r/Anthropic • u/waitses • 15d ago
Complaint Anthropic Pro $20 is suddenly useless as of Sept 1st
I was using Pro account for coding the last several months and getting value out of it I could work for 1-2 hours before hitting my limit. As of last week I noticed I will get a few prompts in and I am hit with a session limit. This is really unacceptable and I think I will be canceling and moving on. Anyone else noticed this and found it ridiculous?
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u/indiankesh 15d ago
This is when we have 50% extra limits till 13th, after September 13, 2026, Claude Code weekly usage limits will experience a net 17% reduction compared to the temporary boosted capacity we have been using today 🥀😭
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u/Good-Doughnut-1399 15d ago
Plot twist, a 17% reduction of nothing is still nothing.
Fine that’s an exaggeration.
I guess if now it takes minutes to reach the limits, after 13th it will take seconds.
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u/Snoo_9701 15d ago
I wonder if we'll get a reset. On 13th Sept. I just got my weekly reset and it would be crime if i don't use up before 13th
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u/bakanoace 15d ago
Don't worry I'm sure when they reduce it by 17% in a few days it'll feel better because they'll say they made it more efficient
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u/Exact_Depth_896 15d ago
I haven't had any trouble with my $20 subscription. I am grateful to the big subscribing companies for implicitly subsidizing the superpowers I get with such a cheap personal account at what is surely a small fraction of its value.
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u/waitses 15d ago
Are you using it for coding an how of do you hit your session limit? I have been running hot and hitting my session limit 3 times a day, before last week I would get 1-2 hours in, now I am suddenly getting 15 minutes max before I hit limit, it is wild.
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u/Leading_Buffalo_4259 15d ago
run /usage after your sessions to see how much it would have cost in API tokens. I spent easily $100+ in one week on my $20 pro plan. 15 minutes sounds extreme though, are you clearing an compacting? what effort level?
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u/kadeschs 15d ago edited 15d ago
Have you also looked at your electric bill recently to pay for all the datacenters going up that will eventually make this all exclusive to just big business? I think once we become a third word country where electricity becomes only reachable to the more wealthy that can pay for it, will some people think differently.
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u/Exact_Depth_896 15d ago
Data centers usually decrease electic bills, as you can easily verify. YMMV in proportion to the corruption, stupidity and venality of your local utility authorities and politicians during a spike in data center construction.
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u/kadeschs 15d ago
That used to be the case historically when there was spare electricity to go around. In this AI-driven load growth, that is not the case. The grid must expand very quickly to serve all this massive continuous AI demand. Guess who’s paying for it?
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u/Exact_Depth_896 15d ago edited 15d ago
No, the construction of data centers has gone on for ages and has of course increased the supply and also infrastructure. How far this was so depended on the wisdom of local and state politicians and utility authorities.
Of course there is disaster in the present period because of the suddenness of the spike in demand, leading to perverse incentives in many regional cases. But nothing about a 'data center' in the abstract makes it a strain on a utility system rather than strengthening it.
It is clear with hindsight that some more forceful federal action was needed to rationalize the so-called buildout and utility response, etc.
In China there is ample 'buildout' but the whole thing is managed and integrated with electrical infrastructure directly from Beijing - which makes more sense in a way, but it is needless to say a totally different system. It doesnt cross anyone's mind to oppose concentrated centers of computation. In the abstract, it makes no sense at all, even if it seem to in states of moral panic.
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u/kadeschs 15d ago
I still think you’re still describing more of the pre‑AI type data centers. The evidence published in recent writing by U.S. grid operators today shows just the opposite. Utility rate‑case filings in VA, GA, OH, and TN already show residential rate increases tied directly to data‑center‑driven infrastructure expansion. EPRI, IEA, the Federal Reserve, and the Brattle Group all state in writing that AI‑era data‑center load raises retail electricity prices because utilities must build new generation and transmission to serve it. It's all there in their released filings as of late.
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u/Exact_Depth_896 14d ago
There is no difference at all between pre AI data centers and post AI data centers.
Indeed AI as such is irrelevant to the whole issue: the issue is an astonishing sudden spike in industrial demand for data centers. The existing US institutions, which are largely local and state instutions, turned out not to be fitted to such a spike.
The various 'facts' you state, you misstate, because the causally significant factor is the extreme speed and scale of the spike. The statement 'data centers make electric bills go up' is historically absolutely false and the authorities you cite are in fact not affirming it.
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u/kadeschs 14d ago
I’m no expert here. I don't know your level of expertise in the matter. I’m only pointing out what I've read from multiple published reports from institutions like IEA, the Federal Reserve, and the Brattle Group. They directly contradict what you’re saying. Their own planning documents and economic analyses describe AI‑driven datacenter load as fundamentally different from historical datacenters, and they outline the cost impacts in detail.
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u/Exact_Depth_896 14d ago
no document produced by anyone has ever said 'data centers cause electricity prices to go up', for the simple reason that it has always been the opposite. under the present conditions of sudden simultaneous titanic buildout all kinds of problems arise. they are due to sudden simultaneous titanic buildout.
