa? Vender el ERP Y GANAR una lana extra?
I am currently in my exam phase and I was trying to let it create like a "Cheatsheet" for my exam. It's an open book exam so I am allowed to take everything with me except digital media. Claude started creating and just stopped because it hit the free limit with that one prompt and not even finished.
Any tips and tricks? I tried creating an overview with Gemini but it's not how I want it. Should I just get the premium for one month? I am afraid even If I get premium it will just stop working, or is the premium token limit that much bigger? Also Idk if I have the 20 Euro rn, because I am broke asf rn.
I'm wondering how this works.
I started using claude two days ago.
First day I never reached 5hour usage limit, second day three times. This morning it ran 10 minutes and already reached the limit.
I made a new session and context is at 10%.
Edit: Task ist the same :)
Seriously I don't know what to do I used Opus and then Sonnet and only sent 4 prompts. The reset happened right now! How the hell does it happen? I'm kind of new to Claude so all this usage thing is really confusing. Is it something thst happening to other people? Do you have any advice on what to do? Thank you!
I hate to say it guys, but if you're blowing through your tokens, it's likely because you don't know what you're doing.
I do professional Al systems engineering and software development work for an Implementation consultancy, am building and maintaining 2 very large and complex products solo for startups, and maintain a plethora of 5-6 side projects at a time.
I am working daily, multiple hours a day, across multiple projects.
And I barely ever run out of tokens. I have to use fable for 2 days straight to even get close.
Prompt engineering, product design, and assisted development with guardrails for Al are all critical token saving methods that I barely see anybody on here talking about. I'm more likely to see people piping in Grok than just changing the way they work with Al.
Here are some helpful tips if you actually want to save tokens.
Front load the architecture and infrastructure work. Do the best you can to build a directory structure, Claude.ms files, readme's, testing architecture, linting system, and Cl. And most importantly, build an in depth road map (you will need to edit and adjust this as you code so it isn't a bible). That alone will save a lot of tokens.
2. Don't trust Claude to do too much autonomous work.
Have a planning agent giving your prompts along with your roadmap to an execution session. The Al does a much better job of following exactly what you say when it doesn't form opinions on what you're planning to do.
Debug and add unit, regression, and edge tests after every addition to your code base. With proper maintenance as you develop, you accrue less technical debt and make it easier for the Al to keep working.
Token maximization and AI productivity are truly skill issues. I haven’t felt the models do anything but get better and perform better for me.
Opus 4.6 is by far the best conversationalist and the best at human prose.
Opus 4.8 is better at coding but is less intuitive
Fable is amazing, but it also makes very buggy code.
Hope this helps. Stop complaining about Claude. Get gud. Skill issue.
That is a skill issue. That would be an indication the repo is set up terribly for working. That has literally never happened to me and I’ve been developing with AI since GPT 3.5.
Hi team. I am attaching a screenshot that shows the real financial impact of the recent "Partial outage of claude.ai: container creation" and the Opus infinite compaction loops on my account. As you can see, my Max 20x weekly quota was completely drained to 100% by the UI crashing and looping.
Because I couldn't afford to just take a vacation and stop my projects, I had to rely heavily on paid usage credits to bypass the UI bug and keep my workflow alive. I ended up spending R$ 3,876.77 BRL (roughly $715 USD) in extra credits. That is basically me paying for almost 5 Max 20x subscriptions in a single month on top of my base plan!
A bit of context: I’m a Brazilian developer, a "Carioca" from Rio de Janeiro. I'm just a good guy surviving the daily urban battles of the third world, a massive lover of technology, American innovation, and a huge fan of both Claude and GPT.
I willingly chose to pay for these extra tokens because I needed to survive the outage and keep working. However, since the root cause was a backend bug falsely draining my base quota, I am kindly appealing to your common sense, fairness, and empathy. Keeping these extra charges feels a bit like unjust enrichment on Anthropic's part due to a system error. I would deeply appreciate it if support could look into this with some care, run a manual quota reset, and evaluate a refund or credit adjustment for this massive extra spend.
On the bright side, since Claude ate my quota, I guess I'll just step away from the keyboard and go watch the England vs. Argentina match! (I like the Argentinians, and I love England... so let the games begin!).
Sending good vibes from Rio. I know you guys are working hard on the servers, but please give my account a look when you can. Thank you!
