Claude Free Limits: What the Free Plan Includes

• Free runs on one meter: a session limit that resets every five hours. Anthropic describes weekly limits as something paid plans add on top, though it reserves the right to cap any plan in other ways.
• There is no fixed message count. Long chats, big attachments and heavier models use the allowance faster, because Claude re-reads the whole conversation on every message.
• Claude on the web, desktop and mobile all draw from the same allowance.
• When you hit the limit, you wait for the reset or upgrade. Usage credits, which let paid plans keep working past the cap, aren't available on Free.
• Pro is sold as "at least 5x more usage per 5-hour session than Free". That's the only official yardstick for the Free allowance.

The limits, itemized

Figures marked derived are our arithmetic on official statements, not published numbers.

Which models you get

• Start a fresh chat for each new topic. One long thread costs far more of your session than several short ones.
• Paste the pages you need instead of attaching a whole PDF. Attachments are re-read on every message.
• Choose Haiku for quick questions to stretch the session further, and switch to Sonnet when you need depth.
• If you keep hitting the 5-hour wall, or you want Claude Code, Pro at $20/month ($17 billed annually) is the next step.

Keep deciding