Two limits, one name
The plan's name came from its first limit. When the top tier launched in April 2025, it had one ceiling: a five-hour session limit set at 20 times Pro. Max 20x described that ceiling accurately.
In August 2025 Anthropic added a second ceiling, a weekly limit, and set it at 10 times Pro. The name did not change. A subscriber who hit the weekly cap stopped for the week regardless of how much session allowance remained, so for anyone working in long stretches, the weekly number was the product. The session number was the name.
Anthropic argued that the multipliers described per-session usage and that its weekly limits and explanatory materials made the distinction clear. But the court noted that the per-session clarification appeared on a webpage outside the required signup process, which subscribers did not have to visit to purchase a plan. The complaint's position is that a reasonable buyer reads "20x" as the plan's capacity, not as a property of one of its two clocks. Judge Tse found the plaintiffs' reading plausible. The signup pages promised “5x or 20x more usage than Pro,” and the court concluded that a reasonable consumer could understand those representations as describing monthly usage. Anthropic's per-session explanation appeared outside the required sales funnel, so the court did not treat it as necessarily incorporated into the subscription contract. The ruling allows the surviving claims to proceed; it does not establish that Anthropic breached the contract or misled subscribers.
Why three claims survived and others did not
Judge Tse found that the plaintiffs plausibly alleged a reasonable consumer could be misled by promises of “5x or 20x more usage than Pro.” That finding did not save every cause of action.
Under the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act, the court treated the two plaintiffs differently. Solomon Smith, a computer-science student who uses Claude for coursework, coding projects and hackathons, plausibly qualified as a consumer. The court said educational use was not commercial use. Karl Kahn, by contrast, had not pleaded enough facts to establish that he used Claude for personal, family or household purposes rather than commercially. Smith's CLRA claim survives; Kahn's was dismissed with leave to amend.
The negligent-misrepresentation claim also survives. The court found the reasonable-consumer allegations sufficient and held that the economic-loss rule did not bar the claim.
The breach-of-contract claim survives as well. The Terms of Service incorporated the subscription order process, where the signup pages advertised five or twenty times Pro's usage. The court found it plausible that consumers understood those promises as monthly multipliers. Anthropic's per-session clarification appeared on a page outside the required sales funnel and was not necessarily incorporated into the contract. The Terms' reservation of the right to change capacity limits did not defeat the alleged multiplier promise.
The FAL and UCL claims failed for a different reason. The court found the reasonable-consumer standard satisfied, but held that the plaintiffs had not adequately pleaded entitlement to the statutes' available remedies. They lacked standing for injunctive relief under the circumstances alleged and had not sufficiently explained why damages at law would be inadequate for restitution. Both claims were dismissed with leave to amend.
Finally, the implied-covenant claim concerned mid-cycle changes to usage and features, rather than the multiplier advertising itself. The court found those changes permitted by the Terms and did not find sufficiently pleaded bad faith. That claim was also dismissed with leave to amend.
The arithmetic in the complaint
The complaint's most awkward exhibit is not a measurement. It is a ratio between two sets of numbers Anthropic itself sent to subscribers in July 2025, before the weekly limits took effect.
Pro's email promised 40 to 80 hours of Sonnet 4 per week. The Max 5x email promised 140 to 280 hours. Divide either end by Pro's matching end and the result is 3.5, not 5. The Max 20x email promised 240 to 480 hours, which is 6 times Pro's range, not 20. The complaint separately characterizes the top plan's overall delivered usage as six to eight times Pro. That broader allegation should not be conflated with the July email's Sonnet 4 figures, which produce a six-times ratio at both endpoints. The emails also listed Opus allocations of 15 to 35 hours for Max 5x and 24 to 40 hours for Max 20x, but the supplied record does not establish that those figures explain the complaint's six-to-eight-times characterization. Those ratios are the plaintiffs' characterisation, and Anthropic disputes the conclusion drawn from them. The July email figures support the plaintiffs' numerical comparison, and the written order expressly cites the complaint's 3.5-times Sonnet 4 calculation. But the court's ruling rests on the plausibility of the pleaded representations and the applicable legal standards, not on a final determination of how much usage Anthropic delivered.
