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Google AI Ultra vs Claude Max (and Ultra): Which Top Plan Is Worth It for Coding?

Google AI Ultra vs Claude Max ($100) and Claude Ultra ($200, formerly Max 20x): price, coding limits, Antigravity vs Claude Code, and what else each bundles.

By Engineer Foodie Desk Nov 3, 2026 ✓ Sources checked Nov 3, 2026

9 min read

Antigravity plan limits and the Antigravity model list checked Nov 3, 2026 in Google’s Antigravity plans doc and models doc. Google AI Ultra prices checked Nov 2, 2026 on gemini.google/subscriptions, with storage, billing and Cloud credits from the Google One plans page (Oct 29, 2026). Claude Max and Ultra checked Nov 1, 2026 on claude.com/pricing and Anthropic’s help center. US prices, excluding tax. Every source is listed at the bottom. No affiliate links on this page (how we work).

Here’s the finding first: the prices are not the same, but they’re a cent apart. Google AI Ultra starts at $99.99 a month and Claude Max is $100. Google’s bigger Ultra tier is $199.99 and Claude Ultra is $200. So price can’t make this decision for you. What does: Claude Ultra is the only plan of the four that drops the five-hour window, while Google’s money mostly buys Antigravity quota plus a pile of non-coding extras like storage, YouTube Premium and video credits.

Which plan lets a coding agent run longest?

Claude Ultra, once your account is verified. It’s the only one of the four plans with no five-hour window: “verified Ultra accounts don’t have a five-hour session limit,” and you get ten times Pro usage every week (Claude Code plan help, verified Nov 1, 2026). Both Google AI Ultra tiers and Claude Max still stop you at a five-hour refresh before the weekly cap (gemini.google/subscriptions, verified Nov 2, 2026; claude.com/pricing, verified Nov 1, 2026).

Long unattended Claude Code runs: Claude Ultra at $200. Nothing else here removes the five-hour clock.
Agent work inside an IDE, Claude or Gemini models: Google AI Ultra 20x at $199.99 for Antigravity’s “Highest” limits, which also runs Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Opus 5.5 (Antigravity models, verified Nov 3, 2026).
Budget near $100: it’s a tie on the clock. Claude Max and Google AI Ultra both refresh every five hours, so pick the tool you already use.

Google AI Ultra vs Claude Max: the short answer

You live in a terminal and use Claude Code: Claude Max at $100. If the five-hour wall keeps stopping you, Claude Ultra at $200.
You want an agent IDE plus everything else Google sells: Google AI Ultra at $99.99, or the 20x tier at $199.99 for the “Highest” Antigravity limits.
You want Gemini CLI on your subscription: neither Google tier helps. Google says Google AI Pro and Ultra stopped covering Gemini CLI on June 18, 2026; the CLI needs an API key (codeassist.google, verified Oct 29, 2026).

One naming note before the table. Anthropic renamed Max 20x to Ultra, and existing subscribers “move to Ultra automatically, with no price change” (Ultra plan help, verified Nov 1, 2026). Below Ultra sits Max (the old Max 5x). Meanwhile Google sells a tier literally labeled “20x”. Two companies, two “Ultra” plans, one “20x” that moved house.

At a glance

Item	AI Ultra	Claude Max	Claude Ultra
Price	$99.99 or $199.99	$100	$200
Billing	Monthly only	Monthly only	Monthly only
Coding tool	Antigravity	Claude Code	Claude Code
5-hour window	Yes	Yes	None if verified
Weekly limit	Yes	5x Pro	10x Pro
Extra credits	Cloud $40/$100	$100 API	$200 API
Storage	20 TB/30 TB	None	None

Google: Ultra “Starting at” $99.99/mo (5x Pro limits) or $199.99/mo (20x Pro); usage “refreshes every 5 hours until you reach your weekly limit” (gemini.google/subscriptions, verified Nov 2, 2026). “Ultra plans are billed monthly only”; 20 TB on Ultra and 30 TB on Ultra 20x; Google Cloud credits through the Google Developer Program, $40 a month on Ultra and $100 on Ultra 20x (Google One plans, verified Oct 29, 2026). Claude: Max “$100/month”, “5x Pro usage every 5 hours and every week”, $100/mo API credits; Ultra “$200/month”, “No 5-hour limit” for verified accounts, “10x Pro usage every week”, $200/mo API credits (claude.com/pricing, verified Nov 1, 2026). Max and Ultra are monthly only (Max help, verified Nov 1, 2026).

