Anthropic Max plan
Ranked 2 of 4 AI subscriptions by recommenders
People recommend it for much more usage per dollar than token billing, but critics say it is heavily subsidized and its limits keep changing.
People recommend it for much more usage per dollar than token billing, but critics say it is heavily subsidized and its limits keep changing.
76 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 22
- criticize it
- 54
- approval share
- 29%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 1 month
Median of the 3 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 22 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Much more usage for the price
“Anthropic's own Max (5x) plan where you get way, way more tokens to do with as you please”
Comment from 22 May 2026 in “Microsoft Drops Claude Code After Budget Overrun” “I seem to get a lot more tokens for my $ with the $200 plan from Anthropic or OpenAI”
Comment from 16 Jun 2026 in “SpaceX Is Buying Cursor” “you can get a LONG way on the $20/month plans from OpenAI and Anthropic”
Comment from 21 Dec 2025 in “A guide to local coding models” - Comment from 24 Oct 2026 in “Kimi K3.1 Pro and K3.1 Pro Highspeed”
Cheaper than pay-as-you-go token billing
“The token-based plans usually work out to be much more expensive than the monthly ones.”
Comment from 24 Sep 2026 in “Best LLM for every budget, updated daily” “For the Anthropic Max plans, this can be like a ~90% discount.”
Comment from 20 Feb 2026 in “Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview” “far less cost effective than a Max plan on Anthropic”
Comment from 10 Apr 2026 in “Reallocating $100/Month Claude Code Spend to Zed and OpenRouter” Strong value for coding work
“For coding $200 month plan is such a good value from anthropic”
Comment from 22 Apr 2026 in “Qwen3.6-27B: Flagship-Level Coding in a 27B Dense Model” “especially when you're taking advantage of the $200 plan”
Comment from 12 Apr 2026 in “Anthropic silently downgraded cache TTL from 1h → 5M on March 6th” “a lot of developers would rather walk than code manually”
Comment from 24 Apr 2026 in “Google to invest up to $40B in Anthropic in cash and compute” Enough for heavy daily use
“it was fun and i did a lot in that 4 weeks”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “Notes on DeepSeek” “it's enough for daily work”
Comment from 26 May 2026 in “Using AI to write better code more slowly”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Covert changes to existing subscriptions
“bait-and-switch, covert-tweaks-to-existing-suscriptions-to-increase-token-use, rag-pulling, black-patterns, lock-in”
Comment from 25 Apr 2026 in “Anthropic now requires Pro Plans to enable/purchase extra usage for Opus” “Those new "free" API credits are another nudge towards getting people away from subscriptions imo.”
Comment from 31 Oct 2026 in “Anthropic is renaming their Max plans” “Next they’ll slowly reduce how much CC usage you can get out of the $100 Max plan”
Comment from 21 Apr 2026 in “Claude Code removed from Anthropic's Pro plan” Overpriced and misleadingly marketed
“Every person who signs up for a pro subscription on that advertising has cause to sue for being miss-sold the product.”
Comment from 22 Apr 2026 in “Claude Code removed from Anthropic's Pro plan” “the $200 Anthropic plan is not significantly better than the $200 OpenAI plan, it's just the same Marketing non-sense”
Comment from 29 Sep 2026 in “GPT 6.1 Sol: Near-Astra intelligence for a fifth of the price” “It really opened my eyes to what they expect to charge people.. wayyyy overpriced.”
Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “Qwen3.8 Max now ranked as the best overall model by agentic index” Trust eroded by misuse and policy
“Anthropic seems to do next to nothing to stop people from using their tool being used for bad stuff”
Comment from 13 Oct 2026 in “Strengthening our defenses against distillation attacks” “All the goodwill earned from taking a stand against the DoD seemingly forgotten in a month.”
Comment from 21 Apr 2026 in “Claude Code removed from Anthropic's Pro plan” “given the inability to actually audit what you produce, why should we trust Anthropic?”
