Anthropic Sued Over Misleading Claude Max Pricing — SkimNews
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- Anthropic faces an expanded class action lawsuit alleging its Claude Max subscription ($100-$200/month) deceptively advertises '5x' and '20x' usage multipliers over the $20 Pro plan.
- The complaint claims the multipliers only apply to five-hour windows subject to weekly limits, requiring users to click two hyperlinks to see the actual 'session' definition — a Reddit user compared it to 'giving someone a bigger gas tank while keeping the fuel pump limited to one gallon every five hours.'
- Attorneys Monica Vaca and Kati Daffan, both former FTC employees under Lina Khan with 38 years combined FTC experience, are leading the suit and framed it as a 'compelling' false advertising case.
- Anthropic announced Max in April 2025 but didn't impose the contested weekly limits until August, as it pushed to compete with OpenAI.
- In a motion to dismiss the original July complaint, Anthropic argued the clarifying terms were accessible via hyperlinks, calling it 'the digital equivalent of flipping a product over to read the back label.'
- Anthropic's Fable 5.1 model release quietly acknowledged customer frustration, stating it was 'addressing the feedback we've received from customers on price.'
Why it matters: This case tests whether AI subscription marketing is subject to traditional false advertising rules, with $100-$200/month Claude Max users claiming they received less usage than the '5x' and '20x' headlines implied. With two ex-FTC veterans bringing the suit and Anthropic fighting to keep the terms behind hyperlinks, a ruling could set precedent for how AI labs must disclose usage caps during a year when the labs have been passing steep operating costs to consumers.
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