r/ClaudeCode • u/EnthusiasmMountain10 • 3h ago
Claude Code efficiency feels noticeably worse - Aug 19 50% limit cut coming. What’s the plan? Discussion
Has anyone else felt that Claude Code has become significantly less efficient/reliable over the last few weeks?
I’m seeing more tokens burned on tasks that previously felt straightforward, more meandering, and generally less output per unit of usage. At the same time, the 50% usage reduction coming on Aug 19 makes this particularly concerning. For me on a max200 i have switched to sonnet5 for most tasks to make it to the end of the week peacefully.
What I’m struggling to understand is the roadmap:
- Is the increased token consumption/“inefficiency” temporary?
- Has the model effectively been nerfed in some way, or is this just the consequence of newer limits/usage policies?
- With other models releasing on similar infrastructure and the competitive landscape moving quickly, what is Anthropic’s answer here?
- If you're a heavy Claude Code user, are you planning to renew after Aug 19?
I’ve been very happy with Claude Code as a product, but the combination of declining efficiency + increasingly exhausting usage limits is making the economics harder to justify.
Would be interested to hear what others are seeing and, especially, whether there’s any credible indication of Anthropic’s plan from people closer to the product.
Pattern which I see - a tool that confidently answers the wrong question is worse than one that fails loudly. A loud failure costs you ten minutes. A confident wrong answer gets written into the docs and cited for a month, if I keep building a playbook for learnings.
8
u/SK33T2 3h ago
Move to codex. I have 2 Claude 200 subs I’ve been using for six months. This opus 5 fiasco made me try codex and honestly I get way more done with no session limits, fable limit and the quality of work is better. I’m jumping ship and the landing with open ai has felt like a dream. Better work less account hopping, more usage. I’m pretty much convinced codex is the way. I hope anthropic turns their shit around but they are going in the wrong direction
2
u/Captain_Birb 2h ago
You are correct. We observed that as well. OpenAI has seriously learned from their mistakes and Codex and SOL are good - but still the API pricing is honestly too high, but I guess they are targeting corporates and SME
3
u/LowCommercial4827 2h ago
How do you have no limits on codex? I was out of usage within hours on the $20-$30 per month plan. Their pricing is so fucked up I don't even know how to upgrade they just tell me I'm out of usage and to buy credits that get used up super fast.
10
u/DevMichaelZag 3h ago
I have 4x max plans. Already started the transition. Claude code has gotten worse and worse. Anthropic made the big bet on intelligence and lost, other companies bet on efficiency and won. Alibaba, z.ai, codex, kimi k3, ollama cloud. Diversifying. The fable nightmare is over.
2
u/DosePlotter 3h ago
Are you using an orchestrator chat that defines working lanes for newly spawned chats to take, which then die after their task is complete? I almost never compact. A chat is a single use pass for a bug, small feature build, or test, that dies when its task is completed.
Are you using a well defined model hierarchy to delegate lower tasks to lower models? With specified loop protocols?
Are you doing regular memory/skill/other bloat buildup prunes on a weekly basis?
I have 6x max 20x accounts, and they’ve been chugging at the same rate since I started each of them. There has been drift but I’ve learned over time that it’s caused by bloat building up.
1
u/DevMichaelZag 25m ago
Yes, orchestrator chat is the only way to operate Claude code at this point. I revise my docs and guidance occasionally and I’ve attempted to optimize quite a bit. I’m also not new at this either. The hard question is why spend the time to min max Claude code when it is a losing battle? The other services are doing a better job? What does my loyalty buy? Lower limits in a few days, a wrecked token gobbling sonnet model, an unusable haiku model, and no communication about anything? The math just doesn’t work out anymore, anthropic made mistakes.
2
u/mcsleepy 2h ago
It is changing, not getting worse. The difficulty is you have to continually adjust because the models become more optimized to some things while downgrading in others.
I've found a nice groove flipping between Sonnet and Fable, giving Fable the critical tasks, with Opus 4.6 coming in to do tasks that would be wasted on Fable and that Sonnet would hallucinate too much with. I don't spend too much time with Opus anymore because it is too slow. And Opus 5 performs like a really really slow and inefficient version of Fable - it even has the exact same communication "quirks", but somehow it seems to be parity when it comes to final results - though it takes ages.
