Claude Max vs Ultra (2026): the $100 and $200 plans compared

Short answer: Max ($100 a month) gives five times Pro's usage, every 5 hours and every week. Ultra ($200 a month) gives ten times Pro's usage every week, twice Max's, and has no 5-hour limit once Anthropic has verified your account. Both include Claude Code. Pick Max if you hit Pro's limits most days; pick Ultra if the 5-hour limit is what stops you, because you run long tasks or several agents at once.

Ultra is the plan that used to be called Max 20x; the $100 plan, once Max 5x, is now just Max. Anthropic renamed them at the end of October 2026, with no price change, and moved existing subscribers over automatically. Everything below is from Anthropic's own pricing page and Help Center, checked on November 10, 2026, the day after Fable 5.2 came out.

Claude Pro vs Max vs Ultra at a glance

	Pro	Max	Ultra
Price	$20 a month, or $17 a month billed yearly	$100 a month	$200 a month
Usage	The baseline	5x Pro, every 5 hours and every week	10x Pro every week
5-hour limit	Yes	Yes	None, for verified accounts
Weekly limit	Yes	Yes, plus a separate one for Fable	Yes, plus a separate one for Fable
Fable 5.2	Paid with usage credits (included up to half the weekly limit in the launch week, to November 16)	Included, up to half your weekly limit	Included, up to half your weekly limit
Free Fable resets (launch offer)	One, until November 16	One to three, until March 8, 2027	One to three, until March 8, 2027
Claude Code	Yes	Yes	Yes
Monthly API credits	No	$100	$200

"Up to half your weekly limit" isn't extra usage: Fable draws from the same weekly limit, just faster, and past half you switch models or pay with usage credits. More in Claude Fable 5.2.

The API credits are for building on the Claude API: they can't be used in Claude Code or the Claude apps. And the limits are shared: your Claude chats and Claude Code draw from the same allowance.

What "no 5-hour limit" means

On Pro and Max, a session limit resets five hours after your first message, on top of the weekly limit. Ultra drops the session limit, so you can use your week's allowance as fast as you like: a whole day of agents in one go, if that's what you need.

It needs a verified account. Anthropic verifies Ultra accounts by itself, from your account and payment history. Until then a temporary 5-hour limit applies, and it's lifted automatically; there's nothing to apply for.
How to check: open Settings → Usage on claude.ai. If there's no Current session bar, your account is verified.
The weekly limit stays. Ultra isn't unlimited: one weekly limit counts every model, and Fable has its own. Anthropic also says it may add limits to manage capacity.

Is Ultra worth twice the price?

In usage, yes: Ultra's weekly allowance is twice Max's (10x Pro against 5x), for twice the price. What you really pay for is the missing 5-hour limit. So:

Pick Pro if you use Claude Code a few hours a week, or alongside another AI.
Pick Max if you hit Pro's limits most days, but work in normal sessions with breaks in between.
Pick Ultra if the 5-hour limit is what stops you: long autonomous tasks, several agents in parallel, or Claude Code's ultracode, which runs dozens of subagents for one task. Also if you run out of Max's weekly limit before the week is over.
Not sure? Start on Max. Moving up to Ultra later is charged pro rata for the rest of your billing month.

Before you pay for more, it's worth trying the habits in how to stop hitting Claude Code's usage limits: much of a long session's usage is Claude re-reading the conversation.

Other ways past a limit

Usage credits. On any paid plan you can keep working past a limit at standard API prices, with a monthly cap you set (Settings → Usage, or /usage-credits in Claude Code).
A second AI. A ChatGPT plan gives you Codex, with limits of its own: when Claude runs out, Codex can carry on with the same AGENTS.md. See Codex vs Claude Code and Codex usage limits. ChatGPT Pro, from $100, has no 5-hour limit either.
An API key. Pay per token instead of a plan. Careful: if ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is set in your environment, Claude Code uses it instead of your subscription, and you pay API prices.

Upgrading, and billing

Max to Ultra: charged pro rata for the rest of your billing cycle.
From yearly Pro: what's left of your year becomes account credit, if the billing addresses match.
Yearly billing: only Pro has a yearly discount. Max and Ultra are $100 and $200 a month either way, and Ultra is sold by the month only.
On your phone: prices through the App Store or Google Play may differ.

In Morphy

Morphy runs Claude Code next to Codex, Gemini, Copilot and other AIs, on your own Claude plan. Settings → Plan usage shows how much of your Claude plan you've used and when each limit resets, next to your other AIs' plans. When a limit hits, a chat offers Send when it resets, or Continue with another AI, which takes the conversation along. See Plan usage.

Questions

What happened to Max 20x? It's called Ultra now, at the same $200 a month. Subscribers moved over automatically, and verified accounts no longer have a 5-hour limit.

Is Claude Ultra unlimited? No. It has no 5-hour limit once your account is verified, but a weekly limit across all models still applies, and a separate one for Fable.

How much more usage does Ultra give than Max? Twice as much each week: ten times Pro's weekly usage, against five times for Max.

Does Claude Max include Claude Code? Yes. Pro, Max and Ultra all include Claude Code, and its usage counts toward the same limits as your chats.

Can I use Max's or Ultra's API credits in Claude Code? No. They're only for the Claude API.

How do I know if my Ultra account is verified? In Settings → Usage: no Current session bar means it's verified.

References

Anthropic: plans and pricing
Claude Help Center: what is the Ultra plan?, what is the Max plan?, how usage limits work, use Claude Code with your Pro, Max, or Ultra plan, usage credits