Update (July 20): The cliff moved again — for the third time. Anthropic is keeping the +50% Claude Code weekly boost through August 19, Fable 5 access continues (my Fable bar is sitting right there at 16% used this morning), and a new promotion appeared alongside it: Cowork limits are 100% higher through August 5. The screenshot below is my /usage from this morning. Everything below about the mechanics stays true for whenever these promotions actually end — mentally swap July 20 for August 19.
Two separate promotions end at the same moment this Sunday — 11:59 PM Pacific, July 19 — and on Monday morning a lot of Claude Code users are going to open /usage, see a fuller-looking bar, and assume something broke. Nothing broke. Here’s exactly what changes, in one place, because the official support article explaining this is set to noindex and won’t show up when you search for it.
The 30-second answer
Two things end together on July 19:
- The +50% weekly limit boost (running since May 13) expires. Your weekly cap returns to standard — the denominator shrinks by a third, so the same usage shows a higher percentage. The 5-hour session limit is a separate May 6 change and does not shrink — it has no announced end date.
- Fable 5 leaves subscription plans. Since July 1 it’s been included for up to 50% of your weekly limit, extended twice after community pushback (July 7 → 12 → 19). From July 20 it requires prepaid usage credits, billed at API rates: $10 per million input tokens, $50 per million output.
Your plan and its price don’t change. Nothing else about your account changes.
What you’ll actually see Monday morning
- Your weekly
/usagebar jumps without any new usage. If it read 20% Sunday night, expect roughly 30% Monday — same usage, smaller ceiling. That’s arithmetic, not a bug. - The separate “Fable” weekly bar disappears from
/usage. - Fable 5 drops out of
/modelunless you have a funded usage-credit balance.
I’ll drop my own before/after captures in here Monday morning.
Is this a bug or an outage? Neither — here’s the source
Anthropic’s support article “Claude Code May–July 2026 weekly limits promotion” states both promotions run through July 19, 2026. You won’t find it by searching — the page carries a noindex tag — but it’s linked here. And for the “is Fable gone forever” question: Anthropic has said Fable 5 isn’t permanently leaving subscriptions — it returns “as capacity allows,” with no date attached.
Given that the deadline already moved twice, a third extension isn’t impossible. If that happens I’ll update this post; the mechanics below stay true either way.
What Fable 5 costs on credits (rough math)
Fable 5 bills at double Opus 4.8’s rate ($10/$50 vs $5/$25 per million tokens), which makes it the most expensive model on the price list. Agentic coding is brutally input-heavy — every file read and tool result re-enters the context — so chat-style guesses land way off. A working session that processes 1.5M input tokens and generates 60k output lands around $18 at list rates, before prompt caching trims the input side. Budget serious sessions in the $10–30 range, not the $2–5 you might expect.
Enabling credits takes two minutes: claude.ai → Settings → Usage → Usage credits → Enable, add a payment method, set a monthly spend limit, prepay an amount. In Claude Code you need v2.1.170 or later, then /model fable. If you subscribed through a mobile app store, credits can only be enabled on the web.
Honest take: for most people, don’t buy credits — wait. Opus 4.8 stays included in your plan, and in my day-to-day work the gap only shows on long multi-file tasks and hard debugging. Load $25 with a hard cap when you have a specific problem worth it, and turn credits back off after.
Switching your workflow back (if you leaned on Fable)
/model→ pick Opus 4.8 or Sonnet 5, Enter saves it as your default- Or pin it in settings.json:
"model": "claude-opus-4-8"— or theANTHROPIC_MODELenv var - If your subagents specified
model: fablein their frontmatter, they’ll need editing too - Your weekly quota now stretches further on Sonnet 5 — it’s the cheap default, and on Max plans the premium-tier pool and all-models pool drain separately (details in my usage limits guide)
Who’s NOT affected
Free plan (never had either promo), API users (always paid per token), and consumption-based Enterprise billing. Everyone on Pro, Max 5x/20x, Team, and seat-based Enterprise is affected by both changes.
FAQ
Does my 5-hour session limit shrink too? No. That doubling came from a separate May 6 change with no announced expiry. Only the weekly cap changes.
Do usage credits expire? They’re prepaid balance with a monthly spend cap you control; check the purchase screen for current terms. Redemption is capped at $2,000/day.
Will Fable 5 come back to subscriptions? Anthropic says yes, “as capacity allows.” No date. Given two extensions already happened under pressure, the pattern suggests they’re watching the reaction.
My bar jumped way more than a third — why? Check the attribution section in /usage (press w for the 7-day view). Subagents, MCP servers, and long conversations are the usual suspects, boost or no boost.
This site isn’t affiliated with Anthropic, PBC. Numbers are from my own Max account; before/after screenshots land here Monday.