ChatGPT’s Main Competitor Launches $200 Per Month Subscription, Still Has Limitations

Anthropic is set to test a premium subscription price cap for its chatbot Claude, becoming the latest player — following rival OpenAI — in the artificial intelligence (AI) market to explore how much users are willing to pay for expanded access to cutting-edge AI technologies.

Image source: Anthropic

Anthropic today unveiled its Max plan, which costs $100 or $200 per month depending on usage. For $100, users will be able to send five times as many requests to Claude as the current $18 per month Pro plan, the company says. And for $200, that number increases by 20 times. Pro users can currently send an average of 45 messages to the bot over a five-hour period.

Like other AI developers, the San Francisco-based company is looking to persuade consumers and businesses to buy its products to cover the high costs of developing cutting-edge AI models. The new plan compares to OpenAI, which launched a similar $200-per-month subscription for ChatGPT late last year. However, OpenAI offers unlimited access to its most powerful models for the same $200 per month.

Anthropic claims that Max subscribers will receive more detailed responses and will have their queries processed on a priority basis even during peak periods. They will also have exclusive access to new models and software updates.

The latest version of Anthropic’s model, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, also gives users the option to choose between quick answers to simple queries or more granular, human-like responses. This sets the company apart from its competitors in a crowded AI market, especially after Anthropic successfully raised $3.5 billion in funding in March, valuing it at $61.5 billion and cementing its place among the world’s largest AI startups.