Sorry to talk about this topic again.

But ive noticed the rate limits are much closer to the API costs now. im on max 200. For power users - how much usage are you getting from max 100/200 compared to the actual API cost?

So we all know about the new subscription option for Claude Max which has 5-20x higher rates than Plus for 100 dollars a month, honestly that's just disrespectful to the user, like you want someone to pay 100 dollars a month on something that still has limits, are they out of their mind?

Like seriously, I've been using Claude for a while now and was actually considering upgrading, but this pricing is absolute highway robbery. $100 A MONTH?? For what? So I can hit slightly higher rate limits that I'll probably still manage to max out anyway? And the worst part is they're acting like they're doing us some kind of favor. It doesn't even come with new features I assume?

And don't even get me started on how this compares to other AI services. I mean at least ChatGPT had the decency to make it unlimited lmao. I get that these companies need to make money, but there's a difference between sustainable pricing and just plain gouging your users. The most frustrating part is that I actually LIKE Claude. The responses are solid, and I've gotten value from the Plus tier. But this Max tier pricing feels like they're basically saying "we know some whale businesses will pay this, so screw the regular users."

I mean, what's next? $200/month for "Claude Ultra" with another 2x rate limit increase?

In Max 100$ subscription we get 5x the tokens compared to pro 20$ plan. But when we buy two pro plans it would get upto 80% of tokens of max plan. At 40% of cost. So cost vs usage which do you think is better?

I'm a sr. software engineer with ~16 years working experience. I'm also a huge believer in AI, and fully expect my job to be obsolete within the decade. I've used all of the most expensive tiers of all of the AI models extensively to test their capabilities. I've never posted a review of any of them but this pro-Claude hysteria has made me post something this time.

If you're a software engineer you probably already realize there is truly nothing special about Claude Code relative to other AI assisted tools out there such as Cline, Cursor, Roo, etc. And if you're a human being you probably also realize that this subreddit is botted to hell with Claude Max ads.

I initially tried Claude Code back in February and it failed on even the simplest tasks I gave it, constantly got stuck in loops of mistakes, and overall was a disappointment. Still, after the hundreds of astroturfed threads and comments in this subreddit I finally relented and thought "okay maybe after Sonnet/Opus 4 came out its actually good now" and decided to buy the $100 plan to give it another shot.

Same result. I wasted about 5 hours today trying to accomplish tasks that could have been done with Cline in 30-40 minutes because I was certain I was doing something wrong and I needed to figure out what. Beyond the usual infinite loops Claude Code often finds itself in (it has been executing a simple file refactor task for 783 seconds as I write this), the 4.0 models have the fun new feature of consistently lying to you in order to speed along development. On at least 3 separate occasions today I've run into variations of:

● You're absolutely right - those are fake status updates! I apologize for that terrible implementation. Let me fix this fake output and..

I have to admit that I was suckered into this purchase from the hundreds of glowing comments littering this subreddit, so I wanted to give a realistic review from an engineer's pov. My take is that Claude Code is probably the most amazing tool on earth for software creation if you have never used alternatives like Cline, Cursor, etc. I think Claude Code might even be better than them if you are just creating very simple 1-shot webpages or CRUD apps, but anything more complex or novel and it is simply not worth the money.

inb4 the genius experts come in and tell me my prompts are the issue.

Hey everyone! Amateur coder here working on flashcard apps and basic HTTP tools.

Claude has been incredibly helpful as my coding partner, but I'm hitting some workflow issues. Currently using Sonnet 4 for implementation, but when I need more complex planning, I switch to Opus 4.1 on the web to get Claude code prompt, which gets rate-limited quickly. I end up waiting 2+ hours on rate limiting

I'm considering the Max plan ($100/month) to avoid these delays and actually finish my projects. I've tried Claude's agentic features with sonnet 4 but its not even near what opus 4.1 gives in chat. Like i have to paste my code there and get prompt and sonnet work on it.

Compared to Gemini 2.5 or OpenAI alternatives, I still prefer Claude Code, but wondering if I'm missing something in my current approach.

Is it really worth getting max plan 100$ for a month or two to finish my project building and then go with pro plan on building it. what would you guys suggest. ?

Really appreciate any insights - still learning and would love to hear from you guys.

I was genuinely surprised when somebody made a working clone of my app Shotomatic using Claude in 15 minutes.

At first I didn't believe it, so I decided to give it a try myself. I thought, screw it, and went all-in for the $200 Max plan to see what it could really do.

Man, I was impressed.

The feature (the one in the video) I tried was something like this:

You register a few search keywords, the app (Shotomatic) opens the browser, runs the searches, and automatically takes screenshots of the results. The feature should seamlessly integrate with the existing app.

The wild part? I didn’t write a single line of code.

The entire thing was implemented using Claude Code, and I didn't touch the code myself at all. I only interacted through the terminal giving instructions. From planning to implementation, code review, creating of PR and merging, everything was done with natural language.

It was an insanely productive, and honestly a little scary experience.

Why haven't I tried this before?

I'm currently using Google Gemini 2.5 Pro for free but I'm thinking of going back to Claude specifically to use Claude Code. My question are, how quick do you reach the limits for Claude Code? Does it do a good job compared to Cursor with Sonnet 3.7 or Gemini 2.5 Pro?

Feeling a little dumb and hoping someone can clarify the value proposition here.

For context, I'm a lifelong developer and comfortable in both IDEs and at the CLI.

I've been playing around with Cursor at $20/mo which interfaces with Claude and, although it gets weird sometimes, it's quite helpful, especially for small throwaway experiments that I tend to make a lot of. Well worth the price IMHO.

I'm now looking at Claude Code, with as I understand is included with Claude Max ("from" $100/month) or usable with a Claude API key.

