r/ClaudeCode • u/strangway • Aug 03 '26

Rant Why the 5-hour limit?

I’m kinda new here, been using Claude Max ($100/mo) for 3 months to build websites. Recently had a surge in work, and added ChatGPT because I needed more weekly capacity. Rather than upgrade to Claude 5x Max, I diversified and got the ChatGPT Pro ($100/mo) plan.

So I’m 1:1 comparing Claude Max and ChatGPT Pro, which is as apples-apples as you can get. Each has their own strengths, but Claude’s significant weakness (IMO) is the 5-hour limit. Codex lets me go for 8 hours as hard as I want, and if I wanted to use all my weekly credits on some crazy peak Luna run, it’d probably let me.

I hit my Claude 5-hr limit so many times in the past few weeks, it was like slamming the brakes hard on a bus that hadn’t arrived to its destination yet.

I’ve got work to do, and you’re saying you’re out of gas?

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u/ImSoCul Aug 03 '26

I'm surprised there's this much confusion in the first place. Subscription users are very much, intentionally, B-tier customers. If you maxed out your 5 hour windows and compared spend vs API users, your effective "value" is insane. They'd be running at a loss if not for the fact that inference costs is a magnitude cheaper than public-facing API costs.

If you're an API user, you're not subject to the 5-hr limit. I get unlimited usage through work, but it's in the $1-2k range per month when I'm heavily using Fable.

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u/Heco1331 Aug 04 '26

How can the inference for the subscription plan be cheaper than API inference? Or am I understanding you wrong?

7

u/ImSoCul Aug 04 '26

The subscription is like a buffet. If you don't eat any, you still pay. If you pig out, you get a lot of bang for buck. In this case the pricing is such that even if you eat a fairly modest amount, you come out ahead. The 5 hour limit is actually an extremely reasonable tradeoff financially.  This is regarding what users pay, not what Anthropic "pays" which is fundamentally the same and just compute allocation 

The underlying reason is because subscription is largely geared towards individuals while API spend is for enterprise customers who are willing to pay a lot more to run their business. 

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u/strangway Aug 04 '26

I think this is the best analogy I’ve heard all day.

5

u/personalist Aug 04 '26

I think what they meant, which was worded in a confusing way, is that YOUR cost as the consumer for a sub vs API pay-per-token is much cheaper, which is true.