Anthropic Launches a $200 Claude Max Plan for AI Power Users
It’s meant for power users who’ve been running up against the limits of the existing $20 Pro plan.
If you’ve ever had Claude shut down mid-task because you hit a usage limit, you’re not alone. Using it as your daily thought partner when it cuts off can ruin your work momentum. Anthropic has been hearing the same frustration from power users for months. Now, they’ve finally responded with a new subscription tier: Claude Max.
It’s meant for power users who’ve been running up against the limits of the existing Pro plan, which costs $20 a month. With Max, users can pay either $100 or $200 per month for way more usage, offering five times more at the lower tier and twenty times more at the higher one.
The biggest issue has been Claude’s large context window. It can handle big conversations, reference docs, even codebases, which is great — but every time you send a message, the entire convo gets reprocessed.. That eats up usage fast, even on Pro. The new Max tier is meant to fix that bottleneck.
Along with more usage, Max also includes priority access during peak hours, larger outputs, and early access to new features and models. Anthropic is clearly positioning this as a way for individuals, mostly professionals, to get major access to Claude without having to go all-in on an enterprise contract.
The launch comes on the heels of its Claude 3.7 Sonnet release, its most advanced model to date with reasoning capabilities.
Ogbonda Chivumnovu
And yeah, it’s not subtle that the AI company is competing with OpenAI's $200-per-month ChatGPT Pro plan launched last December. That plan also offers “unlimited” use of its top models, including GPT-4 Turbo. Anthropic’s Max plan lands right on that price point, and it is obviously not a coincidence.
This underscores a larger trend in the AI chatbot industry. Running these models with long context windows and advanced reasoning burns serious compute power. These premium tiers are how AI companies keep things sustainable while giving serious users the headroom they need.
Anthropic is betting this new tier will not only satisfy frustrated Pro users but also bring in serious revenue to cater to costs. OpenAI reportedly added $300 million in annualized revenue shortly after launching its $200 plan. If Anthropic can tap into that same appetite, Claude Max might be a game-changer.
Claude Max is live now in all regions. If you’ve been maxing out your Pro plan and need more room to think, this might be your move.
Kelechi Edeh
