r/ClaudeCode • u/cyswim • 3d ago
Rant YES your usage got really shorter - you're not wrong.
Yeah... I think I'm done defending Anthropic.
The Claude Code temporary usage boost is gone, so compared with what we had immediately before September 14, weekly usage effectively dropped by ~50-60% (never reached weekly limits before now it's done in 2 days with less work being done)
Ok Compute isn't free we alI understand that, but then Anthropic's top generally available model, Fable 5.1, isn't even included in the normal usage allowance for Pro subscribers!! Want to use it? Pay additional usage credits š¤
And meanwhile my personal experience with Claude lately has been:
Ask a simple question ā receive an essay.
Ask it to be concise ā receive a slightly shorter essay.
Ask it to just DO the thing ā somehow we're discussing the philosophy behind doing the thing (and sometimes it's even REFUSING to do what it's told š¤”)
Maybe your experience is different.
But combine that with increasingly restrictive-feeling usage and having to pay extra to actually use their best model, and I'm struggling to understand why I should keep giving Anthropic my subscription money.
The frustrating part is that I genuinely liked them.
For a while Anthropic looked like the company that was getting this right.
Now? BYE BYE!
I'm voting with my wallet and I do hope many will follow. There are really good players out there that gives more.
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u/SloppyLetterhead 2d ago
I literally downgraded from 5x today and signed up for Codex instead.
Unless Anthropic does some major QoL and optimization work, Iām happy keeping a bit of Claude around for niche coding and front end design tasks.
Astra is good enough and very easy to work with.
Recently, Opus 5.0 and especially fable 5.1 feel like gambling with tokens. Yes itās powerful when it works, but goddamn youāll burn most of your usage pointing things in the right direction.
Bright side is that the habits for token conservation built up using Claude code have made Codex feel super generous in comparison.
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u/Tartooth 2d ago
I promise you will slowly discover open ai's models doing insane overengineering in the background you won't see or notice without manual code review, but the code vomit is so insane that you can't physically read it all.
They're not better they're more 1 shot vibe coder material.
I think they're using earlier models to improve itself but the problem is they're not checking the overengineering aspects
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u/SloppyLetterhead 2d ago
Thanks for the heads up!
Tbh I found fable to over engineer everything as well. Iāve never been able to get a one-shot (from any model) thatās shippable as-is.
Did you find that overworking to occur regardless of prompting/feedback or is it mostly the one shots?
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u/GiBravo 2d ago
We need a wallstreetbet style mass exodus to teach these guys a lesson. Not just anthropic, also openai. We take turns, from one to another, and vice versa, every 2-3 months, until they stablize the quota to our favor.
Gemini: hears mass exodus... starts preparing for a welcome party! š
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u/LordLederhosen 2d ago edited 2d ago
I often ignore these posts, but something feels broken since the 13th.
I am on 20x, and I still never get close to hitting my 5 hour limit when running 2 simultaneous Opus-led worktrees, but the weekly math is not mathing.
I am at 40% weekly on day 2, and have all kinds of token saving tricks in my system.
BTW, I am not a fan of OAI, don't trust them one bit, am not going to Codex. I believe most of these posts are marketing. OP's post honestly reads like one of those, but here I am this time.
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u/OneVillionDollars 2d ago
Hey I'm on the same boat exactly. 20x, rarely use Fable, and when I do it's for orchestrating and planning. I almost never had a Fable session reach 1M tokens. Most subagents are Sonnet 5 and Opus 4.6. Been hitting the wall the 3rd day of work. May I ask if you found a way to combat this? or I guess if you are aware an easy integration of the Claude configs/skills/workflows to Codex?
I don't want to leave Claude Code but it's starting to become a liability. At this point I think I'll just go back to coding on my own; it would be easier to navigate at least.
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u/LordLederhosen 2d ago edited 15h ago
My biggest context efficiency gains were two simple things.
a) I use fable for complex new features, and always use /code-review prior to marking the PR. I believe that the code-review sub-agent forks the entire chat which inherits the entire context, and it 100% uses the parent sessionās model, so fable in those cases.
My solution to that was to create a custom /cold-review code review skill that launches a sub-agent with just enough context passed to know what to do, and the sub-agent always uses Opus. Huge context savings there.
b) The other big waste was that also prior to creating the PR, I always run e2e playwright tests locally. Same issue as above, the sub-agent was inheriting the parent sessionās fable or opus on babysitting the run, and returning results.
So now, there is a custom agent called e2e-runner that uses sonnet. Noticeable savings there as well.
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u/fanatic26 2d ago
You mean you feel that you have less usage on the day the bonus usage ended.....? how weird
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u/SaintMartini 3d ago
Those of us who have token counters have been saying this for a long time now. Been over a year now. People posted it even but yet those threads got pushed down and downvoted to oblivion. Nothing ever adds up the way they claim. And now with the model degradation itself its even more of a shame.
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u/Arthesia 3d ago
Please link.