My (limited) experience with Claude's API is that I can hit several dollars worth of usage VERY quickly, like within an hour or two. So, I would expect the cost of Claude Code via the API to be extremely high. I haven't tried, but I feel like I would blow through the equivalent of Cursor's $20/mo within a few days. Is this the case?

Using Claude Code via a plan like Max makes more sense, but it's still so much more expensive than a simple Cursor subscription.

So... what tips the scales for getting Claude Max vs. an IDE with an integrated agent? What justifies the substantially higher price?

I know and have experienced that Cursor gets kicked into the slow lane sometimes, but it still seems fast enough even then. It sure feels like having a more-or-less fixed-cost low-ish monthly subscription for what seems to be unlimited usage vs. something that "starts" at 5x more expensive and doesn't really even clearly spell out the usage limits.

I see that Claude Code can do operations at the CLI level but ... so does Cursor? I've had it move files around, refactor projects, etc.

I just feel like I'm missing something key here and would love to know what!

I'm not affiliated with any of these companies, just a confused user. Thanks in advance.

Over the past few days me and Gemini have been working on pseudocode for an app I want to do. I had Gemini break the pseudocode in logical steps and create markdown files for each step. This came out to be 47 md files. I wasn't sure where to take this after that. It's a lot.

Then I signed up for Claude code with Max. I went for the upper tier as I need to get this project rolling. I started up pycharm, dropped all 45 md files from gemini and let Claude Code go. Sure, there were questions from Claude, but in less than 30 mins I had a semi-working flask app. Yes, there were bugs. This is and should be expected. Knowing how I would handle the errors personally helped me to guide Claude to finding the issue.

It was an amazing experience and I appreciate the CLI. If this works out how I hope, I'll be canceling my subscriptions to other AI services. Don't get me started on the AI services I've tried. I'm not looking for perfection. Just to get very close.

I would highly suggest looking into Claude code with a max subscription if you are comfortable with the CLI.

Anthropic has some secret something that makes it dominant in the coding world. I tried others, but always need to rely on 3.7. I'll probably keep my gemini sub but I'm canceling all others.

Sorry for the lengthy post.

I have been using Claude since it became available in Canada. I have been working on a project that has several conversations - basically because I would have to start new conversations when current one got too long. I have basically the same 4 files that I update in the project knowledge repository (uses around 60% of the repository's limit). They are code files (3 Python scripts and a notebook - maybe 320kb total for all 4). Whenever I make changes to the code, I'll remove the old one and transfer the new one to the repository so Claude is always reviewing the most recent version.

Today I decided to upgrade to the Max plan to increase my usage with Claude (longer conversations?). I removed the scripts and reloaded the updated versions so Claude is again reviewing the most recent versions. No sooner did I add the files I get a message - This conversation has reached its maximum length. I didn't even get a chance to start a new conversation. I can't because of this length limit.

This is shoddy customer service - actually, it's worse than that, but I am trying to be polite. I have reached out for a refund because this level of service is completely unacceptable. If you are considering an upgrade - DON'T! Save your money, or buy a plan with a competing AI. If this is the level of customer service Anthropic has decided is acceptable, they will not be around much longer.

Hey everyone,

I’m a solo founder building my first web app and I’ve been using Claude Code Pro for coding and debugging. Lately, I’ve been constantly hitting the 5-hour daily usage limit, which is slowing me down a lot.

I’m thinking about upgrading to the Max plan ($200 NZD / ~$120 USD per month) for unlimited/extended access. I have no steady income right now, but I’ve freed up some budget

I want to hear from people who have experience:

• Is the Max plan actually worth it for someone hitting daily limits on Pro?

• Will it save enough time and frustration to justify the cost?

• Any tips to get the most value out of the Max plan as a solo builder?

Basically, I’m trying to figure out if it’s a worthwhile investment in speed/productivity for my first project.

Thanks in advance!

I just purchased Max subscription to save on my Claude Code API usage (I've been spending around $200 per month). I can clearly see that the context window is smaller. When I started using Claude Code with Max subscription I've hit all the time the error:

Error: File content (33564 tokens) exceeds maximum allowed tokens (25000). Please use offset and limit parameters to read specific portions

of the file, or use the GrepTool to search for specific content.

which I didn't see at all when using API. Because of that I've had pretty bad experience so far. While Claude Code with API is top notch agent assistant, the version with Max subscription has trashed my files, causing linting errors everywhere, because it couldn't load the full file.

I asked Anthropic support for clear information about context size, but so far I am pretty sure that they limited the context window, because it would be too good to have 225 messages per 5 hours for $100 per month.

If you have big projects with big database – it might not be good for you.

So yeah, I've spent those $100 so you don't have to.

I used to use Aider with various paid APIs or build the agents myself. But recently, I've given Claude Code a try. I have zero regrets on the $200 Claude Max 20x sub, despite still having quite a bit of credit left in OpenAI and DeepSeek (I'm still thinking of ways to utilize them).

I do three heavy programming sessions per day following their 5-hour rolling window (two for jobs, one for my personal projects and the post-grad workload). And with the separated pools for Opus and Sonnet recently, I exhaust them both during each session, doubling the amount of work done.

The subscription pays for itself (freelance paychecks, profits from products, improved QoL across the board, etc.) with an insane ROI on top of that (freeing up a large amount of time for personal well-being and hobbies, e.g., Dhamma study, walking, meditation, video games, relationships).

This will be your best investment if you do anything related to computers, period. (I'm not affiliated with Anthropic in any way, just stating the facts.)

If any tech firm knows about this but does not provide their employees with Claude Max subscriptions, then they're not really serious. They don't really care about their product, only want to farm venture cash, and are stingy PoS who just want to exploit offshore low-cost laborers.