SaaS Radar
What Are Claude Code Weekly Limits and How Does the 50% Boost Work?
Claude Code weekly limits are 50% higher from May 13 through August 31, 2026 on Pro, Max, and Team plans, and the boost is applied automatically. The 5-hour usage limit still applies, and Free plans plus consumption-based Enterprise seats see no change.
What matters
- Anthropic raised Claude Code weekly limits by 50% from May 13 to August 31, 2026 (11:59 PM PT) for Pro, Max, and Team plans plus legacy seat-based Enterprise users, with no action needed (support page updated August 19, 2026).
- Free plans and consumption-based Enterprise seats are excluded from the promotion, and the 5-hour usage limit is not affected.
- After August 31, 2026, weekly limits return to standard levels; your plan and billing do not change.
- Plan pricing verified on claude.com/pricing: Pro $20/mo monthly or $17/mo billed annually, Max from $100/mo, Team standard seats from $20/seat/mo billed annually.
- Signing in with an API key removes the weekly cap entirely: Claude Code bills per token with no hard stop, the practical route for heavy users.
What are Claude Code weekly limits?
Claude Code is Anthropic's coding agent that runs in the terminal CLI, IDE extensions, the desktop app, and the web. How your usage is metered depends on how you sign in, per Anthropic's documentation: subscribers on a Claude plan draw from a pool of usage that resets on a rolling window, while API-key users are billed per token with no hard stop.
For plan subscribers, Anthropic applies two caps: a weekly usage limit and a 5-hour usage limit. The weekly limit is the number that matters most to daily users, because long sessions stack up across the week. Anthropic does not publish a fixed weekly-hour figure in its help center; limits are plan-level, can change, and are shown to you directly with the /usage command inside Claude Code.
What the May-August 2026 promotion changes
On May 13, 2026 Anthropic started a limited-time promotion that increases Claude Code weekly usage limits by 50%. It was later extended and now runs through August 31, 2026 at 11:59 PM PT. The boost applies automatically: no action, no code, no plan change, and it works everywhere Claude Code runs, including the CLI, IDE extensions, desktop, and web.
Two things the promotion does not touch. The 5-hour usage limit stays exactly where it is. And usage limits for other Claude products, such as Claude chat on web, desktop, and mobile plus Claude Cowork, are unchanged.
Who qualifies for the 50% boost
Eligible plans are Pro, Max, and Team, plus legacy seat-based users on Enterprise plans. Free plans are not included, and consumption-based Enterprise seats are not included either. That exclusion is the honest catch: an Enterprise organization on consumption billing gets no boost, though it also has no weekly cap to begin with, since usage is charged at API rates.
The promotion also cannot be combined with other offers and has no cash value, per the terms and conditions on Anthropic's support page.
Claude plan pricing and limits at a glance
Prices below were verified on the official Claude pricing page on August 20, 2026. The +50% weekly boost applies to every paid row that qualifies, for the same subscription price.
How to check your limit and make it last
Run /usage in the Claude Code CLI to see your current weekly limit, including the boosted value. Anthropic's official usage guide points to four habits that stretch the same limit further:
- /clear between tasks. Every previous message is resent on every turn, so a wandering session pays for all of it each time.
- /compact mid-task instead of clearing, to summarize history and keep context without losing the thread.
- Match the model to the job with /model: Sonnet for most coding, Opus for hard debugging and architecture, Haiku for quick mechanical edits.
- Plan before big changes. A short plan costs a few hundred tokens; a wrong 400-line diff costs thousands twice.
What happens after August 31
When the promotion ends at 11:59 PM PT on August 31, 2026, Claude Code weekly limits return to their standard levels. There is no change to your plan or billing, nothing to cancel, and no renewal charge. If your workflow has come to depend on the extra headroom, that date is the one to budget around.
The API alternative: no weekly cap
Signing in with an API key changes the math completely. Anthropic's documentation states that API-key users are pay-as-you-go, billed per token, with no hard stop; the /cost command shows running spend for the session. That makes API billing the practical route for teams that outgrow the subscription pool, with one trade-off: predictable monthly pricing becomes pay-per-token spend that scales with model and task.
For a solo Pro subscriber who occasionally hits the weekly wall, staying on the plan and applying the official habits above is usually the cheaper move. For a team burning through its pool every week, per-token billing removes the limit entirely.
At a glance
| Plan | Price (verified Aug 20, 2026) | Weekly boost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | No | Excluded from the promotion |
| Pro | $20/mo monthly; $17/mo billed annually | Yes, +50% | Includes Claude Code |
| Max | From $100/mo (5x or 20x Pro usage) | Yes, +50% | Higher output limits |
| Team | Standard seat from $20/seat/mo annual ($25 monthly); Premium seat from $100/seat/mo annual | Yes, +50% | For teams of 2 to 150 |
| Enterprise (legacy seats) | Custom seat-based pricing | Yes, +50% | Seat-based users only |
| Enterprise (consumption) | From $20/seat plus usage at API rates | No | Pay per token; no weekly cap |
FAQ
Is the Claude Code weekly limits promotion available on free plans?
No. The 50% weekly-limit increase applies to Pro, Max, and Team plans plus legacy seat-based Enterprise seats. Free plans and consumption-based Enterprise seats are excluded.
Does the promotion change my 5-hour usage limit?
No. Anthropic states that the 5-hour usage limit is not affected by the promotion. Only the weekly usage limit gets the 50% boost, and limits for other Claude products are unchanged.
What happens to Claude Code weekly limits after August 31, 2026?
They return to standard levels at 11:59 PM PT on August 31, 2026. There is no change to your plan or billing, and nothing to cancel.
Related reading
Claude Code auto mode: what changed, Claude plan and pricing details, More radar reads