Anthropic is introducing new weekly rate limits for Claude to address excessive usage among subscribers running its AI coding tool, Claude Code, continuously in the background around the clock. The limits also aim to prevent policy violations, such as account sharing and reselling access to Claude Code.
The changes will take effect on August 28 for subscribers to Anthropic’s Pro plan at $20 per month, as well as its higher-tier Max plans at $100 and $200 per month. The company announced the update in an email to subscribers and a post on X.
Anthropic’s existing usage limits, which reset every five hours, will remain in place. The new weekly limits, resetting every seven days, include an overall usage cap and a separate restriction for the advanced Claude Opus 4 model. Max subscribers can purchase additional usage beyond these limits at standard API rates.
This follows recent adjustments to Claude Code’s usage limits, which were implemented without prior notice. While Claude Code has gained popularity among developers, Anthropic has struggled with service reliability. The tool has experienced at least seven partial or major outages in the past month, likely due to power users running it nonstop.
Anthropic has acknowledged computational resource constraints, a common challenge among AI providers racing to expand data centers to meet growing demand. Other AI coding tool providers, such as Cursor and Replit, have also adjusted pricing strategies to curb excessive usage.
Anthropic estimates the new limits will impact fewer than 5% of subscribers. Most Pro users can expect 40-80 hours of Sonnet 4 usage per week, though actual usage may vary based on factors like codebase size.
In a message to subscribers, Anthropic expressed its commitment to supporting long-running use cases in the future but emphasized that these limits are necessary to ensure reliable service in the short term.