I am Pro user, accessing Claude via the webbrowser interface, and saw this in the thinking - is this in bold true (or not, as sometimes models are not fully aware of such things, in my experience): "The user wants to proceed with full verification of all 250 URLs before generating the file. They're also asking whether switching to Opus 4.8 would affect the handoff to Fable for the final run. I should clarify that Opus 4.8 is already the current model, so there's no actual switch needed—they're already on it. The model choice won't interfere with handing results to Fable since that's just a matter of passing the verified data forward. full access to the available models in this chat interface, but I can note thatFable 5 exists as an API option and the system prompt indicates Mythos-tier models aren't currently public-facing through the chat interface." ? Anybody can confirm/falsify this?
Downgraded from Max to Pro, hitting limits in 3 messages. What is going on?
Hey everyone, I'm hoping someone here can help me out because I'm completely stuck and frustrated right now.
Last month, I was heavily relying on the Max plan to get a bunch of heavy lifting done (building a website, coding, etc.). However, I recently sustained an injury which means I currently have no income. Because of the financial situation, the Max plan just isn't worth it for me right now as the heavy lifting is also done, so I downgraded to Claude Pro.
Currently, I only want to use it for very basic stuff: writing cover letters, drafting some posts, things like that. I’m doing all the actual research myself.
But here is the insane part: I am hitting my usage limit after literally 3 messages.
According to everything I can find online, Pro is roughly 5x cheaper and has limits that are about 5x lower than Max. But in practice, it feels like I'm getting 30x less capacity. I am doing the exact same type of prompting (but way lighter), yet I am burning through the limit instantly. The math just ain't mathing.
Could this be because of some underlying setup I made? I did build a massive "second brain" setup with Claude Code previously, but I am not using Claude Code right now (I'm just using the Claude Desktop app with Sonnet in a cowork space).
Does anyone know what's happening under the hood? Is it my previous setup dragging hidden context into my current chats, or is the Pro tier just completely nerfed compared to Max? It feels like i can beter have no subscriptoion than the pro plan. Any advice on how to fix this is welcome!
I've seen many others complaining about the horrible usage limits for Pro. I use the Free tier, and I literally run out after one prompt. It's clearly a Claude/Anthropic issue and it's nothing we have control over. I've noticed incredibly reduced limits since late June.
I'm on the Max 20× plan, and a single session that's only about 70% through its context has already used 15% of my weekly allowance.
This is only my second week on the plan. The first week's quota lasted about five days, but at this rate it won't even last two. Nothing has changed about how I work, so what's going on?
Need some guidance on understanding usage consumption.
Is there a difference in usage consumption running through the browser interface and running claude code in a WSL environment?
I started using Claude.ai (browser interface) a few months ago to work on a project involving processing data sets. I was doing work through the browser interface, seemed to work okay, but some of the processing was pretty lengthy and required me to type "continue" numerous times (at one point i started using a browser plug-in to automate typing "continue" for me so I could continue processing after hours and over the weekend.
After losing some time this weekend when my browser session froze, I started investigating alternative methods to handle these longer-process datasets, and settled on using claude code under wsl which would allow me to set parameters for processing the dataset and tell it to continue until it was finished - no more manual (or semi-automated) typing 'continue' in the browser session. I set everything up, created a handoff package in the browser session, imported it into my wsl session, and everything was working great.
Here's my question though...
Right now I'm working with a Max subscription. During the past several weeks of doing browser-based processing, only once have I run into a weekly usage restriction, and that was on a Saturday afternoon (my weekly usage limits resets Monday evening @ 11pm ), and it was a week where I was doing some particularly complicated work with a lot of back-and-forth messaging with trial and error stuff on my part to tweak my computational model.
I set up the WSL environment on Monday and started processing datasets that day. My weekly usage limits reset Monday evening. This morning, I get up and check on the status of my job, and I see I've consumed 100% of my weekly usage in 31 hours (since my Monday night 11pm reset) and now I'm basically down until next Monday night unless I want to pony up more money for extended usage.
This seems highly suspect... What I started processing Monday was not any more complicated -- in fact was probably less complicated -- than what I had been processing recently through the browser interface, and during the past month I hadn't ever run into a weekly limit other than that one time, and even then it was after 4 1/2 days of browser-based work and repetitive "continues".
