Anthropic is now fighting a class action lawsuit that accuses the AI company of misleading customers about how much usage its costly Claude Max subscriptions really deliver. In short, the suit claims paying users got less than they were promised.
Who filed it and where
The complaint was lodged on June 14 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by a customer named Karl Kahn. It aims to represent other Claude subscribers who bought the company's Max plans, and it alleges that Anthropic misled customers about the amount of usage included in its premium tiers.
Kahn says he signed up for Claude Pro in June 2025, then upgraded to Max 5x in January and Max 20x in April of this year. He alleges that he overpaid for both subscriptions, received less usage than Anthropic advertised, and at times had to buy extra usage once he hit his plan limits.
The legal argument
Kati Daffan, Founding Partner at Vaca Daffan LLP, who represents Kahn, says the case rests on well-established consumer protection laws that bar companies from misleading people about the products and services they sell.
"This is a really good type of case for a class action, because the law is very clear that companies have to be honest about their advertising and marketing. If they're not, they can be held liable, need to change their ways, and refund money to people. Civil actions like this are brought every day against companies that misrepresent something about their product or service."
She made the comments to TrendKia.
How Anthropic's plans are priced
Anthropic offers several subscription tiers for individual users, ranging from a free plan with limited usage to its paid Pro and Max plans. The Pro plan costs $20 per month or $200 per year and is aimed at regular users, while Max targets customers who lean on Claude far more heavily.
Max 5x costs $100 per month and is marketed as offering five times the Pro plan's usage capacity per session. Max 20x costs $200 per month and is marketed as offering 20 times the Pro plan's usage capacity per session. Anthropic says Max subscribers also get priority access to new models and features, access to Claude Code, and higher usage limits designed to cut down interruptions during longer workflows.
The heart of the complaint
The complaint alleges that Anthropic never clearly explained how usage is actually measured, which made it hard for subscribers to work out whether they were getting the level of access promised under the Max plans.
Daffan argues that this same lack of transparency may explain why no similar lawsuit had been filed before. As she sees it, consumers simply lacked the information needed to verify whether they were receiving the advertised level of service.
"It's really not easy for a normal consumer to know if they're getting the amount they were promised, or if they're not, because that information simply isn't provided. So you can see a lot of people expressing on Reddit and other boards that they feel they might not have received what they were promised, but it took a lot of connecting the dots and work to piece together what was actually going on here."
What the lawsuit is asking for
The suit seeks damages, restitution, injunctive and declaratory relief, attorneys' fees, and costs. It also asks the court to certify a class action on behalf of all U.S. residents who bought or upgraded to a Claude Max 5x or Max 20x subscription through Claude.com or the Claude desktop app between April 9, 2025, and the present. Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TrendKia.
Not the only one
Anthropic is far from alone in selling premium AI subscriptions built around higher usage limits. OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity all offer plans priced between $100 and $200 per month, each promising broader access to advanced AI models and bigger usage allowances.
New models and a government clampdown
The lawsuit lands just days after Anthropic launched Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5, its most advanced AI models to date. Mythos 5 was limited to approved cybersecurity organizations, critical infrastructure operators, government partners, and selected researchers, while Fable 5 went out to the wider public with additional safeguards.
The release quickly drew complaints from some users and developers over usage limits, "invisible safeguards," and restrictions, along with the model's habit of burning through subscription allowances faster than earlier Claude models. Days later, the U.S. government ordered Anthropic to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for foreign nationals, citing national security concerns tied to a potential jailbreak vulnerability.
