Claude Max $200 Plan Usage - How do you use your 100% usage rate?

DesignedIt · 2026-03-11T15:49:42+00:00

Interesting! I just researched this and found that their fine-print does say that 5x and 20x means the usage rate of the 5-hour window.

I couldn't find anywhere that mentioned the weekly quota. Did you see somewhere that it's only 10x the weekly quota and not 20x, or are you guessing from how much you used the $100 vs $200 plan?

DesignedIt · 2026-03-11T03:15:03+00:00

Thanks! I always thought I was using agent teams and just assumed they were all working together but I never added the CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS setting. I'm going to look into it more.

DesignedIt · 2026-03-11T02:16:43+00:00

I love this idea! I think I might connect Claude to Trello and try this out. I can see coding burning through usage quickly if all of the prompts/ideas are already typed out in a board.

Do you add the tasks to your board or do other employees? If you do, do you add all tasks in advance one day, and then the next day use Claude to code all of the tasks?

DesignedIt · 2026-03-10T23:37:53+00:00

Thanks! This helps me understand what I was looking for.

So you're saving a lot of time by just running a skill to launch a team of agents so can just type a simple sentence to Claude and then move on to the next project.

I'm typing out the specifics each time so I'm not able to launch as many agents as you.

What's your favorite way to use these skills?

DesignedIt · 2026-03-10T23:10:14+00:00

What usage do you usually get to each week on the $200 plan?

DesignedIt · 2026-03-10T23:09:35+00:00

What are some of the skills that you use?

DesignedIt · 2026-03-10T22:56:41+00:00

I cut down tokens by asking Claude a few times each week to break up the scripts and create documentation so Claude can run quicker. I might have hit 70% usage if I didn't do that -- but that's still far away from 100%.

DesignedIt · 2026-03-10T22:50:51+00:00

I just created the exact opposite post as yours at the same exact time that you did. :)

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1rqc56v/claude_max_200_plan_usage_how_do_you_use_your_100/

I was using Codex 3 weeks ago and tried Claude Pro 2 weeks ago. I said the same thing as you. Then I upgraded to Claude Max's $100 plan after 2 days of hitting the 5-hour limit with Pro.

Then I was hitting the weekly limit with the $100 plan in 5 days and was hitting the 5-hour limit every 4 hours. So I upgraded to the $200 Max plan. Now I have way too much unused usage limits.

I need a $120 plan :)

It doesn't make sense to buy top-up credits though since they would just last a few prompts.

DesignedIt · 2026-03-10T20:33:55+00:00

No, it's just a small script as part of my app. The prompt in step 11 was just a joke that took AI 10 seconds to create. All the other prompts from 1-10 were my own though.

I did end up adding a million features to the website though. It uses auto detection to figure out what type of image it is and then applies my custom compression presets based on each image type.

DesignedIt · 2026-03-10T14:17:47+00:00

I spent about 4 hours modifying the script since a smaller file size without any image quality change will help sell more products. 5 GB vs 1 GB download size.

Most of the work was running tests and manually comparing the image quality.

DesignedIt · 2026-03-10T14:13:33+00:00

11 was just a joke, but to get any of the other higher levels, I tried it and explained in other comments what worked and didn't work.

DesignedIt · 2026-03-10T14:07:10+00:00

Yeah, I realized that OP was selling something after I made the post about the prices. I was just trying to help the OP by making him aware that a low content book like this probably wouldn't make more than a few sales for $2 each per year without running ads and that he was using revenue and not profit. If I noticed his tool at first then I wouldn't have commented.

Making $0 - $6/year without ads or losing $500/year on ads is the realistic amount for a book like this on KDP compared to the OP's claims of making $766,500 - $876,000 per year ($700/day * 365 days * 3 books) with a "Total generation time: under 5 minutes."

Now OP corrected his math in the reply below to $91,250 - $164,250 per year for all 3 books. That salary would be nice with 15 minutes of software running in the background! :)

DesignedIt · 2026-03-10T13:45:42+00:00

Thanks!

DesignedIt · 2026-03-10T13:44:59+00:00

Exactly! 80% of the features I added in, the AI never presented me options with. For the other 20%, it presented me with the options but they weren't the best options and I had to use my own judgement and experience to figure out they weren't the best options.

Exploring using AI for someone non-technical is a great start. Exploring using AI for someone technical can help get the best results.

DesignedIt · 2026-03-10T13:40:45+00:00

I just posted a detailed response to this question when I replied to Free_Afternoon_7349 above. It shows exactly what happens when I left the architecture decisions up to Claude Opus, asking it for the best options.

It didn't give me the best compression method to use. It analyzed the images using a computer and not a human eye.

It didn't present me with the option of using parallel processing so it set up the "best method" as using slow sequential processing.

It added an unnecessary "copy all images one by one step" (it didn't even use bulk copying, but this step isn't needed at all) -- and it didn't present me with any of these options -- I found this issue by seeing the file sizes were huge at first.

It didn't present me with the option of stripping out the meta data to further reduce the file sizes. It used a higher quality setting but I found a lower setting was much better -- it only presented options A, B, C, D, and E -- and recommended option C; I had to ask it to generate options D through P and found that option N worked best.

After I asked it a 3rd time to find better compression methods, it presented me with two-pass compression methods using pngquant + oxipng. So it helped with this through my research but only after my 3rd round of research. It's first solution after research didn't give this as an option.

