Claude Ultra Plan: Max 20x Renamed, Max vs Ultra Compared
Anthropic has renamed Max 20x as Ultra and Max 5x as plain Max, at unchanged prices of £180 ($200) and £90 ($100) a month. Ultra drops the five-hour limit for verified accounts and gives 10x Pro's weekly usage. What changed, which to pick, and how both compare with ChatGPT Pro.
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Anthropic has renamed its two top individual Claude plans. The Claude Ultra plan replaces Max 20x at the same £180 ($200) a month. It has no five-hour limit for verified accounts, gives 10x Pro's weekly usage and includes $200 a month in API credits.
The £90 ($100) Max 5x tier is now simply Max. It gives 5x Pro usage every five hours and every week, with $100 a month in API credits.
We checked every plan detail in this post against Anthropic's own pages on 1 Nov 2026. Our records from 26 Oct 2026 still showed Max 5x and Max 20x.
Prices have not changed. What has changed is how the top plan's limits are measured, and that matters more than the names. This guide covers what changed, how Claude Max vs Ultra works out in practice, and how both compare with ChatGPT Pro.
What Anthropic Changed
Anthropic's individual plans are now Free, Pro, Max and Ultra. The two top tiers keep their prices. Both get new names, and the top tier also gets a new way of measuring its limits.
What Happened to Claude Max 20x?
Anthropic's help article on the Claude Ultra plan puts it plainly: "The Max 20x plan is now called the Ultra plan. Existing Max 20x subscribers move to Ultra automatically, with no price change."
So if you paid £180 ($200) a month for Claude Max 20x, you are now on Ultra at the same price. But the name is not the only change.
On 26 Oct 2026, Anthropic's Max help article said Max 20x "includes 20 times the Pro plan's per-session usage allowance". Ultra has no per-session figure at all. Anthropic sells it on its weekly allowance instead: "10x Pro usage every week".
Max 5x Is Now Just Max
The £90 ($100) tier has lost its "5x" and is now simply called Max. Its usage is now stated on both clocks: "5x Pro usage every 5 hours and every week".
That is more than Anthropic said before. On 26 Oct, it gave Max 5x a per-session multiple of five. It said a weekly limit also applied, but gave no multiple for it.
What the Claude Ultra Plan Includes
Anthropic describes Ultra as "For your longest tasks". It includes everything in Max, plus three things:
- No 5-hour limit: This applies to verified accounts only. A weekly limit still applies.
- 10x Pro usage every week: That is twice the weekly multiple on Max.
- $200 a month in API credits: Up from $100 on Max, for building on the Claude Platform.
Everything else carries over from Max. That includes Claude Code, early access to advanced Claude features and priority access at high traffic times. It also includes Fable, Anthropic's top model, for "up to half your weekly limit".
Claude Ultra is billed monthly only. It costs £180 a month in the UK, including 20% VAT, or $200 a month in the US before tax.
No Five-Hour Limit for Verified Accounts
The headline feature comes with a condition. Anthropic says it automatically verifies Ultra accounts "using factors like your account and payment history". Until then, "a temporary limit applies". Anthropic removes it automatically once the account is verified, so there is nothing you need to do.
One detail is easy to miss. Verifying your phone number at checkout is a separate step, and it does not remove the temporary limit. So a new subscriber should not count on having no five-hour limit from day one.
The weekly limit stays. Claude Ultra has "a weekly usage limit that applies across all models, and a separate weekly limit for Fable". Anthropic also says it may limit usage in other ways, "such as weekly and monthly caps or model and feature usage", at its discretion.
Why 10x a Week Can't Be Compared With 20x a Session
It is tempting to read 10x as a cut from 20x. That reading does not hold, because the two numbers measure different things:
- Max 20x: It gave 20 times Pro's allowance per five-hour session. It also had a weekly limit, but Anthropic did not publish that limit as a multiple of Pro.
- Ultra: It gives 10 times Pro's allowance per week, with no five-hour session limit for verified accounts.
Anthropic does not say how many five-hour sessions make up Pro's weekly allowance. It also says there is "no fixed message count" on any plan. So one figure cannot be converted into the other.
The published numbers cannot tell you whether Ultra gives more or less than Max 20x did. What you can compare is Max with Ultra today, because both are now measured against Pro's weekly usage.
Claude Max vs Ultra at a Glance
| Feature | Max | Ultra |
|---|---|---|
| UK price | £90 a month, including 20% VAT | £180 a month, including 20% VAT |
| US price | $100 a month, before tax | $200 a month, before tax |
| Five-hour limit | 5x Pro usage every five hours | No five-hour limit for verified accounts |
| Weekly limit | 5x Pro usage every week | 10x Pro usage every week |
| Fable, the top model | Up to half your weekly limit | Up to half your weekly limit |
| Monthly API credits | $100 a month for the Claude Platform | $200 a month for the Claude Platform |
| Billing | Monthly subscription only | Monthly subscription only |
The pattern is simple. Ultra costs exactly twice as much as Max. Its weekly allowance and its API credits are exactly twice Max's, too. The one thing that does not scale in proportion is the five-hour limit, which Ultra removes for verified accounts.
So the real question in Claude Max vs Ultra is whether the five-hour window gets in your way. If it does not, Max gives you the same weekly usage per pound.