Plainly: Google is $0.01 cheaper at each rung. That’s not a discount, that’s a rounding style. Enterprise pricing for either top tier: not published.

If you’re torn between the two Google tiers first, see Google AI Pro vs Ultra. If it’s the two Claude tiers, see Claude Max vs Ultra.

Coding limits: Antigravity vs Claude Code

Neither company publishes a message or token count. Both publish adjectives and multipliers. Here they are, quoted.

Google, Antigravity on Ultra: “The highest, most generous quota, refreshed every five hours” and “The highest weekly rate limits.” Google adds that limits “correlate with the amount of work done by the agent” and “Usage limits for this service are subject to modification” (Antigravity plans, verified Nov 3, 2026). On Google One the two tiers are split as Ultra “Higher” and Ultra 20x “Highest” for Antigravity agent requests (Google One plans, verified Oct 29, 2026). Every plan gets “Unlimited Tab completions” and the Antigravity CLI.

Anthropic, Claude Code on Max and Ultra: Max gets five times Pro “every 5 hours and every week.” Ultra gets ten times Pro every week, and “verified Ultra accounts don’t have a five-hour session limit” (Claude Code plan help, verified Nov 1, 2026). Usage is shared between the Claude apps and Claude Code, and IDE use counts too. An unverified Ultra account gets “a temporary limit” until Anthropic verifies it, and phone verification doesn’t remove it (Ultra plan help, verified Nov 1, 2026).

So the structural difference is the clock. Google Ultra keeps a five-hour refresh on both tiers. Claude Ultra is the only plan here with no five-hour window at all, once verified. If your pain is “I get kicked out mid-afternoon and wait,” that sentence is the whole review.

Models. Here’s the part that made me read the table twice. Antigravity on Ultra lists Gemini 4 Argon, Gemini 3.8 Flash, and Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Claude Opus 5.5 (thinking) (Antigravity models, verified Nov 3, 2026). So Google AI Ultra gets you Anthropic’s models inside Google’s IDE, on Google’s quota. Claude Max and Ultra give you Claude models only, in Claude Code. The same doc still marks Claude Sonnet 4.6, Opus 4.6 and GPT-OSS-120b with “Will be removed on November 2, 2026” as of Nov 3, 2026, so treat those three as gone.

Running out. Google: Pro and Ultra can buy AI credits, “consumed at standard Gemini Enterprise consumption pricing,” with an AI Credit Overages setting of Never or Always (Antigravity plans, verified Nov 3, 2026). The price of a credit pack isn’t published (Google One help, verified Oct 27, 2026). Anthropic: Pro, Max and Ultra can buy usage credits at standard API rates, with a spend limit (usage credits help, verified Nov 1, 2026). Point to Anthropic for at least naming the rate.

Deeper on the Google side: Antigravity usage limits.

What else you pay for

This is where the two plans stop looking alike.

Google AI Ultra bundles a lot that has nothing to do with code: 10,000 Flow credits on Ultra or 25,000 on Ultra 20x, Project Genie, YouTube Premium (individual), and 20 TB of storage, 30 TB on the 20x tier (gemini.google/subscriptions, verified Nov 2, 2026; Google One plans, verified Oct 29, 2026). Jules gets “Higher” or “Highest” limits, and there are monthly Google Cloud credits. If you already pay for YouTube Premium and big storage, part of the $99.99 is money you were spending anyway. If you don’t, it’s a combo meal when you came in for coffee.

Claude Max and Ultra bundle less, but it’s coding-shaped: monthly API credits ($100 on Max, $200 on Ultra), priority access when traffic is high, and a separate weekly limit for Fable, which on Max is “up to half your weekly limit” (claude.com/pricing, verified Nov 1, 2026).

Those Claude API credits "can't be used in Claude Code or the Claude apps, including for usage credits." So a Claude Code user paying $200 for Ultra gets $200 a month of credit that can't touch the tool they bought Ultra for. That's a perk designed by someone who has never hit a weekly limit.
Source: Anthropic, Claude Code plan help, verified Nov 1, 2026

Refunds and age: Google says “Cancel anytime. No refunds for partial billing periods” and the plans are 18+ (gemini.google/subscriptions, verified Nov 2, 2026). Max to Ultra on Claude is prorated if you move up (Max help, verified Nov 1, 2026).