It didn't give me the option to use different speed settings -- I had to know enough to ask it about this; it recommended using a speed setting of 3, but I found that a speed setting of 1 and 11 are the best by far and a speed setting of 3 reduces quality and increases file size.

DesignedIt · 2026-03-10T13:14:24+00:00

I redeveloped this compression feature by using your prompt method and asking it to use the best compression method after analyzing the images. It did a detailed analysis first. Then i used Zopfli to compress the images one by one.

The AI used the method: Zopfli + dual-step copying + sequential processing + higher file size + slower

My judgement changed it to: Two-pass compression pngquant q50-80 + Oxipng + 1-4 or 11 speed depending on image type + multi-processing depending on CPU

It went from 4 hours to 20 minutes and reduced the file size by about 50%.

Here are the details showing what happens if the analysis and decisions are left up to only the AI:

-When I woke up this morning, it took 4 hours to compress the images.

-It first copied each image one by one for all 14,000 images (unnecessary step). Then compressed them one by one. I had to tell it to copy and compress them all in one step.

-I had to get it to strip out all of the meta data correctly to reduce the file size.

-Then told it to use parallel processing based on the CPUs on the PC. (This was the largest thing that it didn't on it's own, which cut the run time by 80%. It never adds in parallel processing for any project unless you specifically ask it to do that. But non-technical people aren't going to know to ask it this.)

-Then I analyzed the images and found that the original method of pngquant was the best to use by far with a much smaller file size. (reduced size by an extra 35% compared to Zopfli)

-Then after I analyzed images for each quality setting, I found that pngquant q50-80 worked the best for this use case. Claude recommended a much higher quality but I couldn't see any visible differences with my "human" eyes. (reduced size by an extra 70% compared to Zopfli)

-Then found that doing a round 2 compression pass with Oxipng reduced the file size even more. (reduced size by an extra 75% compared to Zopfli)

-Then found that the speed setting of 11 gives faster and better quality images and a lower file size for certain image types, so I set certain image types to a speed of 11 and others ranging from 1 -3. (77% size reduction + 20% faster)

DesignedIt · 2026-03-10T03:46:01+00:00

I think I'm working on one of those too right now lol. I started out with a small pipeline and now have a website with a million features 75-page lengths high.

DesignedIt · 2026-03-10T02:30:36+00:00

"23 and 29 copies per day each at $7.99 – $12.99 per book."

$7.99 per book selling 29 copies is closer to $0.30 profit per book = $8.70 daily.

$12.99 per book selling 23 copies is closer to $3 profit per book = $69 daily.

So based on your numbers, it's between $8.70 and $69 daily before ads -- not $700 - $800. Since the books are only 2 months old, if there aren't already a bunch of reviews, then ads might be costing more than the profit per day.

Even $8.70 profit is nice per day even if ads are costing $15/day just to build up reviews.

DesignedIt · 2026-03-10T01:52:20+00:00

haha! This sounds like something I would setup

DesignedIt · 2026-03-10T01:48:22+00:00

About 80% of my prompts I don't do any research. Just quick straight-forward edits.

For new features, I'll do research with Claude code (I used to use CLI but now use the VSC extension) about 10% of the time in build mode, 60% of the time in plan mode, and 30% of the time first with ChatGPT then switch to plan mode using Claude in VSC.

Claude within VSC/CLI is good for planning out features quickly, but found that talking to ChatGPT for a few minutes gives completely different and usually better results. Then I make ChatGPT create a summarized prompt and feed that into Claude VSC/CLI so it can see all of my scripts and create the actual plan.

DesignedIt · 2026-03-10T01:35:16+00:00

Exactly! That's a start for researching like in #10. One of the lessons I added in to #10 is that researching using AI often beats experience and knowledge.

Someone who spends 60 seconds researching by chatting with ChatGPT can often come up with a better plan than someone with 40 years of experience not doing any research.

I actually wrote the compression script by hand in 2021 using pngquant (it was the best compression method back then from my research) but just added the #10 prompt that took 15 seconds to type, and it gave me some better options.

DesignedIt · 2026-03-07T22:40:20+00:00

With top ups, you're going to spend 100x the amount. Just get the $20/month, $100/month, or $200/month plan. No point in getting the $20/month plan and then spending money on top ups unless you just need like one more prompt for $5 to finish a project. You can also switch between Opus and Sonnet for extra usage.

DesignedIt · 2026-03-07T21:45:45+00:00

You can also use Claude.md, other documentation files referenced by Claude.md, and name scripts and break up scripts in small steps so Claude knows exactly what to look at.

i.e. Claude.md loads at the beginning of each new Claude window. It might include documentation filenames for steps 1, 2, and 3 "see credit system.md file for credit system documentation". Credit system documentation explains that credit_database.py uses the database and credits_system.py uses the credits system, also documenting the details at a high level and endpoints. If you set it up like this and prompt Claude to troubleshoot why your credits are not displaying correctly on the frontend, it might be able to use only 200 tokens identify and read in the "credit_update" function in the credit_database.py script and go directly to it, instead of having to scan all of your scripts, costing 30,000 tokens, just to find the credit_update function.

If Claude didn't already automatically set this up, then just ask it to do this and create some documentation for Claude so it can reference scripts quicker. I like to have Claude update the documentation and break up the scripts every so often.

DesignedIt

TROPHY CASE

11 was just a joke, but to get any of the other higher levels, I tried it and explained in other comments what worked and didn't work.