Anthropic is rate limiting Claude Code, blaming some users for never turning it off

Anthropic has introduced new weekly rate limits on its Claude Code tool for AI assistance with coding tasks. The move comes shortly after the AI company quietly began implementing rate limits on the Claude Code service, which is an agentic side of the AI chatbot that is capable of reading code, editing files, performing tests and pushing GitHub commits.

According to a series of posts from Anthropic on X, these changes are in response to some users who have been running Claude Code "continuously in the background, 24/7." Not only does that add up to a hefty environmental toll, the instances of non-stop use are also financially expensive for Anthropic. The company additionally questioned whether some users were violating terms of service by sharing or reselling accounts.

Claude Code is only available on Anthropic's Pro and Max plans, the most expensive of which is $200 a month. Those subscriptions which will start seeing the weekly rate limits beginning in August. "We estimate they’ll apply to less than 5% of subscribers based on current usage," the company said. For those people who do run up against the limits on the Max plan, there will be an option to purchase extra usage at standard API rates.