Anthropic has launched a bunch of new updates for Claude in the past few weeks. From dispatch to computer use, and remote work, Claude Code can do a lot more than it could before, including testing apps it built from scratch without having to ask for your permission. But it appears that users are unable to get the maximum use out of Claude as many have reported faster usage of their token limits.
Anthropic’s Lydia Hallie addressed user concerns on X. She wrote, “We’re aware people are hitting usage limits in Claude Code way faster than expected.” Hallie insisted that Anthropic was “actively investigating.”
However, it appears that the AI startup is still trying to grasp the reason for this faster usage of Claude tokens. In an update, Hallie wrote, “Still working on this. It’s the top priority for the team, I know this is blocking a lot of you. More as soon as we have it.”
What is happening with Claude?
On X, many users have complained that they are draining their Claude Code rate limits much faster than before. Usage limit refers to the number of tokens – the unit used by the AI model to process and generate data – you can use in a given period.
Claude comes with a weekly token limit for all users. There is also a five-hour rolling limit for each session. The limit is higher for Claude Pro and Max subscribers. The Pro plan costs $20 (roughly Rs 1,880) per month with the Max plan, which gets much higher limits, costs $200 (roughly Rs 18,8000 per month). You can also use it for free, but with lower limits.
One user wrote that his usage limit was reduced drastically for sending just a “hello” to Claude. The user wrote, “Saying ‘hello’ to Claude on the Pro plan now costs 2 per cent of your entire session usage.”
Another user, who was on the Claude Max plan, said that his limit was reached in less than half an hour. The user posted, “usage limit over in 20 mins!!! Did something change in claude code?”
Many users found themselves frustrated on social media. Some considered potentially switching to OpenAI’s coding agent Codex. One user added, “I hit my [Claude Code’ limits very quick this week – even with 20x pro plan. It makes my claude code unusable. A good reason to do more stuff with Codex!”
What could be the real cause?
While Anthropic is investigating the issue. Reddit user u/skibidi-toaleta-2137 claims to have potentially found the reason for the faster usage limit. The user wrote on the Claude AI subreddit that two bugs may be the root cause.
The two bugs seem to break the cache history of the conversation, which in turn leads to heavy token consumption. While one bug is believed to be linked to the standalone Claude Code app, the other bug may be caused by the “–resume” and “–continue” commands.
Anthropic’s Thariq Shihipar responded to these claims on an X thread. He wrote, “We are actively looking into this in particular but not sure it’s real yet, prompt cache bugs can be quite subtle.”
Anthropic reduces peak Claude limits after doubling it
On March 15, Anthropic announced that it was doubling Claude limits for all users for a period of 2 weeks.
Last week, however, Anthropic tweaked the consumption limit for Claude. Thariq Shihipar announced on X that those who used the AI during “peak hours” reached their limits faster. Though the company had stated that the weekly limit remained the same.
It appears that Claude’s 2x limit increase period of 2 weeks may have coincided with the reduced limit complaints by users. But it seems that users are reaching their limits at a much faster rate than they did before the 2x increase was made available.