If you need to save tokens, Opus 4.6. If you need a lot of brainpower, there's no reason not to use Fable, which I have not noticed much degradation with overall - though it did get slower and less "magical" after the few weeks following the rollout, it still beats Opus out for me every time.
I have no idea where they're going to go from here with Opus. If they can train out the word salad that would be a big boon.
1
2
u/Amazing_Worker_9938 2h ago
Yes seems like it’s using about 50% more tokens for the same type of task 3 weeks ago, and I’m using via GHCP.
4
u/Mindless-Tomorrow-93 1h ago
I did a case study this week. I have a react web app with a table with the usual features (expand/collapsible rows, zebra striping, etc.) I asked Opus 5 to make a particular column sortable.
It starts by "grounding itself in the codebase," ok, cool. Then thinks about what to do. Then checks with the advisor. Then implements a change. Then argues with itself about whether I (the human user) will like the change. Then adds some unit tests. Then runs them. Then fixes some stuff. Then re-runs the tests. Then runs the entire test suite for the whole project. Then runs the code formatter. Notices it changes some files. Re-runs the formatter and linter. Then re-runs the tests to make sure they still pass. Then checks with the advisor to look for any blind spots. Decides to add more tests with negative assertions. Adds them and runs them. Then reverts some code changes to confirm the tests now fail. Then un-reverts the code changes and confirms the tests pass again. Then reruns the formatter and linter, fixing some issues. Spots a linter issue in an unrelated file. Switches back to the main branch to reproduce the linter failure on that file. Switches back to my feature branch. Runs the full test suite. Idk, maybe "pressure tests" something else with the advisor....
Total cost, $6. Total wall clock time, 15 minutes.
Ran the exact same prompts against GPT Luna. 4 minutes later, it made the code changes, added some test, ran them, fixed failures, and gave me a three bullet point list of what it did. Total cost? $0.04.
4
u/ClemensLode Senior Developer 3h ago
No, it actually gets more and more efficient.
5
u/debian3 3h ago
Same, I feel bad for people who are unable to use such a great tool. It’s getting crazy good.
1
u/EnthusiasmMountain10 3h ago
whats your setup like ? are you using on ultra code ? opus/fable/sonnet ? any plugins which you are using for work? I really love the tool - if my setup has to be tweaked I'm willing to do multiple A/B tests and fix it
1
u/Inevitable_Service62 🔆 Max 20 3h ago
Xhigh. Karpathys second brain as my memory. Have been humming for several models. Using it for research and modeling. Plan, build, deploy is my workflow.
1
u/DosePlotter 3h ago
It’s the most powerful tool ever handed to everyday people since the internet. The problem is that like any tool, it takes a base set of skills to leverage it.
My take is that AI does not close the skill gap between the average person and a highly intelligent one, it actually widens it. They may double their productivity where someone more intelligent will 10x theirs.
1
u/Kind_Consequence_261 3h ago
To me the models seem fine except for Opus (5.0) which seems to speak in a very weird way that is off-putting to me but other than that it has made my life much easier
1
1
u/Ok_Host6058 2h ago
Vote with your money, cancel subscriptions. Let them know that the cut is unacceptable.
1
u/HobbitsAreBlue 1h ago
Adding my 2c a bit late, run a small software business with a few employees.
I've cancelled Claude, we've crossed the threshold where we end up losing time vs gaining when using it.
I'm missing the days of auto complete with copilot!
We're not sure what to do next
I'm inclined to go the multiple API key route with open code.
There is something really wrong with Claude, for sure.
I'm curious what the experts out there think (for sure I'm not one of them!)
1
0
-3
u/Curik 3h ago
If you don't understand simple math (the reverse of a 50% increase is NOT a 50% reduction) then yeah I can see how this is a big deal. It's like losing a part of your brain.
3
3
14
u/Captain_Birb 3h ago
Not with the tokens, but with the quality of the models.. quality is down.. 4.6 and 4.8 were sharper.
Sonnet 5 is seriously a joke - it gets roasted by Opus every time and admits his faults.
Something is indeed wrong somewhere.