Comment from 12 Apr 2026 in “Pro Max 5x Quota Exhausted in 1.5 Hours Despite Moderate Usage” Unclear or misleading usage limits
“Anthropic apparently being extremely misleading about what the 20x plan really means”
Comment from 2 Sep 2026 in “Qwen3.8-Max” “Anthropic 20x plan only refers to 5h interval. Not the weekly quota. Very sketchy”
Comment from 30 Sep 2026 in “GPT 6.1 Sol: Near-Astra intelligence for a fifth of the price”
Other AI subscriptions people recommend
The three most recommended other AI subscriptions, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google AI | 202 | 524 | 28% | 13 | 3 mo17 owners | — |
| Anthropic Max planThis page | 22 | 54 | 29% | 9 | 1 mo3 owners | — |
| OpenAI ChatGPT Plus | 11 | 1 | 92% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Charm Hyper | 8 | 12 | 40% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 79 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Those new "free" API credits are another nudge towards getting people away from subscriptions imo.”
“offer $200 in API credits instead of $100 as before”
“it feels like it's 5x as much as other $20 plans.”
“Anthropic seems to do next to nothing to stop people from using their tool being used for bad stuff”
“Anthropic 20x plan only refers to 5h interval. Not the weekly quota. Very sketchy”
“Way easier to do with Anthropic plans”
“the $200 Anthropic plan is not significantly better than the $200 OpenAI plan, it's just the same Marketing non-sense”
“The token-based plans usually work out to be much more expensive than the monthly ones.”
“Fable just destroys it. If you stick to Opus and below, the $200 plan goes from”
“I could consistently burn my weekly limits in ~36h on Opus, but it's hard to do it in less than ~72h with GPT.”
“Anthropic apparently being extremely misleading about what the 20x plan really means”
“As someone enjoying a hilariously subsidized Max plan, I understand that”
“It really opened my eyes to what they expect to charge people.. wayyyy overpriced.”
“Their 200 USD tier is pretty good”
“I'm on the verge of cancelling my anthropic $20 plan since it's come out.”
“I seem to get a lot more tokens for my $ with the $200 plan from Anthropic or OpenAI”
“SemiAnalysis pushed this to the limit and managed to get $8,000 of tokens from a $200/month Anthropic plan”
“it was fun and i did a lot in that 4 weeks”
“these plans are a fantastic deal”
“its only a great deal because it is heavily subsidized”
“it's enough for daily work”
“Anthropic's own Max (5x) plan where you get way, way more tokens to do with as you please”
“I just went with their 100 USD Max tier instead”
“Max x20 usage is so cheap, that it's pretty obviously subsidized.”
“bait-and-switch, covert-tweaks-to-existing-suscriptions-to-increase-token-use, rag-pulling, black-patterns, lock-in”
“a lot of developers would rather walk than code manually”
“For coding $200 month plan is such a good value from anthropic”
“My startup just rolled out MAX plans for our engineers.”
“Every person who signs up for a pro subscription on that advertising has cause to sue for being miss-sold the product.”
“big fan of A/B tests that dehumanize the consumer into some kind of money making lab rat funnel”
“Next they’ll slowly reduce how much CC usage you can get out of the $100 Max plan”
“All the goodwill earned from taking a stand against the DoD seemingly forgotten in a month.”
“given the inability to actually audit what you produce, why should we trust Anthropic?”
“I'm paying $200 a month for a premium product that I expect premium service for.”
“especially when you're taking advantage of the $200 plan”
“far less cost effective than a Max plan on Anthropic”
“For the Anthropic Max plans, this can be like a ~90% discount.”
“They want answers to be just good enough to keep you using it, but bad enough that you're pushed towards buying the higher tier.”
“Anthropic's optimization target is getting you to spend tokens, not produce the right answer.”
“you can get a LONG way on the $20/month plans from OpenAI and Anthropic”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.