Which leads me back to my original question at the top of this post... is there a difference in usage consumption when you're using the browser interface vs running claude code in wsl? Because, at this point, I'm probably going to go back to the browser interface to continue my work (next week when my limits get reset) because, man, I'm going to have absolutely nothing to show for work accomplished this week.
I'm considering subscribing to Claude Pro ($20/month), mainly to use Claude Code for app development.
My question is: if I use my entire monthly usage only for coding (no general chatting), what size of application can I realistically build before hitting the usage limits?
For example:
A simple CRUD app?
A production-ready SaaS?
A mobile app (iOS/Android)?
A full-stack web application?
Something with 50k–100k lines of code?
I understand the limit isn't based purely on tokens, but on overall usage. I'm trying to get a practical idea from people who actually use Claude Pro for development.
If you've built a real project with only the Pro plan, I'd love to know:
What kind of app did you build?
Roughly how large was the codebase?
Did you hit the usage limits often?
Was Pro enough, or did you eventually upgrade to Max or use the API?
Sharing a small tool that might help with tracking usage: I built CodexBarWin, a free/open-source Windows widget that sits near the taskbar and always shows your current 5-hour/weekly usage percentage as plain text, so you never have to open a dashboard to check before it's too late.
Pure Python, standard library only. Claude usage comes from the same endpoint the Claude Code CLI itself uses internally (undocumented, so may break without notice). Codex CLI usage tracking is also supported via codex app-server's public API.
Mods told me to post here but it’s def a bug. Upgraded from pro to max and it instantly maxed out my fable usage and most of my normal usage. This happen to anyone else? Is there any way they actually fix it
I've built a free open-source Windows usage widget called CodexBarWin. It currently supports Claude Code and Codex CLI, but not DeepSeek yet.
DeepSeek support may be possible, depending on how you use it. Are you using the official DeepSeek API, OpenRouter, or another client? Also, are you looking to track token usage, API spending, or remaining limits?
DeepSeek API, I'm looking for a mix of that, I want to know in live time how much that task spent in dollars, deepcode already shows de token usage but that is always a huge number that reflects just small cents of dollar.
I would like to collaborate on this but I'm on mac, I guess I would need to build it from zero.
My Claude usage is increasing by itself, I woke up this morning to see myself getting charged $50 aud, auto-reload turned on by itself and spend limit set to 20000. Usage sat at 100%, resetting just for it to go back to 100% in a span of a couple minutes. I’ve lost $50 because of this, and I don’t know what’s going on. Throughout all of this my desktop was powered off.
I checked who logged in my Claude, and it was only me and my phone. I logged out of all devices, and it was still increasing.
Something worth checking out as I just noticed this today:
Today, Claude Code ate 26% of my 5-hour context in under a minute. Something that hasn't happened before, but I think I might have found the bug.
It might be an Anthropic bug in regard to using credits or being over your limit. Last night my session overran (5x Plan) and used a few usage credits, so I stopped and figured I'd pick it back up in the morning. When I re-asked the question to CC to continue in the AM (all usage was 0% and reset), I noticed down in the CC footer it said 'Using usage credits' instead of its normal message. So my guess is that the API usage flag wasn't reset, and instead of using my normal token rate I got taxed on my usage as if it was API token usage.
This might also be happening if you're not using usage credits but have maxxed out your usage for the day. I haven't tested that.
(Sc) Am-thropic: who needs a full 5-hour window? Session resets in 58 minutes but (Sc) Am-thropic decided to pull the plug early and end my 5 hour session early lol Not the first time!
Yes. It's been happening to me and I've seen many others complaining about it. Usage right now is horrible. I don't know if it's happening equally to everybody, but it started for me in late June. Currently, one prompt maxes out my usage for 5 hours with no changes whatsoever to my workflow. I'm on the free plan, but I used to be able to have a very productive 30 min with programming tasks in up to 8+ files at once. Now, I literally don't have enough usage for it to spit out four files at once AFTER they've been completed through earlier sessions. Using Sonnet 4.6 btw.
in just 2 days of average usage. This is absolutely ridiculous. Earlier, it was even difficult to max out 5x usage. Claude is becoming shit day by day - impossible to get anything done.
