Claude's $200 Plan Removes '5-Hour Limit'...All-Nighters of Coding Now Allowed

AI company Anthropic has removed the '5-hour usage limit' on Claude's top-tier $200-per-month plan. All-night coding is now possible without worrying about sessions being cut off. With OpenAI doubling usage limits across all paid plans just a day earlier, assessments suggest a 'rate relaxation competition' in AI subscription services has begun.

Anthropic announced the plan restructuring through its official account on the 30th (local time) of last month. The $100-per-month 'Pro 5x' plan was renamed to 'Pro,' and the $200-per-month 'Pro 20x' plan was renamed to 'Ultra,' with prices remaining the same. The key change is in the Ultra tier. Previously, all plans had a 'rolling limit' where sessions would lock after 5 hours of usage, but this limit is removed for verified Ultra accounts. Verification is processed automatically based on account and payment history, and temporary limits apply to new accounts immediately after signup, with removal notified via email.

However, it is not 'unlimited.' According to Anthropic's Help Center, the weekly usage limit for Ultra remains in place. There is a weekly limit at 10 times that of the standard Pro plan, with an additional separate weekly limit applied to the latest models. While users can now use the service throughout an entire night, the ceiling on total weekly usage has not changed.

This measure also marks a turning point from a policy implemented last summer. In late July last year, Anthropic introduced weekly usage limits to discourage 24-hour continuous operation and account reselling by some users, which drew backlash from the developer community. At the time, the company stated that fewer than 5% of users would be affected. According to eDaily, Anthropic's subscription product manager also apologized during the restructuring process, noting that the previous '20x' designation had caused confusion.

Timing points to competition. Just a day earlier on the 29th, OpenAI doubled usage limits across all paid ChatGPT tiers immediately and withdrew planned cuts to higher-tier plans. With the two companies revealing 'we'll let you use more' within a day of each other, it signals that the AI industry, which is beginning to gain supply capacity through large-scale data center investments, is now shifting its competitive axis from restricting to relaxing usage.

User reactions are not uniformly positive. In overseas developer communities, there are complaints that weekly limits are exhausted in two days and that verification has not been processed despite months of subscription payments. With session restrictions lifted but the ceiling on total usage remaining unchanged, the perceived impact of this restructuring is expected to differ depending on whether users consume 'how long' or 'how much.'