[FEATURE] Max plan usage limits silently reduced since Claude 4.6 release

[anbeckham]

Preflight Checklist

• I have searched existing requests and this feature hasn't been requested yet
• This is a single feature request (not multiple features)

Problem Statement

Problem

Since the Claude 4.6 release, I've been burning through my weekly usage cap dramatically faster on the Max plan ($200/month). This is not increased token consumption on my end — I audited my entire tooling stack looking for rogue API calls or background token drain. There are none. The caps themselves were lowered without a word.

There is zero transparency around this:

1. The actual limits are never published — just a vague percentage with no denominator
2. No notification when they change — you find out by slamming into a wall mid-week
3. No changelog, no announcement, nothing — paying customers are left guessing

Impact

I'm paying $200/month. That's not a casual subscription. Silently pulling back what that buys is not okay.

• I wasted hours investigating whether my own tooling was causing excess usage — it wasn't. It was a quiet cap reduction.
• I can't scope my work for the week because I don't know what "100%" means anymore
• I can't trust that the workflow I rely on today will still be viable next week
• Every major model release apparently comes with a stealth nerf to what Max subscribers get

Proposed Solution

• Publish concrete rate limits for each plan tier. Stop hiding behind percentages.
• Notify users when limits change — email, dashboard banner, anything. Silence is disrespectful.
• Show actual usage numbers, not just percentages — "75% of ?" is useless
• Changelog for limit adjustments — especially after model releases when costs change
• If you need to reduce limits, say so upfront — don't let paying customers discover it by getting cut off

Alternative Solutions

No response

Priority

High - Significant impact on productivity

Feature Category

Documentation

Use Case Example

No response

Additional Context

No response

[hoverlover]

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Seeing the same thing here over the last few days. Something seems to have changed.

[nmtitov]

I see the same on MAX 100$/month tariff. Within 15 min session and 10 short messages I got 40% of my 5 hour limit used. Before that I have never ever hit limits with my usage patterns.

[Leksat]

Same here. I'm on $100 at the moment, but it feels like $20 which I tried recently.

Usually my session limit was 20-30% max, but now it ends after 2 hours. It's impossible to work like that.

[thomasmilian2]

Same issue here. Max 5x plan ($100/month), using Claude Code with claude-opus-4-6.

I tracked my token usage across sessions over the past 10 days. Before the 4.6 release I could work intensively all day (2000-4000 messages, 200-350M tokens/day) without ever hitting the limit. Now I'm hitting the cap with significantly less usage (~1000 messages, ~85M tokens).

Daily usage comparison from my session logs:

Date	Total tokens	Messages	Hit limit?
Feb 16	~345M	4,132	No
Feb 20	~228M	2,853	No
Feb 23	~196M	2,020	No
Feb 26	~85M	~983	Yes

The limits were clearly reduced without any notice. Transparency would be greatly appreciated.

[Leksat]

@thomasmilian2 Thanks for the idea. In my logs I see daily usage up to 174M tokens without hitting any limits. For today the total is 83M. And I hit the session limit twice already!

[thomasmilian2]

@Leksat I can confirm I've encountered similar issues. I've already hit the session usage limit twice today. Currently, I'm at 59% usage after only an hour of work. The usage experience was much better before.

[Leksat]

Hm. Interesting:

• Before: never hitting the 5h session limit
• Now: hitting the session limit in 2h

So it feels like the limit was reduced by 3 times.

If Anthropic had reduced the limits for all subscribers, they would likely have done it gradually, little by little. Given that we see only a small number of reports on this issue, I suspect that we might be the lucky ones selected for the A/B test in the "what will happen if we reduce the limits dramatically" category.

[nmtitov]

Just an observation.
For me I only see this when using Opus (doesn't matter 4.5 or 4.6).
With Sonnet I am still able to make as many requests as I used to do with Opus before today without any noticeable % of usage increase.

[vrushesh-reoracle]

@nmtitov Thanks for the suggestion, I have been burning through my usage today which lead to finding this issue. Drastic reduction in limits. Switching to Sonnet for majority of my asks has helped reduce the rate at which I am gaining % usage. Hadn't hit a limit in over 6 weeks and now I'm slowing down in order to preserve usage.

[dnickerson]

Same for me. No change in how I'm using claude. I see usage increase without doing anything. This is very annoying. Let's have truth in advertising.

[SHIMODA-HIROYUKI]

I'm on a Team plan with a Premium seat. Starting February 26, my usage limit consumption has increased dramatically without any change on my end.

Before Feb 26: Normal usage throughout the day, rarely hitting limits.
Since Feb 26: Reaching 100% within a short session. Today, 6% was consumed by just ~10 light conversational prompts (no coding, no heavy tasks) using Opus 4.6 via Claude Code.

[awkoy]

same issue, feels like I am on Pro account again, exactly the same limits (max 100$ plan)