I was using Claude Code like usual and I noticed a message saying approaching weekly limit. Next thing I know, 75% weekly limit used. It resets on Monday, and today is just the 2nd day of the week. Absolute scam. I have never ever approached the weekly limit with the $200 max plan before. The most terrible part is that this sudden change in weekly limits was never communicated to us. I really love claude code but I cannot work with random restrictions on my usage out of the blue.

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to share some good news for Claude users. Anthropic announced a holiday promotion that doubles usage limits for Pro and Max subscribers.

Details

Promotion Period: December 25, 2025 (00:00 UTC) through December 31, 2025 (23:59 UTC)

What's Doubled:

• 5-hour rolling window usage limit → 2x

• Weekly usage cap → 2x

• Weekly cap resets at midnight UTC on December 25

Where It Applies:

• claude.ai

• Claude Code (CLI)

• Chrome extension

Eligibility

You're eligible if:

• You have an active Pro ($20/mo), Max 5x ($100/mo), or Max 20x ($200/mo) subscription

• You're an individual subscriber (Team and Enterprise plans are excluded)

• You sign up for Pro or Max during the promotional period (new subscribers also qualify)

After the Promotion

Usage limits return to standard levels on January 1st. No additional charges or anything like that.

Why This Matters

If you've been hitting usage limits on Claude, this is a good window to:

• Push through year-end side projects

• Experiment with features you've been rationing

• Use Claude Code more liberally without worrying about caps

Source: Official Anthropic Support Article

Anyone planning to take advantage of this for specific projects?

This Megathread is to discuss your thoughts, concerns and suggestions about the changes involving the Weekly Usage Limits implemented alongside the recent Claude 4.5 release. Please help us keep all your feedback in one place so we can prepare a report for Anthropic's consideration about readers' suggestions, complaints and feedback. This also helps us to free the feed for other discussion. For discussion about recent Claude performance and bug reports, please use the Weekly Performance Megathread instead.

Please try to be as constructive as possible and include as much evidence as possible. Be sure to include what plan you are on. Feel free to link out to images.

Recent related Anthropic announcement : https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1ntq8tv/introducing_claude_usage_limit_meter/

Original Anthropic announcement here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1mbo1sb/updating_rate_limits_for_claude_subscription/

UPDATE: Anthropic have posted an update here :

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1nvnafs/update_on_usage_limits/

So Anthropic claimed that their new weekly usage limits would only impact “less than 2% of users.” Spoiler alert: That’s complete BS. Here’s what’s actually happening: • Pro users hitting weekly Opus limits in 1-2 days of normal usage Max 20x subscribers (yes, the highest paid tier) getting restricted • People burning through 80% of Opus quota in a few hours without hitting the old 5-hour conversation limit • 50% of total model quota disappearing in a single day of regular use The math ain’t mathing. If 2% means “basically everyone who uses the service regularly,” then sure, 2%. My experience: I hit my Opus 4 limit on a Tuesday. Not because I was doing anything crazy - just normal conversations and work tasks. Meanwhile ChatGPT’s limits are also getting ridiculous (my Codex is locked for 24 hours as I write this). The real problem: It’s not just about the limits themselves. It’s the unpredictability. You can’t plan your work around these restrictions when they kick in seemingly at random and the stated policies don’t match reality. For those of us who switched from ChatGPT specifically to avoid this kind of limitation mess - welcome back to limitation hell, I guess? To Anthropic: Either fix the quotas to match actual reasonable usage patterns, or stop pretending this only affects 2% of users. The gaslighting isn’t helping. Anyone else experiencing this? What are your actual usage numbers looking like? Edit based on comments: Seeing reports that even users who barely touch Claude during the week are suddenly hitting limits. Something is clearly broken with how usage is being calculated.

This post takes all of the 1700+ comments from the Usage Limits Megathread from Sept 30 -> Oct 8, and uses them to provide a response to Anthropic's post titled "Update on Usage Limits". It was generated entirely by a non-Anthropic AI with no human editing and neutral sentiment prompting - the core of which is : "Make a summary and advice report for users and Anthropic based on the observations of users in the Megathread".

Anthropic response : https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1nvnafs/update_on_usage_limits/

Usage Limits Megathread: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1nu9wew/usage_limits_discussion_megathread_beginning_sep/

The generated response to Anthropic follows:

Primary source: r/ClaudeAI “Usage Limits Discussion” Megathread (Sep 30 → Oct 7, 2025).

<Duplicate intro deleted as per feedback in comments>

Dear Anthropic — thanks for the reset, but here’s the reality we are seeing

TL;DR (top signal): The issue isn’t only Opus 4.1 burn. Many of us are capping fast on Sonnet 4.5 too (sometimes in hours), the meters feel opaque/buggy, and weekly lockouts are blowing up workweeks. The reset helped briefly, then the pain resumed. Trust rebounds fastest if you (1) move to daily caps + rollover, (2) publish exact metering math with model-scoped meters + warnings, and (3) tighten Sonnet 4.5 on long-context/codebase tasks. Add a few high-leverage extras below (clear numbers, standardized resets, pre-run cost hints, bug sweep, cross-plan top-ups, basic change-log comms).

