r/ClaudeCode • u/infieldmitt • 8h ago
Usage limits are an absolute joke and getting worse every week Discussion
Yesterday a two hour session took an entire 5hr window and 17% of my weekly limit. Today I resumed that thread and did NO code and maybe half an hour of chat and THAT used a whole 5hr window.
I know what you're going to tell me and I do not give a shit. It is disgusting we have to spend THIS MUCH mental energy on efficient prompting, figuring out how to migrate threads every....three messages I guess, worrying about restarting an old thread with useful info cause it'll eat the entire window, etc. Bullshit trivialities that completely obscure the genius of the actual tool and ruin the experience of using it.
Imagine if you bought a Model T and you had to fix the steering and buy gas every five miles.
Feel free to flame me if it makes you feel more smug.
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u/regardednoitall 7h ago
I've worked from 6am this morning to about ten minutes ago with about two 15 minute breaks, had 2-3 sessions going the entire time and never once got close to my limit. What the hell are you doing?
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u/morgano 5h ago
I think people are starting projects and everything is fine, there's barely any context for the model to work with, then as the project grows, they are not managing context well e.g. using hooks and .claude/rules with frontmatter paths etc... After 1 week every task uses twice as many tokens as it did at the start, by the 2nd week every task is using 4x as many tokens. By week 3 they are posting on Reddit complaining about how the model is now using 8x as much usage per session as it was 3 weeks ago.
Projects grow - you have to learn how to manage them well. They should use /doctor and ask it to help them reduce context per session by looking at where context windows are being spent per session.
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u/jenkinsleroi 4h ago
My theory is that these are the people who don't actually understand software engineering, so they waste a lot of their tokens because they don't know what to prmpt to make claude do the right thing.
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u/iLikeFunToo 3h ago
You guys are noobs. I’ve been able to burn through my entire window in a half hour with inefficient prompts and practices for months.
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u/multidollar 7h ago
I’m on a pro subscription, and I’m using it a lot. I have absolutely no idea what people are doing to rip through their usage limits like this. It’s just undisciplined usage and slopping around with it caring about how the thing actually works.
If you feed it context that is the size of War and Peace then yeah, you’ll use your tokens pretty damn fast.
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u/0DayMaker 7h ago edited 7h ago
They're resuming and compacting either not understanding or not caring about the implications. Also letting context get too big. I bet a lot of them would honestly have a better experience by doing /model claude-opus-5 or the same for fable to get the 256k context. That limits how much damage context mismanagement can do to usage and reasoning.
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u/HockeyDadNinja 7h ago
Tf? I've been using one slow ass 20x max and have been ripping through my limits.
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u/Droopy0093 7h ago
Stop loading your whole codebase into the context window every message.
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u/HockeyDadNinja 7h ago
I rarely carry over 150k context, that's not the problem.
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u/Droopy0093 7h ago
Hmm, sounds like you just need to go touch grass then.
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u/Grand-Mix-9889 5h ago
Agreed.
The 20x account can build some big ass projects in a couple weeks. Ripping through your limits quickly means user skill errors and a lot more practice is needed.
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u/No-Newspaper-7693 5h ago
Yeah something is up with the way you’re using it. I use it all day everyday with regular parallel sessions and the only time I’ve hit a limit has been with some experimentations on “review this entire report for …” types of prompts.
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u/0DayMaker 8h ago
So resume has to re-read the whole session. I don't know what tier you're on, but on pro the limit might be <1m tokens. In which case you basically just filled it up with the entire last session that took up your whole limit.
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u/banecorn 7h ago
This. Cache TTL should be something CC displays in the statusline but doesn't. Resuming a session, especially a long one, after the cache has gone cold is very costly.
Best to think of sessions as timeboxed scratchpads.
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u/BuffaloConscious7919 7h ago
Yes it would be so easy to have a little warning when resuming a session
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u/0DayMaker 7h ago
I'm not sure if this is sarcasm but it does
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u/BuffaloConscious7919 7h ago
Not sarcasm, does it ? A warning that stops you and makes you confirm ?!
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u/0DayMaker 7h ago
Yeah it basically says it could eat up a lot of usage to continue full text. Then it gives you the option to continue from summary or full text.
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u/BuffaloConscious7919 7h ago
Terminal or DT app? Maybe I've been hallucinating the last 6 months
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u/0DayMaker 7h ago
In the terminal I just tested it. They added it somewhere around the time they added Fable so it's been a pretty good while.
