April 9, 2025 – San Francisco, CA – Anthropic, the AI analysis agency co-founded by ex-OpenAI luminaries Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei, has fired a brand new salvo in its battle with OpenAI, unveiling its Claude Max subscription tiers in the present day. Priced at $124.99 and $249.99 per thirty days, the Max 5x and Max 20x plans promise energy customers dramatically increased utilization limits—5 and 20 instances that of the $20 Claude Professional tier, respectively—together with precedence entry to Anthropic’s newest fashions, together with the hybrid-reasoning Claude 3.7 Sonnet. The transfer, introduced on Anthropic’s weblog, positions Claude as a premium contender in a crowded AI chatbot market dominated by OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The Claude Max tiers goal heavy customers like builders, researchers, and enterprises, constructing on Anthropic’s momentum after its $600 million funding spherical in March and the rollout of Claude for Training earlier this month. “We’re seeing unbelievable demand from customers who want extra from Claude—extra capability, extra velocity, extra innovation,” product lead Scott White advised TechCrunch. The $249.99 Max 20x tier, for example, provides sufficient throughput to course of huge datasets or deal with complicated coding duties, areas the place Claude’s 200,000-token context window already outshines ChatGPT’s 128,000-token cap. In contrast to OpenAI’s $200 ChatGPT Professional plan, which incorporates voice, picture era, and limitless GPT-4 entry, Claude Max stays text-only however bets on uncooked energy and early characteristic entry to lure subscribers.
The pricing has sparked debate. Posts on X criticize the $125-$250 vary as steep for a text-centric AI, particularly towards ChatGPT’s $20 plan with broader options. “Anthropic’s taking part in a dangerous recreation—Max appears like a money seize with out the multimodal juice,” one consumer famous. But, Anthropic’s enterprise wins—like partnerships with GitLab and Northeastern College—counsel a distinct segment: customers who prioritize depth over flash. The Max tiers additionally coincide with Claude Code, a command-line coding software in restricted preview, hinting at a developer-focused ecosystem to rival OpenAI’s GPT-powered integrations.
Anthropic’s income, reportedly $115 million month-to-month, trails OpenAI’s projected $5 billion annualized run price, per trade estimates. However with Amazon’s $8 billion backing and Google’s $2 billion stake, Anthropic has the battle chest to push boundaries. OpenAI, in the meantime, has countered with ChatGPT Edu and a looming GPT-5 tease, conserving the strain on. As Google opens its Gemini fashions to on-premises use in the present day, the AI race intensifies—Claude Max is Anthropic’s bid to carve out a premium slice, however whether or not it justifies the associated fee in a feature-hungry market stays the million-dollar query.
