Does Max effort on Claude Opus 5.5 use up your limit faster?
Yes. Anthropic's help center says higher effort uses more tokens, so you reach your usage limits faster, and on Opus 5.5 thinking is always on. It gives no multiplier; Low and Medium stretch your usage further.
Checked against the lab's own pages on September 23, 2026. Limits change often, so the date matters.
Since Opus 5.5 came out, subscribers on Reddit have been saying that Max effort eats their limit several times faster than Medium. Anthropic's help center confirms the direction, though it doesn't put a number on it.
Higher effort means more thorough responses, the help center says, but they take longer and use more tokens, so you'll reach your usage limits faster.
- Effort levels
- Low, Medium, High, Extra high (xhigh) and Max
- Stretch your usage
- Low and Medium
- Thinking on Opus 5.5
- Always on at every effort level
- Session limit resets
- Every five hours
- Change it
- Click the model name, then Effort
Why Opus 5.5 feels heavier
Effort controls how much thinking Claude applies to each response. What I didn't know until I read the article is that you can't turn thinking off on Opus 5.5 at all (not in the apps, and not on the API either). So every effort level includes it.
On Opus 5.5 and Fable 5.1, thinking is always on at every effort level, including on the Claude API.
That leaves effort as the one dial you've got. Each model marks a recommended level as Default in the menu, and Anthropic describes Extra high as deeper reasoning than High without the full token cost of Max.
Which level to pick
The help center's advice is to keep the defaults for everyday tasks. Simple questions and general writing don't need extra effort, and Low or Medium stretch your usage further.
For complex coding and agentic work on Opus 4.7 or newer, it says to try Extra high first. Max is for the most difficult, correctness-critical work, and you should expect longer response times with it.
You can switch mid-chat. Click the model name next to the send button, then Effort, and the change applies from Claude's next response.
When you hit the limit
Your session limit resets every five hours, and Max plans also have a weekly limit that resets at a fixed time assigned to your account. Your chats and Claude Code count toward the same limit.
Once you're out, you can wait for the reset or upgrade your plan. Buying usage credits is the other way to keep going. Our page on Opus 5 limits in the Claude apps covers the plans themselves.