Anthropic sued for allegedly hiding how Claude usage limits are calculated

Anthropic, the creator of Claude, Claude Code, and the now-banned Fable 5 model, is facing a class-action lawsuit that alleges it misled subscribers about plan usage limits.

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The suit specifically states that subscribers of the two highest-paid tiers, Max 5x and Max 20x, have usage limits below what the company advertises. The suit, filed by Karl Khan in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, claims Claude's actual session limits for the Max 20x plan are about "just six to eight times the usage of Pro," with the Max 5x plan being "just three-and-a-half times the usage of Pro.

Khan writes in the lawsuit that, after upgrading through Anthropic's subscription tiers,, he noticed a discrepancy between what Anthropic advertised and what he was able to achieve with his weekly data allocation. The filing goes on to argue that Anthropic has intentionally made information around its usage limits ambiguous, with the suit claiming Anthropic's website, "is a black box, without any meaningful description of how usage is calculated." It adds that Anthropic doesn't clearly define what constitutes a single session.

Anthropic explains on its website how customers can get the most out of Claude models and stretch their allocated usage as far as possible. But the company doesn't specify what constitutes a single session. Tactics to reduce your usage limits include using the correct model for the correct task. For example, if I was using Claude for everyday questions, small development builds, or quick work, use Sonnet; it's fast, cheap, and capable.

However, if I were planning a massive code build, such as a new UI for a custom app, Anthropic recommends using Opus to plan the build, then Sonnet to carry out the writing. Additionally, ensuring users /clear between tasks is a great way to maintain low usage limits.