Anthropic is facing an expanded class action lawsuit from a group of Claude subscribers who allege the company deceptively advertised the usage limits of its top-tier Max subscription plan. The complaint was brought by attorneys Monica Vaca and Kati Daffan, both of whom previously worked at the Federal Trade Commission.
The case represents a rare attempt to legally challenge an AI company over a widely shared source of frustration: the industry’s mounting financial pressures and the way steep operating costs are being passed on to customers. Over the past eight months, subscribers across leading AI labs have voiced similar complaints as firms push to turn a profit.
What the lawsuit alleges
Anthropic’s Max plan for Claude is an upgrade to the £16 per month Pro plan. It offers two pricing options: roughly £79 per month for advertised “5x” the usage limits of Pro, or around £158 per month for “20x”. The lawsuit claims these figures, displayed in Anthropic’s marketing graphics, are misleadingly qualified in fine print.
According to the complaint, the promised 20x or 5x usage applies only to five-hour blocks of time that are themselves subject to a weekly limit. Plaintiffs argue this adds up to a far smaller overall increase in usage capacity than the headline numbers suggest.
Understanding the actual terms, Vaca said, requires clicking through two separate hyperlinks to find the word “session”, and then visiting the Pro plan webpage for an expanded definition of what a session means.
User frustration and Anthropic’s response
Complaints about the Max plan’s terms have surfaced online, with one Reddit user comparing the arrangement to giving someone a bigger fuel tank while limiting the pump to one gallon every five hours. Vaca said in an interview that Claude users often upgrade on the spot when they hit limits during a project, only to feel frustrated afterwards. “People see that they are going to get this dramatically expanded usage,” she said, adding that many are surprised they do not receive the usage they expected once signed up.
Anthropic announced the Max plan in April 2025 but did not introduce the disputed weekly limits until August, as the company sought to compete with OpenAI. In its latest model release, Fable 5.1, Anthropic indicated it was “addressing the feedback we’ve received from customers on price” through the new model’s pricing.
The complaint was originally filed in July before being withdrawn and refiled as an expanded class action. In a motion to dismiss the earlier case, Anthropic argued it did not omit the session limits from its marketing, stating that the clarifying information was technically available to consumers who knew where to look and required only clicking hyperlinks available during the purchase process.
Anthropic has said power users are central to its business and has prioritised them even when doing so means cutting off other popular applications, such as OpenClaw.
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Image: theverge.com
