Anthropic sued over hidden usage limits on $100–$200 Claude Max plans

A federal lawsuit filed June 14 accuses Anthropic of misleading subscribers about what its most expensive Claude plans actually deliver. Karl Kahn, a Washington DC customer, claims the Max 5x ($100/month) and Max 20x ($200/month) tiers fall well short of their advertised usage allowances. The complaint seeks class-action status covering all US Claude Max subscribers since the plans launched in 2025.

The complaint

Kahn says he upgraded to Max 20x specifically to use Claude Code, Anthropic's AI coding tool. During one five-hour session, he burned through roughly 15% of his entire weekly quota — a rate that would exhaust the plan in under three days of moderate use. The lawsuit argues that the real limits are difficult to determine in advance and are materially lower than what Anthropic promotes.

Anthropic's usage cap system has two layers, per Engadget: a five-hour rolling window and a separate weekly ceiling. The company introduced the weekly limits on August 28, 2025, after some users ran Claude Code continuously. Anthropic said the change affected fewer than 5% of subscribers. Kahn's legal team argues the complexity of the dual-cap structure makes it effectively impossible for ordinary subscribers to predict when they'll hit a wall. Anthropic declined to comment on the lawsuit.

The broader picture

The case lands as AI subscription pricing faces wider scrutiny. OpenAI's ChatGPT Plus, Google Gemini Advanced, and Perplexity Pro all sit at $20/month and also use tiered usage models — but Claude Max costs five to ten times more, making the gap between promise and practice harder to ignore, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Claude Code is the specific flashpoint here. The tool is computationally intensive and can chew through usage allowances far faster than standard chat queries. Anthropic has acknowledged this, but hasn't publicly updated how it communicates the real-world limits to new subscribers paying premium prices.

What happens next

The lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of California under US consumer protection statutes and seeks refunds and damages. No similar complaints have been filed in UK or EU markets yet, though the subscription terms and pricing structure are effectively identical outside the US. A court ruling — or a settlement — could push Anthropic to rewrite how it describes limits across all markets.