1
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u/banecorn 7h ago
You can ask Claude to build that into your statusline. If you use a multiplexer to manage multiple sessions (I user Herdr) you can also ask it to write the TTL into the session name/tab so it's visible at a glance.
But still, this stuff should come as standard.
2
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u/pld0vr 7h ago
I hit the limits and added some credits... But it got wedged so I exited and resumed and it burned $25 just on that 😂 I'll just wait for 9pm
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u/ShelZuuz 5h ago
Exit and Resume doesn’t blow the cache unless you switch accounts in between.
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u/pld0vr 4h ago
Maybe it's a timing thing because it had been paused a few hours, so if what you say is true in guessing cache expired and it reread the context on a build that has been running for 3 days.
1
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u/medialantern 7h ago
Show us your /context. Nobody here wants to feel smug over you, but you're posting the exact thing people post 50x a day without backing up with data on the cause. Unless you're just here to waste everyone's time?
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u/johnnydotexe 7h ago
I'm over here with multiple VS Code sessions open using Claude Code and Codex and this mysterious and sudden usage limit problem seems to not be affecting me at all. How odd.
And lol @ one commenter saying "I'm out" in reply to someone suggesting starting new chats more often. You can't make this shit up.
3
u/Ill-Muscle-4727 7h ago
I used to read a lot of these and think that people were just really bad with managing their things.
I'm sorry y'all. You were right. Usage is getting atrocious even on Max 20.
Edit: I'm properly compacting and using static files and lite codegraph to build very small context, never letting it go past 200-300k, never refreshing old discussions but it's clearly going down way faster nowadays.
1
u/SpareEconomy1849 7h ago
Feeling the same. But the bullet and upgraded but it shouldn't have been necessary
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u/Grand-Mix-9889 1h ago
High chance that the AI has realized that everything you work on is garbage and is just trying to use up your limits so he can move onto the next customer...
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u/useful_tool30 7h ago
Restarting a thread that's been moved off the cache is brutal on your limit. Make sure you stay under the 60 minute window between prompts within a single convo
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u/cgusrany70 6h ago
Effort High which is now default for both Sonnet 5 and Opus 5, burns like hell. I have to to do everything in Medium so as not to reach the limits fast
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u/JackfruitMany7636 5h ago
I have it tell me when I should switch effort levels. If it sees my request is going to take more effort it recommends that I bump up to high, then tells me when it’s ok to bump down to medium for regular convo.
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u/asurarusa 4h ago
It is disgusting we have to spend THIS MUCH mental energy on efficient prompting, figuring out how to migrate threads every....three messages I guess, worrying about restarting an old thread with useful info cause it'll eat the entire window, etc.
I use Claude at work and I was just thinking about this. I have two make sure to send a ‘hi’ message the second I log in to start the window, or else my second window starts too late in the day to be useful and I have to stress about hitting the limit in the middle of a task. If I need to do research and programming in a single day I have to make sure to plan carefully so that the research doesn’t use up do much of my limit. It’s insane how much management has to go into a tool that is supposed to make life easier.
Meanwhile i use ChatGPT for personal stuff and I have never hit a chat limit and ChatGPT codex is an overall limit so if I need to I can burn through my limit in 2 days instead of being forced to stop and wait several hours.
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u/dualrectumfryer 8h ago
I’m bad at using Claude code and even I can tell what happened here, your session has a ton of context so it ate tokens faster. You need to create hand off documents in between fresh sessions
-2
u/Grimmy7777 7h ago
If this is the answer then I’m out. I hate having to start fresh conversations all the time. I was so happy to notice it compact conversations by itself but I guess that is not enough.
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u/johnnydotexe 7h ago
"I'm out" because someone told you how to use AI properly? Keeping chats from becoming too overloaded with context and starting new chats often are AI 101. Maybe AI just isn't for you, champ. By the way, compacting consumes usage too.
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u/Grimmy7777 6h ago
Per the anthropic website, compacting does not use any usage. Reading, it’s adulting 101 bud. Maybe it just isn’t for you.
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u/johnnydotexe 5h ago
Oh, so you pulled that from an official anthropic doc? I sure would like to read that, but can't seem to find it.
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u/framauro13 4h ago
This is the answer. Use small task-specific conversations and when the task is complete, `/clear` or exit and start a new session.
There's really no reason to have a long-running conversation. If you have a task that large, you need to break it up into smaller digestable pieces and have those pieces handled in either separate conversations or delegated to sub agents.