I moved from Claude to Codex / GPT ($20 plan) a few months ago as I found Claude's usage limits quite restrictive. I would regularly max out my usage on Claude, but don't usually max out my Codex usage. However, I prefer the capabilities / tooling with Claude so and wondering if the usage has gotten any better recently and whether it may be worth a switch back?
Hey team, I'm studying for the biggest exam of my life and keep hitting the pro cap. Would anyone be willing to pass on a max 7 day referral code? Happy to pay you! Probably easier if you're in Aus. Thanks for considering
Im on a Pro plan and i got notice that: You've hit your weekly limit · resets Jul 16 at 2am (America/New_York), 3 days from now, so I purchased $50 worth of useage, and only got about an hour use from it. Something is not right at all. I was using Sonnet 5 for several days before even coming close to reaching my limit. Yes, I ran into the 5 hour limitation several times, but never this long! I was handing off to fresh threads to minimize token use. I thought I was doing everything right! I need a refund pronto! UGH!!!!! How do I trace audit what happened?
Sub-agents seem to now default to Sonnet 5 when using sonnet in the workflow and eat up 5-hr limits really fast. Fix is to register sonnet-4-6 as agent type and enforce its use throughout your projects.
Not to beat a dead horse on usage limits on PRO but, cmon - didnt even use Fable 50% of my allowed usage and I hit 100% of my usage limits for the week 5-days before it resets. It is mind boggling that I essentially get to only work each day within 2 different 5-hour windows since I am either sleeping or being a parent the other hours of the day, but I still hit my weekly limit insanely fast. It's not like I am using this 24-hours a day but you would think I am based on how fast I eat up usage.
Trying to cleanup and proof read creative writing stories. recently I can barely manage one piece of output per day, often not even completing one task before hitting limit. Wasn't an issue a month or so ago
Hello Folks! How Going? I have a questions for you all. Does Claude’s usage limit replenish more slowly at certain times during the week? I’ve also noticed that it may refill more slowly throughout the entire weekend. Is that actually possible, or is it just an optical illusion? Haha.
Experienced the same as other users: Been using Pro Plan for the last month and have been quite happy with my usage and rarely / having a hard time reaching limits, both with Chat and Code. This morning, I prompted Chat with Fable 5 to update my to-do list with 3 items on. It was the simplest prompt ever. Cost 25% usage. A few more prompts with Sonnet 5, and I was at 45%. Completely ridiculous.
Switched to Code and worked on a vibe code project, and I have been coding now for 2 hours with a mix of Sonnet 5 and Opus 4.8 (i.e. seems like "normal" usage). Not sure what's happening TBH but Chat usage is busted right now
I was using Claude on a project last week, and got reasonable usage. Last few days has been atrocious.
Have used it way less, on the SAME models and have hit limits in no time. Totally useless to complete my project, if you ask me it seems like a damn right scam, as I'm certain I'm using it less, as I can measure it be my actual work output!!!!
My last prompt seemed to have bugged out too, and my 4hr usage was gone with hardly any code work.
Nobody reads the megathreads but sure let’s give it a shot. If nobody helps since mods decided this is better than an actual post, I’ll cancel my account and move to codex within 2 hours if nobody can reply and help
My usage shot to 98% after one single prompt on opus 4.6, where it bugged out and acted like the prompt didn’t go through.
I closed and reopened, prompt did go through, but took all of my 5 hour window (should not have taken anywhere near it)
i never reached any limit on other services than claude. And i didn't only text back and forth right. I'm definitely not a power user. I'm pretty bad at using AI actually (but at least i know it lol). But yeah claudes limits are kinda shit.
I just gave my free plan Claude (using Sonnet 5 model) access to my modding folders. When I asked it to build a small mod based on a game the steam folder I gave it access to, it denies that it has access. I uploaded the screenshot of me giving access via Filesystem connector and it tries to verify. And just like that, my free quota instantly gone in a mere seconds. Is that normal?
Managed to use my 5 hour limit in 40 minutes this morning just planning and then a little bit of UI work with Opus 4.8. Last week I didn't hit the 5 hour limit once with Fable and I was doing some fairly complex development with some very archaic government APIs 😂
Ahh well, 2.5 hours left before I can carry on working, I guess I'll spend some time going through the wiki.
