Why is my Claude Code usage running out so fast?

A paid Claude plan has a session limit that resets every five hours and weekly limits, and use in claude.ai, Claude Code and Claude Desktop counts toward the same limits (Claude Help Center). Anthropic names what drives it: the length and complexity of conversations, the features you use, the model and the effort level. On Team and Enterprise plans each seat has an allowance on the same rolling five-hour and weekly windows, shared with Claude chat and Cowork (Claude Code docs).

Underneath, Claude Code runs on tokens. Anthropic's costs page says Claude Code charges by API token consumption (Claude Code docs), and a long session draws more because every request carries more of them (why usage climbs in a long session).

These show how much is left and what used it:

• /usage in Claude Code shows your plan usage bars. On Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise it also breaks recent usage down by skills, subagents, plugins and MCP servers, and adds a recommendation row for anything behind 10% or more of it. Press d or w to switch between the last 24 hours and the last 7 days (plan usage breakdown).
• In /usage, press f to have Claude Code act on the recommendations it can (Claude Code v2.1.305 or later). It runs suggested /effort changes itself, and for the other rows it can act on, it gives Claude a prompt that asks it to show you each change before making it.
• Settings > Usage on claude.ai tracks your session and weekly limits (Claude Help Center).
• On Pro and Max, a status line script receives rate_limits.five_hour.used_percentage and rate_limits.seven_day.used_percentage (0 to 100) with their resets_at times, and context_window.used_percentage for the current context (status line docs).

The breakdown in /usage is approximate and computed from session history on your machine, so usage from other devices or claude.ai is not in it. The dollar figure in its Session block is meant for API users. On a subscription it is not what you are billed.

Usage climbs because every request carries the whole conversation, and a long session has more of it. Each round of tool use sends another request with that batch of results added. Prompt caching re-reads the history at the cached token rate, so a one-line question in a session open all day still draws usage for the whole conversation (Anthropic: why usage climbs in a long session). Anthropic lists these causes:

• Long context. The history rides on every request. Run /clear between unrelated tasks so the next task starts small.
• Cache misses. Your first message after a break longer than the cache lifetime reprocesses the full context. On a subscription within plan usage, the main conversation gets a one-hour cache and subagents five minutes. You can set the main conversation's cache lifetime with the promptCacheTtl setting (Claude Code v2.1.242 or later, prompt caching docs). Switching models mid-session also re-reads the whole history without the cache (prompt caching docs). More in why the first message after a break uses so much.
• Scheduled tasks. A session-scoped scheduled task, such as a /loop, fires on its interval even while the session is idle and sends your full context each time. /usage lists the heaviest loops.
• Cross-session messages. A message from another of your sessions arrives as a new turn when this one is idle, and each one sends your full context. Set crossSessionInbound to hold to keep them waiting instead.
• Goal check-ins. While background work keeps a goal waiting, Claude Code starts up to three idle check-ins per goal between your prompts, and each one sends your full context. Set CLAUDE_CODE_GOAL_CHECKIN_MINUTES to 0 to turn them off.
• Subagents and workflows. Every subagent sends its own requests on top of the main conversation. The attribution breakdown in /usage shows their share.
• Agent teammates. Each active teammate uses tokens until it exits. Anthropic puts agent teams at about 7 times the tokens of a standard session when teammates run in plan mode. Keep teams small and shut teammates down when their work is done.
• Compaction. /compact reads the conversation it summarizes, so on a large context it is itself a large request. When you want a fresh start, /clear costs nothing.

Keep each request small and send fewer of them. These habits come from Anthropic's own advice on reducing token usage (Claude Code docs):

1. Between unrelated tasks, run /rename so you can find the session later, then /clear. /resume brings the old session back when you need it.
2. Use Sonnet for most coding work and keep Opus for hard architecture and multi-step reasoning. Pick the model at the start of a session, because a switch mid-session re-reads the history uncached (prompt caching docs).
3. Lower the effort level with /effort for simple tasks. Thinking tokens are billed as output, and the Claude Help Center notes that higher effort uses more tokens.
4. Keep CLAUDE.md under 200 lines. It loads into every session, so move instructions for specific workflows into skills, which load only when used.
5. Run /mcp and disable servers you are not using, and prefer command-line tools such as gh where they exist. /context shows what is taking space.
6. Add a hook that filters test or log output before Claude reads it. Anthropic's docs show a PreToolUse hook that keeps only the failures from a test run.
7. Send verbose work, such as test runs or log reading, to a subagent, and give simple subagents model: haiku in their configuration.
8. Write specific prompts, use plan mode (Shift+Tab) for complex tasks, and press Escape as soon as Claude heads the wrong way. /rewind goes back to an earlier checkpoint.
9. If you compact, do it at a natural break while the cache is warm. After the cache has expired the summary request reprocesses the history uncached (prompt caching docs).

Each of these keeps the history short or starts it over. For work that needs one long session, /clear is not an option, because it also drops what the session knew, so the history keeps riding every request. Perpetuity is built for that case (below).

If your work did not change, the change may be in Claude Code or in how usage is counted. Recording your usage tells you which. Others have reported the same thing in public, and one past case was confirmed and fixed.

• March 2026: an issue reports Max plan five-hour windows running out in one to two hours of routine command-line work from 23 March (#38335). It is still open, and the repository's maintainers have labelled it invalid, which they describe as "Issue doesn't seem to be related to Claude Code".
• 23 April 2026: Anthropic's postmortem describes a change shipped on 26 March to clear older reasoning once from sessions idle for over an hour. A bug cleared it on every turn instead, and those requests also missed the cache. It was fixed on 10 April in v2.1.101. Anthropic said it believed this drove the reports of limits draining faster than expected, and reset usage limits for all subscribers (Anthropic).
• October 2026: new reports that limits drain faster for similar work, in #100746 (9 October, Claude Code 2.1.294), #102451 (15 October, 2.1.300) and #102667 (16 October), which reports a five-hour window taking about 15% of the weekly quota instead of about 10%. Commenters on #100746 point to cache misses in resumed or idle sessions, and #102667 asks whether the counting changed. As of 23 October 2026 all three are open, with no answer from Anthropic in them and no confirmed cause.

To document a regression in a way support can act on:

1. Run claude --version and note it with the date.
2. On Pro or Max, log rate_limits.five_hour.used_percentage from your status line at the start and end of a task. On other plans, note the bars in /usage or Settings > Usage.
3. For the same task, note the token counts from the Session block of /usage (input, output, cache read and cache write) and its Prompt cache (main) line (v2.1.251 or later), which counts misses and, from v2.1.260, names a likely cause when Claude Code can identify one.
4. Repeat a comparable task after a version change and compare the percentage used against the tokens used. Our Claude Code by version page tracks what each release sends with every request and how many tokens a scripted session takes.
5. Send it to Anthropic. On claude.ai, click your initials in the lower left and choose Get help. The assistant there hands issues that need investigation to the product support team (How to get support). If a GitHub issue matches your version, add your numbers there too.