The Claude plan I actually use
Pro subscription, a prepaid credit buffer, and Sonnet for most things. For a non-coder working with AI daily, this turns out cheaper than the Max plans.
A friend asked which Claude subscription he should get. The pricing page left him more confused than when he started. I can't tell him what's right for his situation, but I can tell him what I do.
The setup
I run a Pro subscription. That covers the bulk of what I need: writing, analysis, research, structured thinking, light agentic work. I hit the daily usage limit occasionally. The weekly limit, rarely.
When I do hit the daily limit, Claude switches to prepaid credit automatically. No interruption, no decision to make. I top up the balance now and then, and the buffer keeps working in the background. Total monthly cost stays well below the Max plans, because I only pay overage when I actually need it.
That asymmetry matters. Max makes sense if you're hitting limits constantly or need guaranteed capacity. For the way I work, occasional overage is cheaper than a high fixed floor.
Model choice
Sonnet or Opus makes a real difference here too. Opus is the more capable model and costs significantly more per conversation. I use Sonnet for most things, and it handles the bulk of what I do well enough. Opus comes out when the problem genuinely requires it.
The instinct to always reach for the most powerful model is understandable. It's also where costs quietly compound.
The invisible meter
The trickier part is that token usage isn't visible while you're working. It's a bit like bandwidth: you don't think about it until something trips. A conversation feels like a conversation, not like a metered resource ticking down.
It gets more pronounced when you run things in parallel. Multiple agentic sessions, several long document conversations open at once: usage can spike in ways that aren't obvious until you've hit a limit or a bill arrives. The more autonomous the setup, the less usage feels connected to the work you're actually doing.
The API side
I also keep a small prepaid credit balance for the API, which is separate from the claude.ai subscription. I use it for tools I've built, and occasionally for Claude Code in the terminal.
The two balances don't talk to each other: a Pro subscription on claude.ai doesn't cover API usage, and API credit doesn't unlock Pro features.
Plans as a moving target
My friend is on Max, partly because he's waiting for the Word plugin, and partly because he suspects that being in a plan early pays off as Anthropic adds features over time. That last point is probably right. Anthropic does adjust what's included in plans as products mature, and being an established subscriber tends to work in your favour.
For him, Max makes sense. For me, Pro plus a small credit buffer is still the more cost-efficient fit. The right answer depends on how you work, not on which plan looks most complete on a pricing page.
Start with Pro. See where the limits actually land for your patterns. Add a credit buffer so a daily ceiling doesn't stop you mid-afternoon. Reassess after a month.
Rob Hoeijmakers