What your post nails vs. what the thread actually shows

• You’re right Opus is expensive. But “just use Sonnet 4.5” doesn’t fix usage pain for many. Reports of weekly caps in a day or two on Sonnet-only workflows are common (e.g., two 5-hour Sonnet sessions eating the week; others hit the wall in ~10 Sonnet messages).

• The reset was appreciated; usage ramped back up fast, and some saw live resets at random times, which makes the system feel unpredictable.

• Meters are unclear: users don’t know what % means, why small edits cost double-digit percentage, or how 5-hour vs weekly vs Opus-only interact. (Examples: 5–10% of a 5-hour session before any output; “cost per turn ~tripled.”)

• Lockouts drive churn: cancellations/refunds and “trying other providers” posts are already here (Max/Pro users hitting weekly in 1–2 days or even hours).

What r/ClaudeAI users are actually experiencing (ranked by impact)

1) Sonnet-only users still cap fast. Max/Pro users report weekly caps within hours to ~2 days using only Sonnet 4.5—which undermines the guidance to switch from Opus.

2) Opaque/possibly inconsistent metering. Users see big % jumps for small tasks (e.g., a single small edit costing 5–10% of a 5-hour session, up from 2–3% previously). People also report changing reset timestamps and meters behaving differently across accounts.

3) Weekly lockouts wreck reliability and push churn. “Locked until Thursday,” “blocked for a week after 2 days on Max,” “ran out by Tuesday”—these are common. That’s spurring refunds/cancellations and migrations.

4) Mixed results on large/code-heavy work. When Sonnet 4.5 loses project relations or causes collateral edits, users redo the task with Opus, which then torches the Opus pool and accelerates lockouts.

5) Expectations vs. reality. People cite plan claims (hours/week) vs. lived experience (capping in hours). Some say they’d need multiple subs to match prior weeks; others call it a stealth downgrade.

Concrete fixes (start here)

1) Replace weekly cliffs with daily caps + rollover (highest ROI). This keeps workdays safe: no more “locked out by Tuesday,” no dead weeks. If a day is light, roll unused capacity forward. The thread asks for this explicitly and repeatedly.

2) Full transparency on metering + model-scoped meters + warnings. Publish the exact math: what increments 5-hour, weekly (all models), and weekly (Opus); how uploads, extended thinking, compaction, artifacts are counted. In-product: show separate meters per model, pre-run cost hints, and “approaching cap” alerts to prevent dead-end runs.

3) Tighten Sonnet 4.5 on long-context/codebase tasks. Improve project-memory/retrieval and reduce collateral edits/hallucinations so Sonnet is a true daily driver. That cuts rework, reduces forced fallbacks to Opus, and eases Opus-pool pressure.

High-leverage additions (easy wins that defuse confusion fast)

A) Publish hard, per-plan numbers. Update the usage page with current, concrete ranges per plan/model that reflect enforcement today (not pre-4.5 expectations). Users are comparing claims vs. capping in hours.

B) Standardize and disclose exact reset times. State the day/time/timezone for 5-hour, weekly (all models), and weekly (Opus) resets—and make them consistent. Users report mismatched reset days and live resets that shift mid-week.

C) Add a persistent “x of y remaining” + pre-run cost hints. Give a live, model-scoped meter and a cost estimate before big runs (uploads/extended thinking) so people can avoid hitting a wall mid-edit.

D) Acknowledge and sweep metering anomalies. Investigate large % jumps for small actions, sessions burning time with no output, and Sonnet-only work still draining weekly/Opus pools. Commit to a visible bug sweep.

E) Offer top-ups across all paid plans + short grace windows. Don’t limit extra usage to Max 20x. Let Pro/Max5x users buy a one-off boost, and add a brief grace window to finish a run instead of hard-locking mid-task. (Several cancellations center on hard lockouts.)

F) Commit to basic change-management. Post dated changelogs and send advance emails when policy/enforcement changes. People don’t want to discover breaking changes during work.

What you can safely recommend to users right now (to reduce tickets)

• Right-tool the task: use Sonnet 4.5 for small/local edits and explanations; reserve Opus for gnarly refactors/multi-module reasoning. This cuts rework and burn.

• Work in smaller, checkable steps: explicit diffs/tests beat “rewrite the repo.” Fewer retries → less burn.

• Show people where to see usage: make Settings → Usage prominent and encourage screenshots when % jumps look wrong, until meters are transparent.

Why this matters right now

There’s real churn energy in the thread: cancellations, refunds, team renewals paused, and competitor trials. People like Claude, but they need reliability and clarity more than another reset. Daily+rollover + transparent meters + Sonnet long-context fixes will cool things off immediately and restore confidence that “Claude won’t strand my workweek.

Bottom line: ship daily+rollover, transparent/model-scoped meters with warnings, and Sonnet long-context fixes—then layer in clear numbers, standardized resets, pre-run hints, a bug sweep, cross-plan top-ups, and basic comms. The megathread shows that could flip sentiment from “stealth downgrade” to “they listened and fixed the week.”