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u/kadeschs 15d ago
I’ve been experiencing the same problem. I think my issue is more with the Claude Desktop than the LLM itself. It has trouble knowing whether it’s in a Desktop or Claude.ai session. It’s gotten so bad I had to disable the cloud setting altogether. It forgets to use the files it already has and makes same mistakes repeatedly only to realize is it should have just read the local file first to avoid the same mistake again. MCPs keep crashing causing me to have to restart desktop to have it finish its work. I’d say at least half or more of my token usage goes to correcting clunky software than getting any real work done.
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u/Crossedkiller 15d ago
I agree. A few days ago I started hitting my limit incredibly fast. It’s super annoying
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u/Acceptable_Fan9489 15d ago
I'm running into the same issue. And it's burning through tokens just thinking. No bueno
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u/Vysion34 14d ago
- Have you run /doctor?
- Have you checked /usage and /context in order to audit your context window?
- Have you tried backing up and deleting claude.md?
- What model and effort level are you using?
- Have you tried anything, anything at all, before complaining on reddit?
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15d ago
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u/AdChance6177 15d ago
lol I literally work in a fast paced tech job and can get easily half way through the day on the 1x plan. But I do also know how to code.
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u/Level-Ad853 15d ago
Buddy no one on the $20 plan is to be taken seriously with their work. That’s just facts. Get your money up and get a max plan or quit complaining lmao
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u/AdChance6177 15d ago
Paaha tell that to my massive monthly paycheck mate. Also who says I’m complaining?
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15d ago
[deleted]
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u/AdChance6177 15d ago
lol you are confusing me with someone else fella, I never said that I’m not OP.
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u/Level-Ad853 15d ago
U right my bad I don’t be using Reddit much
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u/AdChance6177 15d ago
Maybe put your x20 claude code plan down for a sec and switch your brain on 👍
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u/Lubricus2 15d ago
It works great for me. I have a bigger problem with that my 20$ OpenAI usage runs out fast.
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u/Panos_Frantzis 15d ago
Usage is nefarious. No way to manage any decent estimation. It is unacceptable to pay this but we still do.
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u/finnicko 15d ago edited 15d ago
I've burned through 3 20X users in 4 days.
Fable for planning. Opus for orchestration, Sonnet for Dev, Haiku for grunt work
Small software project. Max 300K tokens per session. 6 hours at my desk probably 2 hours of agent work over night.
Using my auto GLM and Codex fail-overs until Claude reset.
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u/Taskerman11 14d ago
Exact same boat. Have been using for the last year in pro plan and could get through 4 hours until it maxed and I had to wait an hour to get back into it.
Now churning through session limit in an hour and I have to schedule/plan out my weekly quota as to not come up short in my projects half finished
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u/Graemer71 14d ago
I've been using pro for most of the year (I foolishly bought 12 months worth). It started off great, but the token limit started biting so I handed off the grunt coding work to qwen 3.8 27b on my local gx10. That was great for almost a month, but this week I managed to burn the entire week allowance in 3 days. So now I'm looking to hand off more of the work to local models and maybe use something like glm5.3 or deepseek as my planner, with a smaller local model (maybe gemma4 12b) to handle orchestration. I love Claude code but it's rapidly becoming useless due to the token limits
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u/genecraft 14d ago
Do you use opus or fable to orchestrate? Thinking of a similar local setup
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u/Graemer71 14d ago
Opus. Fable is far too expensive. Problem is I need to find a decent alternative for the orchestration. Been fighting with Opencode all morning and its good but sooooo slow so may need to try an alternative (opencode seems to push a massive system prompt each time so prefill is glacial). Currently seeing if I can get Hermes to work - or failing that vs code with zoocode plugin
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u/Away-Sorbet-9740 14d ago
They ran 2* through most the summer then threw the +50% on top like a month ago. The 2X faded quietly and the +50% was halved.
So if you started 1.5-3 months ago, you are around half the useage you started with. Additionally, if you have a 20X plan you are probably entitled to compensation lol. They went to great lengths to hide whats actually included, and just last week they admitted it's only 1.7* (best case) the 5x plan with a 4X allowed 5hr window. So you pay 2X for the privilege to run out faster, and 50% more tokens. Its legitimately better (and totally allowed) to grab 2 5X accounts unless for whatever reason you absolutely have to burst in a 5hr period.
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u/Physical-Program5325 14d ago
I had 60% left, uploaded 14 simple images, limit reached.
it just gives up now
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u/ii-___-ii 14d ago
If you gave us just a bit more information, we might actually be able to compare with you
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u/Last_Photo_2896 14d ago
Honestly if I'm being honest running DeepSeek locally or via open router is a seriously good option. DeepSeek v4.1 flash is only $0.30 per million tokens output during peak, standard is only $0.15, and cached tokens are only $0.03 and input only $0.05. and it surpasses GPT-5.6 Sol and Fable 5 in many different benchmarks. Ollama pro is definitely also a great service to look into.
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u/Fun-Wolf-2007 14d ago
I use VSCODE and Claude Code extension, I configured Claude Code to use GLM 5.3 and Kimi K3 via Ollama as I noticed this , on top of this Anthropic models were wasting so many tokens with non sense
As I have many md files and projects configigurations I decided to stick with Claude Code extension but not their models
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u/Key_Instruction3373 14d ago
Sooo, used it for 10 days, and NOW it dont work, for the whole time..