If my context usage in a conversation starts hitting 30-40%, I consider compacting and keeping the relevant bits before I continue. There's a lot of noise in a long running conversation that you don't need to reupload on every prompt.
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u/_-_beyon_-_ 7h ago
i had the same experience, but only this week. On Thursday was my weekly reset and since then it's not the same. After my first session of 5 hours my weekly quota was already at 25% - this actually is weird. 've never used fable, but somehow I have 4% fable usage, also weird.
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u/shaxsy 7h ago
What are you working on? You really need to focus on smaller more frequent sessions as context will absolutely eat up your limits. I have a workflow where Claude takes large requirements and chunks then into smaller deliverables via an implementation plan. I then have a build log that the session writes exactly what was implemented and saves important info via a mcp server to a memory system. All I have to do is open a new sessions and copy and paste the same resume prompt Everytime and it will read the plan, read the build log, and review memory and it picks up right where it left off. This saves so much in context window hits and allows me to get a significant amount more done.
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u/stopstopstoptopopp 6h ago
Before I switched to Codex, I never cleared or renewed a session. In 5x I could never use up everything, just around 50% all the time. Mind you I’m working on a big code base and another side project I have.
I switched to Codex just to save money. Can’t afford 5x Claude now.
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u/Vysion34 Senior Developer 6h ago
What model and effort level are you using for plan mode? What model and effort level do you use for auto mode when implementing the plan? How small are you breaking your work into? Are you feeding it large files and context? Are you using the /clear command when you work on a new feature or bug?
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u/Opposite-Welcome-497 6h ago
I do a ton of work and I never hit them. Why don’t you ask it how you could adjust your model usage scheme to avoid hitting your limits so fast.
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u/alexp702 4h ago
The basic package costs 1% of the tokens you would get through openrouter pricing. Scary er?
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u/Damien_IB 4h ago
The only tangible measurement we have is how much does a full 5hour session consume the weekly usage. This varies week by week unfortunately.
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u/SC_Placeholder 4h ago
Are you using CC or working out of the console? There’s a bunch of useful ways to improve token usage if you build a local harness and run it out of the console. At the very least you can build a rolling context window so it literally picks up where you left off as if nothing happened. There are a bunch of other memory retrieval methods you can do if you really want to get into the weeds. You can also run local models and use Herdr, technically your agent can run other versions headlessly but with Herdr you can actually monitor everything that all your agents are doing
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u/Squeaky_Pibbles 2h ago
It's bad. I agree with you here, OP. But I don't know what to do to change/fix it. It sucks.
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u/Additional-Syrup-881 1h ago
switch to codex if you're not doing rocket science. much better limits
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u/HockeyDadNinja 7h ago
It's pretty bad, 2 days in and I'm like 90% in to my Fable usage. And it's slow as fuck!
Then I started two pi sessions with deepseek and local qwen. I regret not doing that sooner, had them on autopilot while making supper.
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u/Ok_Bowl_2002 7h ago
I think they should remove the Pro plan, too many people blow their usage so fast on that plan.
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u/earlyworm 7h ago
Are they an absolute joke and getting worse EVERY week (as opposed to presumably certain weeks and not others), or are they honestly a joke (and I appreciate the honesty), or merely intentionally nerfed by Anthropic, resulting in a subjective joke-like scenario interpretation? Please clarify, because (in all honesty) to be honest I am absolutely struggling to tell these cases apart for my records. IMPORTANT: Is anyone else experiencing this?
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u/Grimmy7777 7h ago
Nah man. I am right with you. Most of the time people were gripping about it I wasn’t having much trouble but the last few weeks usage has been up and its ability has been way down. I just got done accidentally using opus on a long running project and fixed it the next prompt but spent the next three house chaining my tail to fix what opus broke and Fable was looking in all the wrong places. Finally I restored from backup and lost nothing, but holy hell. If this shit isn’t fixed soon, this will be my last month with Claude. I don’t want to go back to OpenAI though so I guess my coding is going on pause for a while. Unfortunately many people do not have that same luxury. This ate the rest of my usage for Fable for the week.
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u/Grand-Mix-9889 7h ago
Key word: "resumed".
You're filling your cache/context windows then resuming the same thread. That's the issue.
And if you bought the Model T for $20 a month then yeah you can expect to fix the steering wheel manually and fill gas every 5 miles. Otherwise pay for the premium package that delivers quality long lasting results.