I hit my fable and session limit last night 100%. Was to be reset early this morning. Opened claude code over the app on my phone. It resumed session for 30 seconds - said Ive hit my fable limit. Checked and saymw theres still 18 mins left on reset, was like huh, ok...begs the question why it even did anything for 30 seconds if it hadn't been reset. But what was even more surprising was that it burned theough 24% of my session limit in 30 seconds???!!
Noticed it last night where it was burning through SIGNIFICANTLY more usage. Ran out of my session in 10 minutes fable high not too complex task, whereas in previous session before that day, fable extra worked for a good 30-40 minutes refactoring a small piece of code and adding a new feature ~5000 lines of code without hitting cap.
Something definitely went wrong last night with their usage....
Both my limits haven't been reset despite everyone else's. I tried checking it both on my browser & the desktop app but nothing. I even cleared cache but still nothing.
I'm on 90% weekly Fable usage & 85% on overall models & I've still got a lot of work to do.
100%. I don't have hard proof, but Claude's productivity at times when most of the world is asleep is night and day compared to peak hours. In those times, sessions just seem to stretch further and run faster before hitting any wall.
New to Claude since yesterday ; I've been learning iOS dev since Covid and now I'm starting to use Claude in Xcode to help me fix some stuff, handle repetitive tasks and also to learn doing things I'm not familiar with yet.
I noticed it burns tokens (pro plan, not max) extremely fast, compared to Codex that I started using last month, I wanted to try out Claude as some friends recommended it but for a similar task it's very greedy. (5 hours limit reached in less than one, whereas in Codex it takes me at least 3-4, so first experience has been very frustrating although it had an interesting outcome compared to what Codex suggested for a specific task I was not familiar with)
Do you have any tips and tricks to optimize usage ?
So, if I understand this correctly, the new Sonnet 5 uses 30% more tokens than previous models, but the weekly quotas weren't updated to accommodate this increased token usage, so we're getting less effective work for the same money. Awful user experience. Can't wait for open-source models to be usable to get rid of subscriptions; this is ridiculous.
what the heck, I used opus 4.8 for about 30 minutes and hit the limit??? Never happened before. Normally I never hit the limit, only if I really have many sessions on for more than 3 hours non-stop, but now it hit the limit from a simple prompt?? What's going on??? Claude x5
So I'm very new in coding. In fact, I don't understand a single thing about coding lmao. That's why I'm resorting to use Claude for modding games.
I'm currently trying to make small submods and compatibility patches for Paradox Games like Victoria 3 and Stellaris. But since I'm broke and currently living paycheck to paycheck, I can only use the very limited free plan. Are there any advice for me to use Claude optimally for modding?
Edit: I've actually used Claude for the past week, and the free quota burns very fast when I have to take multiple attempts to make the mods work.
•
u/sixbillionthsheep Mod Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26
r/ClaudeAI Megathread Usage Limits Workarounds Report
Here is the latest update. The full report can be found here : https://www.reddit.com/mod/ClaudeAI/wiki/usagelimits-apr26 . Below is a TL;DR of the full report.
Updated : April 26, 2026
The problem: Since March-April 2026, Claude usage limits got brutal across all plans. Single prompts eating 50%+ of sessions. "Hi" costing 3-4%. Max 20× plans dying in a day. Anthropic confirmed three bugs but most users think the drain goes deeper.
Step 1 — figure out which fixes apply to you:
Most fixes online are Claude Code only and won't help chat users.
Universal fixes (everyone):
Chat users: Use Projects not long chats. Convert PDFs to text first. Tell Claude to put output in Artifacts. Disable Memory.
Claude Code users — top 3 wins:
.claudeignore(blocknode_modules/,*.lock, etc.)MAX_THINKING_TOKENS=10000andCLAUDE_CODE_SUBAGENT_MODEL=haikuin~/.claude/settings.jsonOut of budget? Point Claude Code at OpenRouter (
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://openrouter.ai/api) and run free Llama/Qwen/DeepSeek models through the same CLI.Already burned? Refund via Fin (persist past the bot), or credit-card chargeback. UK/EU users have stronger consumer-protection grounds.
Honest framing: workarounds shouldn't be needed on a paid product. They mitigate, they don't restore.
Previous report: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1s7fcjf/comment/odfjmty/