Here’s what I’d do

If coding is the only reason you’re paying, I’d start with Claude Max at $100 and stay there until the five-hour window costs you real hours. Then go Claude Ultra, the one plan here that says “No 5-hour limit.” The upgrade is prorated, so testing it costs a partial month, not a gamble.

If you want an IDE agent and you’d use the storage and YouTube Premium anyway, Google AI Ultra at $99.99 is the better bundle, and the Claude 5.5 models in Antigravity soften the “but I like Claude” objection. I’d only pay $199.99 for Ultra 20x if the 5x tier’s “Higher” limits keep running dry, because Google doesn’t tell you how much bigger “Highest” is.

What I wouldn’t do: buy either top tier for Gemini CLI. It isn’t covered. And I wouldn’t buy Claude Ultra for its API credits if you code in Claude Code, because they don’t apply there.

Not sure you need a top tier at all? Google AI Pro vs Claude Pro is the $20 version of this fight, Claude Max vs ChatGPT Pro brings OpenAI in, and AI coding tools compared has the full field. We haven’t tested either plan’s limits ourselves; everything above is what Google and Anthropic publish.

FAQ

Is Google AI Ultra better than Claude Max for coding? For Claude Code users Claude Max is the better fit, while Google AI Ultra suits people who want Antigravity plus Google’s storage, YouTube Premium and video extras.

What happened to Claude Max 20x? Anthropic renamed it Ultra at the same $200 a month and moved existing subscribers over automatically, per its Ultra help article checked Nov 1, 2026.

Which is cheaper, Google AI Ultra or Claude Ultra? Google AI Ultra starts at $99.99 a month, half of Claude Ultra’s $200, while Google’s 20x tier at $199.99 is one cent cheaper than Claude Ultra.

Does Google AI Ultra include Claude models? Yes, Google’s Antigravity models doc lists Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Claude Opus 5.5 on Ultra as of Nov 3, 2026.

Sources

Google, Antigravity plans (Ultra and Pro quota wording, five-hour refresh, weekly limits, Tab completions, CLI, AI credit overages at Gemini Enterprise pricing, limits subject to modification): https://antigravity.google/docs/plans (verified 2026-11-03)
Google, Antigravity models (Gemini 4 Argon, Gemini 3.8 Flash, Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Opus 5.5 on Ultra, removal notes): https://antigravity.google/docs/models (verified 2026-11-03)
Google, Gemini subscriptions (Ultra $99.99 and $199.99, 5x and 20x, Flow credits, Project Genie, YouTube Premium, five-hour refresh and weekly limit, no partial refunds, 18+): https://gemini.google/subscriptions/ (verified 2026-11-02)
Google One, Google AI plans (monthly-only Ultra billing, 20 TB and 30 TB, Antigravity Higher and Highest, Cloud credits $40 and $100, Jules): https://one.google.com/about/google-ai-plans/ (verified 2026-10-29)
Google One help, AI credits (Pro and Ultra only, pack price not published): https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/17103110 (verified 2026-10-27)
Google, Gemini Code Assist (Pro and Ultra no longer cover Gemini CLI from June 18, 2026): https://codeassist.google/ (verified 2026-10-29)
Claude pricing (Max $100, Ultra $200, multipliers, no five-hour limit for verified Ultra, API credits, Fable limit, priority access, tax note): https://claude.com/pricing (verified 2026-11-01)
Anthropic support, Ultra plan (rename to Ultra, no price change, temporary limit for unverified accounts): https://support.claude.com/en/articles/17728952-what-is-the-ultra-plan (verified 2026-11-01)
Anthropic support, What is the Max plan (monthly only, prorated upgrade to Ultra): https://support.claude.com/en/articles/11049741-what-is-the-max-plan (verified 2026-11-01)
Anthropic support, Claude Code with Pro, Max or Ultra (shared limits, Ultra has no five-hour limit once verified, API credits not usable in Claude Code): https://support.claude.com/en/articles/11145838-use-claude-code-with-your-pro-max-or-ultra-plan (verified 2026-11-01)
Anthropic support, usage credits for paid plans (standard API rates, spend limit): https://support.claude.com/en/articles/12429409-extra-usage-for-paid-claude-plans (verified 2026-11-01)