# Anthropic Renames Claude Max 20x as Ultra and Drops the Five-Hour Limit for Verified Accounts, Keeping the Weekly Cap

Times of AI Desk · 2026-10-31 · Products

[https://timesof.ai/2026/10/anthropic-claude-max-20x-renamed-ultra-five-hour-limit](https://timesof.ai/2026/10/anthropic-claude-max-20x-renamed-ultra-five-hour-limit)

> Anthropic has renamed its $200-a-month Max 20x plan as Ultra, with no price change, and removed the rolling five-hour usage limit for Ultra accounts it has automatically verified, its help center says. Ultra keeps a weekly cap of 10 times Pro's usage plus a separate weekly limit for Fable; Max 5x is now simply Max, Notebookcheck reports. Unverified accounts keep a temporary limit.

Anthropic has not given its top subscribers more Claude; it has changed when they can spend it. Dropping the five-hour window on the renamed Ultra plan suits long agentic sessions that could previously hit the cap partway through a working day, while the weekly cap that actually bounds cost stays in place. It lands a day after OpenAI [doubled Work and Codex allowances on ChatGPT Pro](https://timesof.ai/2026/10/openai-pro-limits-doubled-pro-200-cut-reversed), so both labs are competing on usage terms for their heaviest users rather than on list price.

## What changed

The Max 20x plan is now called Ultra, and existing Max 20x subscribers move to it automatically with no price change, according to Anthropic's help center. Ultra costs $200 a month for web subscriptions, and mobile pricing may differ, the page says. Max 5x has been renamed Max and still costs $100 a month, Notebookcheck reports, quoting Anthropic's announcement on X.

Verified Ultra accounts no longer have a five-hour limit, the help center says. Ultra includes 10 times the Pro plan's usage every week, with a weekly limit across all models and a separate weekly limit for Fable, Anthropic's top model, according to the page.

## Who counts as verified

Anthropic says it verifies Ultra accounts automatically using factors such as account and payment history, to prevent fraud and abuse. Accounts that are not yet verified keep a temporary limit until verification clears, and verifying a phone number at checkout does not remove it, the help center says. Anthropic also says it may limit usage in other ways, such as weekly and monthly caps or model and feature limits, at its discretion.

## Limits

- Anthropic does not publish numeric limits; "10 times the Pro plan's usage" is relative. The help page does not explain how the "20x" in the old name relates to the new "10 times" weekly figure.
- Verification criteria are not spelled out beyond account and payment history, and Anthropic gives no timeline for clearing new accounts.
- We have not read Anthropic's X announcement directly; the Max renaming and the $100 price rely on Notebookcheck's quotation of it.

## Sources

- [Claude Help Center: What is the Ultra plan? (accessed October 31, 2026)](https://support.claude.com/en/articles/17728952-what-is-the-ultra-plan)
- [Notebookcheck: Claude Ultra drops the five-hour limit for verified accounts (October 31, 2026)](https://www.notebookcheck.net/Claude-Ultra-drops-the-five-hour-limit-for-verified-accounts.1438692.0.html)