The rename arrived first
On 30 October, eight days before the hearing, Anthropic retired the names at the centre of the case. Max 5x is now called Max. Max 20x is now called Ultra. The top plan also shed its five-hour session limit for verified accounts, which removes the limit the old name described. What it kept is the weekly limit, still 10 times Pro.
The company framed the change as a response to confusion: some new users had assumed the multiplier applied to both limits. Anthropic's explanation acknowledges that some new users misunderstood what the multipliers covered. It does not concede that the original advertising was unlawful or that the plaintiffs' interpretation was correct. The court separately found that a reasonable consumer could plausibly read the signup-page promises as applying to monthly usage. The new name makes the dispute harder to repeat. "Ultra" promises nothing countable, so it cannot be off by a factor of two.
What has not been decided
Judge Tse's November 6 written order establishes which claims can proceed, but it does not establish that Anthropic deceived subscribers or breached a contract. The court found the multiplier advertising plausibly misleading under the reasonable-consumer standard. That is a pleading-stage conclusion, not a final factual finding.
Three claims survive the motion to dismiss: Solomon Smith's CLRA claim, negligent misrepresentation and breach of contract. Karl Kahn's CLRA claim was dismissed because he had not adequately alleged personal, family or household use. The FAL and UCL claims were dismissed because the plaintiffs had not adequately pleaded entitlement to injunctive relief or restitution, not because the court found the advertising truthful. The implied-covenant claim was dismissed because the challenged mid-cycle changes were permitted by the Terms and bad faith was not plausibly alleged. All dismissals carry leave to amend.
The plaintiffs have until December 2, 2026, to file an amended complaint. If they do not, Anthropic must answer the operative complaint by December 16. The order sets no other deadline.
The proposed class has not been certified. There has been no damages award or determination of liability. Anthropic can continue to contest the surviving claims, and the plaintiffs may attempt to cure the dismissed claims.
The future weekly usage limit is also unresolved. Anthropic's October 26 S-1 reserves the right to change usage limits. The renamed Ultra plan currently retains a weekly limit of 10 times Pro, despite dropping the former “20x” name. That change in branding does not resolve the lawsuit's allegations about earlier representations.
Sources
- [1] Order on Motion to Dismiss (Document 50), Kahn v. Anthropic, PBC, No. 26-cv-05763-AGT (N.D. Cal., filed 6 November 2026), CourtListener — read in full for this article. The 19-page written order: the advertising held plausibly misleading; Smith's CLRA claim, negligent misrepresentation and breach of contract survive; Kahn's CLRA claim, the FAL and UCL claims and the implied-covenant claim dismissed with leave to amend; amended complaint due 2 December 2026, Anthropic to answer by 16 December if plaintiffs do not amend.Read source
- [2] Consolidated complaint (Dkt. 37) and original complaint, Kahn v. Anthropic, PBC, No. 26-cv-05763 (N.D. Cal., filed 14 June 2026), CourtListener — the prices in the complaint, the six-to-eight-times allegation, the July 2025 email hour ranges and the 50% savings allegation.Read source
- [3] Anthropic's motion to dismiss, Doc. 28, No. 3:26-cv-05763-AGT (filed 19 August 2026), CourtListener — Anthropic's per-session defence; the motion decided by Document 50 was the later Dkt. 39 motion against the consolidated complaint.Read source
- [4] Courthouse News, initial report of the 6 November 2026 ruling in Kahn v. Anthropic, as carried by The Next Web and syndicated by NewsLocker, 7 November 2026 — the first-day reporting, published before the written order's claim-by-claim split was available.Read source
- [5] Sovereign Magazine, "Claude Max 20x Becomes Ultra, Loses the 5-Hour Limit" (30 October 2026) — rename, limit history, Anthropic's stated reason.Read source
- [6] enjoy.dev, "Claude users measure smaller weekly limits since mid-October. What's confirmed" — filing-based timeline of the rename, the 10x weekly figure and the motion.Read source
- [7] OpenClassActions case pages for Kahn v. Anthropic and In re Claude Service Degradation Litigation — complaint figures, July 2025 email ranges, and the 12 August 2026 order separating the cases.Read source