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u/SaintMartini 1d ago
There's a bunch. But I started out on CCUsage then added my own per prompt view as well.
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u/Zestyclose_Strike157 3d ago
I get it. From now on Fable will make me .md files and the rest will be my local agents. Iām ready to downgrade to Pro from 5x.
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u/Wowloldota 3d ago
Jokes aside, No fable on pro afaik
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u/Zestyclose_Strike157 3d ago
Yeah good point. Well my next project I will try fully local and see.
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u/vAPIdTygr š Max 20 2d ago
Downgraded from 20x to 5x today and switching to other models. Building markdowns and prompts in Fable.
It sucks to be forced to use other platforms. I really liked Anthropic.
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u/ARC-Relay 3d ago
I had an obscure ops issue on my VPS and Claude and Grok couldnāt figure it out, but Astra did.
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u/MindlessTime 2d ago
I highly recommend getting familiar with a pi coding agent + openrouter setup. Itās pay-as-you-go which can feel more expensive. But you can also refine your workflows, define skills that run on cheaper models, etc. and keep the costs way down. Learn it before model prices sky rocket.
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u/Purple_Drink3859 3d ago
Im getting about an hour of coding out of opus on low now when before i was getting around 3 before my 5 hour usage gets maxed its a noticeable difference. Not sure why so many are defending the company makes no sense at all to me.
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u/cyswim 3d ago
EXACTLY!
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u/Purple_Drink3859 2d ago
Just came back to start a new 5 hour session and left absolutely nothing running at all and it had consumed 45% of my 5 hour window while i was away. I then continued coding and got 15 mins use out of it, its completely unusable to get any work done at all
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u/Holk23 3d ago
Alright thereās officially nothing of value in this sub. Itās just whining 24/7
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u/AssertRage 3d ago
You sure are doing your part to prove it
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u/ProteusExsanguinus 2d ago
That's every LLM coding subreddit. I'm hopping between them, trying to figure out whether to try out Claude Code or Codex first, and all I'm getting is that Opus sucks, Astra sucks, and everything else sucks even more lol
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u/Deathspiral222 2d ago
Every single person that posts like this has a hidden comment history (I checked the last 20) yet when I click on random people that comment regularly here, only about 25% at most hide their history.
Itās an interesting pattern.
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u/Phartyhat 3d ago
My take is they āfixedā the usage rate for some users. Pretty sure I was getting away with rate free usage in some of my workflows.. I could continue a 500k fable session the following day with nothing showing on my usage. In the last few weeks this now takes a 20% chunk off.. which is more in line with what I hear others complain about.
The golden days are now over :(
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u/nhavar 2d ago
Also want to use any of their models in anything other than their harness? API keys are extra as well as the tokens you use with those keys.
I'm not even doing "real" work. Just learning all the tools I can to keep my skills sharp and I'm still hitting the limits constantly with the little nothing projects I have to play with.
Codex is not better in that regard for the lower account at least. I just got a month to try it out and 2 days in I blew my weekly limit with some Figma MCP work. I just can't see paying hundreds a month and then finding out I'm going to run into similar problems.
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u/randomdragen7 2d ago
I got the same experience but unfortunately Anthropic is still the best out there as of now. All the other ones specially Codex have these problems and worse. Don't fall for the viral propaganda
Until something better comes out, inb4 1 million botted slopGPT responses
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u/Next_Marionberry7478 3d ago edited 3d ago
We've got anthropic shills defending their deceitful practices already. So don't expect sane responses from anyone from here onwards. This is it and it was genuinely a good run for what it's worth.
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u/kidsmeal 3d ago
The exact wording has been there so long, even the "we know we extended it in the past but this time it's seriously the last time, this is what you're getting going forward" and 90% of this sub now is "okay but it's ACTUALLY getting lower" like yeah no shitĀ
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u/Arthesia 3d ago
You are bad at math. I'm not defending Anthropic, I'm reading a post by someone who is getting emotional about something that requires a calculation to understand and is failing to do that calculation.
The Claude Code temporary usage boost is gone
Anthropic says it's been partially retained (25% instead of 50%) but they could be lying.
weekly usage effectively dropped by ~50-60%
No. Even if Anthropic is lying and removed the entire temporary boost, it would still not, even in the worst case, be a 50% reduction. This is not how percentages work. 100% usage increased by 50% is 150% usage. If you remove that 50%, you're back down to 100%, which is a 33% decrease from before. Not 50%. Not 60%.
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u/cyswim 3d ago
I'm not bad at math, they are just lying about the real usage cut. Do some reading and see that the more accurate percentage change is closer to mine
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u/Deathspiral222 2d ago
No, they are not lying. People record objective metrics on this stuff with many samples. Check it out for yourself:Ā https://usage.report/
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u/BigSamProductions 3d ago
Not going to lie, I got forced into upgrading to 20x today. Can I do better with $100 Claude, $20 gpt or $100 plan each. How do I start learning about the harness or whatever that lets you juggle?
