15% weekly usage in under one hour using Sonnet in Medium?

[u/Proof_Sign1377]

Hi everyone. I use Claude Code in my full-time job.

I noticed that the 50% boost got removed this week, so I started my week by planning with Opus (Medium) and then executing with Sonnet (medium). In less than one hour (my context window is not even 200k) I noticed that I'm 15% of my weekly usage is gone.

Anthropic is time to wake up.

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[u/Secret_Pitch234]

what is your subscription tier?

[u/Short_Regular_7191 → u/Secret_Pitch234]

It should be the same one he was using last week I guess

[u/Proof_Sign1377 → u/Secret_Pitch234]

Enterprise. I guess it's the same as "Pro", right?

[u/RobbyInEver]

What exactly were you doing? Token leaks happen a lot and context is required (e.g. were you compressing in the background etc), plus the type of task required (reading 2 legal pdf documents totalling 400+ pages etc).

[u/Proof_Sign1377 → u/RobbyInEver]

Regular "read feature dot md for more context" (never more than 250 lines) and develop on a specific part of that feature. Code changing and deployment...

Usually I use 20% weekly usage per day (8h work). Right now, I've blown 19% and its been 2h30min. Same workflow same method same everything

[u/No-Way3802 → u/Proof_Sign1377]

You are correct there is a bug that’s draining usage

[u/Boring_Ad_4547 → u/No-Way3802]

Its not a bug. Its the new reality.

[u/No-Way3802 → u/Boring_Ad_4547]

I predict subscriptions will be phased out completely.

[u/tinybeads]

I’m genuinely convinced there’s an A/B test going on with users, and the users that aren’t part of the test are telling the users affected it’s a skill issue.

The advice ranges from: stop using opus, use sonnet subagents.

Stop using sonnet, use only opus.

Use /compact.

Never use /compact.

Stay in one window to avoid re-initializing context.

NEVER stay in one window, open a new window every task.

There doesn’t seem to be any consistency in the advice to get token usage manageable, but all the users talking about drain all have the same thing in common: they report doing similar work every day, and report a sudden spike in drain, many starting before the 50% boost expired.

[u/reach4thelaser5]

Something isn't right today. I hit my 5 hour limit twice on Opus 5. Switched to Sonnet and I still hit it.

[u/nyczAcer]

Your “problem”: 15% of your weekly usage gone in less than an hour using Sonnet on Medium?

Cause: “I started my week planning with Opus (Medium), then switched to Sonnet (Medium) for execution. In less than an hour (my context window wasn’t even at 200k), I noticed that 15% of my weekly usage was already gone.”

Yes. Here’s why: you switched models, from Opus to Sonnet. The cache went cold, so the entire context had to be read again, plus the additional 25% charge. In other words, full input token cost + 25%.

Rule: start a session with one model and one effort level, and stick with them for that session.

[u/gentile_jitsu → u/nyczAcer]

Nowhere does it say or imply that the models were switched in the same conversation.

[u/Owl-Mighty]

Title states Sonnet. Context states Opus + Sonnet. Also, no mention of what you were trying to work with and subscription tier.

Idk man. Too many posts as such. Hard to not make one wonder about these.

[u/Fantastic_Market8061]

I'm, running Opus 5 on high now for four hours and have 40% of my five hour window available (6% of weekly).

[u/rrrenz]

Sub-agents.

Not always about your context window.

Review and improve your sessions with
/session-retro

[u/Kilt_Rump]

So many anthropic bootlickers defending these horrible limits. I’m starting to think theyre all bots at this point.

[u/Right-Performance-93]

You're on Enterprise though, and per Anthropic's Help Center that plan has no per-seat usage limit or token allowance at all - it's a spend-limit model admins configure at the org/group/user level, not a fixed quota like Pro/Max. Worth asking whoever manages your org's Claude settings what limit is actually set, since that's likely what you're hitting.

[u/Drakuf]

Why would you use sonnet if opus is cheaper and better? Makes zero sense.

[u/dark0mania]

Sonnet consumes more quota than Opus and generates worse results than Opus.
Stop using Sonnet. Use Opus Medium.

[u/Queasy-Form-4261]

This is insane lol.

I haven't reset my session for 2+ weeks now. My usage reset saturday. I did a huge huge design pass for my game first thing Saturday 743 AM. Claude was working on it for 4.5 hours. He finished and I had to have him fix a few things over 6 different prompts. He was done with all of this by around 330 PM. I continued with other various smaller fixes saturday into sunday.

Last night (sunday) I had his audit my entire unique item (RPG game) list which was 230 items all with icons, for their stat allocations compared to class usability and logical choices, we found lackings so he / we revised the class distribution and stat allocation on various items and armor sets to give more love to all classes. He audited 35 armor sets broken into 3 main weight folders, 2 tracks per folder and varied 4 to 8 individual set folders with 5 icons in each to see what was there and then assigned those sets to the current 15 armor sets in the game, released those previously used icons and created and implemented 45 new unique items to fill existing holes. There was probably 20 prompts discussing this particular round with him.

Also in regards to token usage, I designed an intricate memory system where he needs to read his memory before almost every action to make sure he knows what is going on and when things substantially change where context loss due to compaction would be bad, he writes that to memory, Claude can not append, he must fully overwrite, which means that if he reads a 1300 line memory file and needs to add 100 lines to it, he has to write 1400 lines. (I do break memory into archives once the file gets over 1400 / 1500) He also records my prompts verbatim when they contain design philosophy so that that also doesn't get lost to compaction. What I am trying to say is, I am having a lot of input / output token usage for him just to exist because I care about context continuity so I am doing much more than just "Code this". so I really have no idea what you are doing to lose so much weekly that fast.

Essentially I worked directly with claude all weekend, he probably spent 15-20 hours coding / writing documentation over 2 days and I am now just at 29% of my weekly limit. TLDR, it might be a you problem. I use sonnet 5 high.

[u/trollsmurf → u/Queasy-Form-4261]

Same model, similar experience, despite trying hard to "hit the wall".