Monthly API Credits on Max and Ultra
Both plans include monthly credits for the Claude Platform: $100 on Max and $200 on Ultra. Anthropic's pricing page marks them as new, but the amounts are not. Our 26 Oct 2026 records already showed $100 a month on Max 5x and $200 on Max 20x.
Our round-up of every Claude release in October 2026 covered the credits when they arrived. They are for building your own apps and agents. According to Anthropic's guide to monthly API credits, they work with:
- The Claude API: The Messages API and the Message Batches API.
- The Console: The Playground in the Claude Console.
- Agents: Claude Managed Agents and the Claude Agent SDK.
They do not cover interactive Claude Code in the terminal, IDE, desktop or web. They do not cover extra usage in Claude, Claude Code or Claude Cowork either. Nor do they work on Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud Vertex AI or Microsoft Foundry.
A few rules matter for budgeting:
- Seven-day wait: New subscribers can claim once they have been on an eligible plan for seven days.
- No rollover: Unused credits expire at the end of each billing cycle.
- One organisation: You link a single Claude Console organisation, and you can't change it yourself.
- Hard stop: If the credits run out and the organisation has no other credits, API requests stop until your next monthly credits arrive. Usage is never charged to your Claude plan.
- Upgrades: Moving from Max to Ultra gives you prorated credits right away, then $200 each billing cycle.
For scale, Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs $2/$10 per million input/output tokens. At that output rate, Max's $100 covers 10 million output tokens a month, and Ultra's $200 covers 20 million. You can model your own mix of models and tokens with our AI API pricing calculator.
Claude Code on Max and Ultra
Claude Code is included in both plans, and Anthropic's Claude Code page now sells them as Max and Ultra. It calls Max "Great value for everyday use in larger codebases". For Ultra, it promises "Even more Claude Code included in your Ultra plan."
Claude Code shares your plan's limits. Anthropic says all activity in Claude and Claude Code "counts against the same limits". This is where the missing five-hour window matters most.
On Max, a long coding run can reach the five-hour limit partway through a response. Anthropic's Claude Code plan guide says Claude Code may then keep working briefly to finish the step in progress.
Verified Ultra accounts have no five-hour limit, so the wrap-up does not apply to them. That makes Ultra the better fit for long coding runs.
Anthropic's own advice to Max users is to "Consider upgrading to the Ultra plan if you consistently hit limits." The monthly API credits cannot pay for interactive Claude Code on either plan.
Past your limits, the options are usage credits at standard API rates, a Claude Console account, or waiting for the reset.
Claude Ultra Price Against ChatGPT Pro
OpenAI sells ChatGPT Pro at the same two price points, plus a third. Our ChatGPT plans page sets Max against Pro 100 and Ultra against Pro 200:
- Claude Max vs ChatGPT Pro 100: Both cost $100 a month. In the UK, Max is £90 including VAT, and Pro 100 is from £89.
- Claude Ultra vs ChatGPT Pro 200: Both cost $200 a month. Claude Ultra is £180 in the UK.
- ChatGPT Pro 500: At $500 a month, it has no Claude equivalent among the individual plans.
The five-hour limit is where the plans differ most. OpenAI says Pro 100, Pro 200 and Pro 500 "currently have no five-hour usage limit in Work and Codex". On Claude, Max keeps its five-hour limit, and only Ultra drops it, for verified accounts.
So at $100 a month, only ChatGPT Pro is free of a five-hour window in its coding tools. At $200, neither has one, as long as your Ultra account is verified.
Comparing allowances directly is harder. Anthropic states Max and Ultra as multiples of Claude Pro.
OpenAI does not publish a multiple of Plus usage for Pro 100 or Pro 200. It says only that Pro 200 includes more usage than Pro 100. Both vendors sell these tiers monthly only.
If you also build on the API, our Claude vs ChatGPT API price comparison sets the two vendors' models side by side.
Which Plan Should You Pick?
- Stay on Pro (£18 or $20 a month): Pro suits you if you rarely hit its limits. It also offers annual billing, which Max and Ultra do not.
- Choose Max (£90 or $100): Max suits you if you work with Claude through the day and keep running into Pro's limits. Anthropic pitches it "For all-day work".
- Choose Ultra (£180 or $200): Ultra suits you if the five-hour window is what stops you, for example on long Claude Code runs. It also suits you if you regularly reach Max's weekly limit.
- Already on Max 20x: You have moved to Ultra at the same price. Check Settings > Usage to see whether your account is verified yet.
If you are unsure, start on Max. Upgrades take effect right away, and Anthropic credits unused time on your current plan toward the new one. Downgrades take effect at the end of your billing period.
Fun Fact: The Missing Bar That Proves You're Verified
The way to check that an Ultra account is verified is to look for something that is not there. Open Settings > Usage. If there is no Current session bar, your account is verified and has no five-hour limit. On Claude Ultra, an empty space is the upgrade.
The Bottom Line on the Claude Ultra Plan
The Claude Ultra plan is Max 20x under a new name, at the same £180 ($200), with its limits redrawn. It swaps the per-session multiple for 10x Pro's weekly usage and, once your account is verified, no five-hour limit at all.
Max keeps its £90 ($100) price and now states 5x Pro on both the five-hour and weekly clocks. Pick Ultra if you need long, uninterrupted sessions or twice Max's weekly usage. Otherwise, Max gives you the same weekly usage per pound.
You can track every Claude tier, and how each one compares with ChatGPT, on our Claude plans page.
