Developers Using Anthropic Claude Code Hit by Token Drain Crisis

Claude Code Max subscribers ($200/month) are reporting quota exhaustion in as little as 19 minutes instead of the expected 5 hours. Anthropic has acknowledged the issue, citing bugs in token tracking and adjustments to 5-hour session limits during peak hours. Compounding the problem is prompt caching behavior, where taking breaks can lead to higher token costs upon resuming. Anthropic's deliberate opacity around exact token allocations — using relative multipliers rather than hard numbers — makes it difficult for developers to plan and budget their work effectively. Some users have resorted to downgrading to older versions of Claude Code as a workaround.