Does the Pro plan have any usage limits?
Yes. During peak hours, the Pro plan offers at least five times the usage per session compared to our free service. The number of messages you can send will vary based on message length, including the length of files you attach, the length of your current conversation, and the model or feature you use. Your session-based usage limit will reset every five hours.
In addition, to manage capacity and ensure fair access to all users, we may limit your usage in other ways, such as weekly and monthly caps or model and feature usage, at our discretion.
Practically what do these limits mean?
If your conversations are relatively short (approximately 200 English sentences, assuming your sentences are around 15-20 words) and use a less compute-intensive model, you can expect to send around 45 messages every five hours, often more depending on Claude’s current capacity.
Why have these limits?
A model as capable as Claude takes a lot of powerful computers to run, especially when responding to large attachments and long conversations. We set these limits to ensure Claude can be made available to many people to try for free, while allowing power users to integrate Claude into their daily workflows.
Your Pro plan limits are based on the total length of your conversation, combined with the number of messages you send, and the model or feature you use. Please note that these limits may vary depending on Claude’s current capacity.
How to get the most value out of the Pro plan
Ask multiple questions at once, especially when working with long documents. Sending multiple questions in one message is more efficient than sending them separately.
Don't re-upload files within the same conversation. Claude remembers the context from your conversation, so you don't need to upload the same file multiple times.
Use projects when working on related tasks. Projects provide caching that saves your usage:
When you add documents to a project, they're cached.
Every time you reference that content, cached tokens count less than uncached portions toward your usage limits.
This means you can work with the same materials repeatedly without using up your messages as quickly.
How do usage limits work with Claude Code on the Pro plan?
Pro plan users have access to use Claude Code in their terminal. Usage limits apply across both Claude and Claude Code. Read more about usage limits on Pro plans when using Claude Code.
How do usage limits work when using Research with the Pro plan?
See Using Research on Claude for an explanation of how usage limits work when using this feature.
How to increase your Pro plan usage limits
Our Max plans offer more usage for individuals than Pro plans. See About Claude's Max Plan Usage for additional information.
Refer to Choosing a Claude Plan to compare our offerings and see which plan has the right usage limit for your use case.