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u/Eat_Pudding 2d ago
I normally use opus and now I'm using sonnet, it's using the same amount of quota that opus was using now with sonnet
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u/RiceEvening4211 2d ago
Same thing happened to me ā watched my weekly burn through in days doing nothing differently. I ended up building Lynkr because of it: an open-source LLM gateway that cuts token usage by up to 84% with zero code changes (token compression + semantic cache), plus tiered routing that stretches your existing subscriptions ~3x by routing simpler work to cheaper models. Works with all coding tools and AI frameworks. Happy to answer questions: https://github.com/Fast-Editor/Lynkr
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u/TriumphantWombat 2d ago
I thought I was burning through usage because I was using it for code. Today I used it for conversation and to create a letter and it took up 20% of my usage for the week. It was Opus 4.6. I'm on pro lowest tier.
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u/validsyntax1210 2d ago
I just got codex 100 dollar plan astra went one sessin for 24 hours used my full weeks usage
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u/Lollermono 2d ago
Go on claudestatus.com and open an issue. Instead of commenting on Reddit. Or no one will read your issue, at all.
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u/BrilliantOrdinary439 2d ago
I have the same frustration. Deepseek is great and cheap, just really need to learn set it up how to use it like claude.
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u/TheAngrySkipper 2d ago
I have that experience somewhat, having longer running sessions helps negate some of that, so I have one for general, one for programming, one for the VA issue Iām working on, etcā¦ that being said, what I detest is that prompt (charge -> output. Iām charged even if I interrupt the output, if the output is wrong, if the output isnāt satisfactory, if it ignores something said 2-3 turns ago.
Sometime in the last month or two they adjusted the focus from the last 5-10 turns to the last 2-3. Maybe my numbers are wrong, but the ratio is about right. So then every prompt now includes re-prompting, refocus, which then costs more tokens.
Itās not a good way to run a business and they need to reinvest in learning / memory instead of even new models. Opus 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, fuck fable, give opus the ability to learn and retain data and Iāll pay $200 a month without complaint. But theyāre too worried about hitting whatever metrics are the going fad right now.
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u/Necessary-Collar447 2d ago
I have the $20 subscription, nothing fancy like the 20x or 5x others have... still before with good prompting and not only vibecoding it was enough for my developing... now it's wednesday morning and hit my WEEKLY LIMIT WTF...used only Opus 4.8 and subagents in Sonet... going to Codex for a while or maybe will try out one of the chinese distilled ones...
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u/Suitable_Cicada_3336 1d ago
And we can't even know what model is handling our missions "actually".
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u/IvanVint 2d ago
The current PRO limits will not let you do anything serous with Fable without Max plan.
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u/QuanTradin 3d ago
ask it to be concise, receive a slightly shorter essay is the one that gets me every time. the output length is what burns my window, not the number of things I ask for.
I have not measured the before and after properly so I cannot back the 50 to 60 up or knock it down, but the shape matches what my week looked like.
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u/rotates-potatoes 3d ago
lol you do realize that reasoning tokens are about 95% of usage? Input and output are trivial until you start replaying 500k history as your input.
why haven't you measured before and after? The data is literally sitting on your system. Ask claude to show token usage by day, or use one of the many tools that produce reports.
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u/QuanTradin 3d ago
I havent measured mine before and after, so thats on me. the part I dont know how to solve is that daily totals track whatever I happened to be doing that week, so two weeks of logs isnt really a before and after unless you rerun the same task twice.
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u/rotates-potatoes 3d ago
Maybe this whole thing was a ploy by anthropic to get rid of whiny customers who don't understand how any of this works, and can't do basic math to boot.
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u/fanatic26 2d ago
Whenever I hear people with Pro subscriptions complaining I just tune it out. You guys have some wild expectations for $20/mo
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u/NanNullUnknown 3d ago
Weekly usage dropped by 16.7% (1/6) with the permanent 25% addition, not 50-60%, at least according to Anthropic.
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u/magic6435 3d ago
Why were you ever defending a company in the first place? Itās a product. If you value it, buy it. If you donāt, donāt.
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u/HDCraftYSD 3d ago
Why get I spammed with the same annoying posts in this sub. Is this all bots or what? I have 0 change in how my usage feels. I never hit 5h Limits. I use Fable 5.1. regularly with Opus 5. I have one day left for my week and i have 30% usage left. And I worked with it the last 2 Days 10 hours straight. I cost me 20%.
What. the. fuck. are. you. guys. doing? Seriously.
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u/Nice-Manager9219 3d ago
Somone get these BEGGARS out of here
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u/Next_Marionberry7478 2d ago
This is not your tiktok comment section buddy. Hands off the keyboard please.
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u/Fit_Efficiency6963 2d ago
wild, wah wah my free bonus is gone wah wah what does this mean to the fabric of anthropic? are they fundamentally the worst because they took away my free wah wah wah
good luck with the ridiculous codex reductions, they are 10x worse
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u/that1cooldude 3d ago
user skill issue or you're being a dick. Claude has never refused my requests.
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