Those sorts of volume discounts are what you do when you're trying to incentivize more consumption. Anthropic already has more demand then they're logistically able to serve, at the moment (look at their uptime chart, it's barely even 1 9 of reliability). For them, 1 user consuming 5 units of compute is less attractive than 5 users consuming 1 unit.

They would probably implement _diminishing_-value pricing if pure pricing efficiency was their only concern.

It is not the plan they want you to buy. It is a pricing strategy to get you to buy the 20x plan.

5x Max is the plan I use because the Pro plan limits out so quickly. I don't use Claude full-time, but I do need Claude Code, and I do prefer to use Opus for everything because it's focused and less chatty.

Sure, I get it. For me a 2x Max would be ideal and usually enough. Now, guess why they are not offering that?

Where do you live? I'm in the midwest, US, and theoretical savings between 2x and 5x amounts to a single full bag of groceries. Literally.

How can this possibly be a concern?

You are clearly overpaying for your groceries. I can cook for a week from the difference.

If there wasn't a significant difference, they would offer 2x Max, the demand is there. But they don't. Clearly, their strategy works on fanboys like you.

Same here. I'd love a 2x Max plan! More than enough usage for my needs.

Just make two plans and switch, when one of them is exhausted.

Yes, I hear that is what people do. Annoying though.

I think they are both subsidized so either is a great deal.

Yeah the free lunch on tokens is almost over. Get them while they’re still cheap

5 times the already subsidised rate is still a discount.

We’ll make it up on volume.

5 for 5