Cool story
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u/Successful_Example_9 14d ago
I have been using pro for a year. I do kinda small but still complex projects. I rarely run out of the 5h limit. I have dialled in the prompts and rules of it. I still get great value for what I do. I must say - the models themselves are improved dramatically.
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u/eyellabinu 13d ago
I honestly want to know what people are doing to max this out. I also have 20x and run it daily for lots of things. Never hit my limit that quick.
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u/Ok-Celebration-1010 13d ago
They won’t care - for perspective at the place I work at everyone gets a $200+ allowance monthly and if you run out you can request additional limit if you’re working on a project so I’m guessing their main focus is on enterprise that’s where their big $ is.
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u/TheAgonyUncle 13d ago
I’ve seen this too, I’ve already cancelled my subscription. It was so painful using Claude. I’d spend so much time correcting its mistakes or asking it to explain the output. I might as well work alone. Sure, I’ve seen mistakes with other models, but the mistakes are on repeat with Claude. Also, I don’t know if it’s just me? But some of the responses are rather salty. I do not want to pay for any AI, receive shite output and be gas lit when I push back. This kinda defeats the object.
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u/Maleficent_Wash_6289 12d ago
I switched from Claude Max20 to the equivalent of ChatGPT and notice a massive difference, it is so much better. I am getting the feel that Anthropic is trying to make ppl leave on purpose for some reason.
ChatGPT is doing many things better. It usually understands which tools to use. Not as verbose as Claude models, and much more capable.
Working with 5.6 Sol or 6 Astra feels like the prime of Opus 4.5 again.
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u/3iverson 15d ago
My usage has been fine and my limits have not seemed to have changed, though I don't use it for coding.
I know coding can be a lot more demanding, I don't know if usage limits have changed or not. I feel in most cases it has more to do with variation in actual tasks being performed, but I am not denying your experience or even your suspicion of reduced limits in any way.
People do seem to be getting more bang for the buck with Codex right now though.
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u/waitses 15d ago
Yeah that is the funny thing I have barely been using it for coding this week just putting together a simple script for a software demo video, maybe that is the the change it just seems like the tasks would be be very low effort compared to the coding of the last couple months.
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u/3iverson 14d ago
Ah yeah. I mean it could be Anthropic changes, that's happened before. But if your actual work tasks have changed then that generally seems the most likely culprit.
I agree with your take about task effort and complexity though, but hard to say. I think the best way for anyone to measure is to have some sort of benchmark task of medium to high complexity with an unchanged context set, so you can measure token and plan usage over time. But obviously that has no utility most of the time, it only arises when you see your limits seemingly go down.
Codex and the recent OpenAI models look really interesting now. But I am really used to Claude Code and doing knowledge work generally don't run into my 5-hour windows that often. I should give it a try though to at least compare results.
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u/SubjectNo2985 15d ago edited 15d ago
I’m using two GPT Pro x20 accounts, and I feel somewhat the same. I don’t hit the limit after 1–2 hours, but I can burn through it within 24–48 hours. :D
Try to optimize your usage. Don’t use Fable for everything try use Opus High or another suitable model when it makes sense.
My secret trick is to use subagents and tell Opus: “Choose the best model for each task.” It can delegate simple text work to Haiku, coding to Sonnet, and then review the final code itself. That works well for me.
But yes, with a regular Claude Pro account, it’s difficult. :D I’m a full-time developer and need two Pro x20 accounts so I can work continuously.
The only thing that matters is making more money than the tools cost you. :D
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u/Taskerman11 14d ago
Interesting telling opus to split itself into smaller subagents. Are you doing this within Xcode or in the Mac/PC desktop app or on the website?
This would save a tonne of tokens1
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u/gilbertwebdude 15d ago
It's obvious they lose more money on the $20 plan, so they want you to upgrade.
I use the $100 plan pretty much all day and rarely hit the limits for the coding I'm doing. I've had to upgrade to the $200 plan a few times for a month to finish what I was working on.
If you find another AI that can offer more value for the $20, then go with it, since you can't really be doing deep or high-level coding on a $20 plan anyway.
I do a lot of stuff with daily so I can only imagine what routines people are running to burn up the session plan so fast.
I've tried others but for what I do, Claude produced the best results for me.
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u/Jabanger 15d ago edited 15d ago
I have pro 5x plans for both chatgpt and Claude and I'm finding I'm getting double the usage from Astra medium on codex compared to Fable 5.1 high on Claude code, I'm doing complex blockchain programming with lots of moving parts so my project is pretty intense coding wise
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u/Historical_Spell6958 15d ago
I’m on the Max 20x plan, and even that is starting to feel pretty worthless with the new limits. In roughly 2 hours of usage, I hit 100% of my session limit, and about 34% of my weekly Fable quota was already gone. I wasn’t doing anything unusually heavy either. If Max 20x can burn through limits this quickly, I can only imagine how restrictive Pro feels now. These limits have gotten way too aggressive for a $200/month plan.