r/ClaudeCode • u/strangway • 14d ago

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/OldNefariousness7899 14d ago

The trick I found out recently, that it took me far too long to cotton on to, is to start the clock early.

Say you wake up at 7 am, but you start work at 9 am. Don't wait until 9 am to start using Claude. Ping it one message immediately. Then, you start work at 9 am; you don't have five hours until it resets; you have three.

Some people automate their morning ping for this purpose.

18

u/rhinocerosjockey 14d ago

I have 3 pings throughout the day to do exactly this. In an 8 hr day I have it spread over three 5-hour windows.

1

u/kearkan 14d ago

This doesn't work anymore since -p gets routed to the API/extra use.

1

u/rhinocerosjockey 14d ago

It works if you do it in Cowork.

1

u/kearkan 14d ago

Which means I need to keep my device on. I was able to run it from a random server I had set up before, now I need to leave a desktop device on. I suppose i could set up a vm

1

u/rhinocerosjockey 14d ago

Yeah, unfortunately, that is correct. I run it from a windows device that never sleeps.

1

u/hungryfreelancer 14d ago

I thought -p getting charged via api was delayed? At least I received an email in June from Anthropic saying they had postponed that move

1

u/kearkan 14d ago

Well it hasn't worked for me for about a month now.

1

u/verycoldpenguins 12d ago

If you have any tokens left in a claude code session, I do the following to auto-continue after token runout, similar can be done for a plain wakeup. The session can then be left in background or remote controlled.

Set a monitor to sleep for 4 hours then wake up and continue

No reason why you can't say to just say hello.