An expanded class action lawsuit filed on September 8 alleges that Anthropic broke the law by deceptively advertising the usage limits of its Claude Max subscription plan — a rare legal challenge to how AI companies market premium tiers amid an industry-wide "money squeeze."
The Max plan is Anthropic's top-tier offering for Claude, priced at either $100/month for "5x" the usage limits of the $20/month Pro plan, or $200/month for "20x." However, the lawsuit — brought by attorneys Monica Vaca and Kati Daffan, both former Federal Trade Commission attorneys under Lina Khan — alleges these numbers are misleadingly couched in fine print.
According to the complaint, Anthropic promises 5x or 20x the usage of the Pro plan, but only for five-hour session windows that are subject to a weekly limit. Understanding this requires clicking through multiple hyperlinks to find the word "session," then navigating to a separate webpage for the expanded definition of what a session entails.
The lawsuit represents a broader frustration in the AI industry around transparent pricing for premium subscribers. Anthropic has marketed power users as key to its business — even prioritizing them when it means cutting off other popular applications — but some of these same customers now say they didn't get what they thought they were paying for.
The case joins a growing wave of legal actions against AI companies over subscription practices and consumer protection.
