Monthly or annual: when the discount is a trap
Annual plans save 15–20% and lock you into a vendor whose limits change every quarter.
Annual billing is usually 15–20% cheaper per month. Whether that is a saving or a loss depends on one question: will this exact plan still be the right one in eight months?
When annual makes sense
- You have used the same tier for at least two full months without hitting limits.
- Your work depends on it daily, and a price increase would not make you switch.
- You have already tested the alternative and preferred this one.
When it does not
Vendors change limits more often than they change prices. A tier that felt generous in January can be throttled in April by a policy update you cannot appeal. Annual plans rarely include a refund for that — you paid for a quantity of access that no longer exists.
The same applies to resale: an annual commitment moves the risk onto you, and the resale market only sells monthly for a reason.
The arithmetic people skip
If you are unsure between two tiers, buying the lower one monthly costs less than buying the higher one annually and abandoning it in month three. Do the awkward comparison: annual price ÷ 12 versus monthly price × the months you will actually use it.
What monthly honestly costs you
Monthly is not free of downside. You re-decide twelve times, which means twelve chances to forget, to lapse, and to lose access on a day you needed it. It also means you absorb any price increase immediately instead of being locked at the old rate. Two habits remove most of that: put the renewal date somewhere that will actually ping you, and renew two or three days early rather than on the last day — see the renewal order guide for why the sequence matters more than the date.
The other monthly risk is tier drift: buying the same plan again out of habit when your usage has moved. Once a month, look at where you actually stopped hitting limits.
What we sell, and why
Every plan here is one month: Claude Pro at 105 CNY (about 14 euro), Max 5x at 523 CNY (about 70), Max 20x at 1047 CNY (about 140), ChatGPT Plus at 95 CNY (about 13). The official CNY equivalents are printed next to them — 134, 668, 1336 and 134 — so the comparison is visible rather than something you have to take on trust.
That is deliberate: it keeps you able to walk away when a tier stops fitting, and it means the price you see is the price for the next thirty days, not a bet on the next twelve.
If you already know which tier fits, the price list has all of them side by side; if not, the tier comparison is the shorter read.
Common questions
Why do you only sell one month?
Because a month keeps the choice reversible. Limits and model rankings move faster than prices, and an annual commitment is a bet on a tier that may not stay the right one.
Is a month here the same as the official monthly price?
Each listing prints the official CNY equivalent beside ours: Claude Pro 105 against 134, Max 5x 523 against 668, Max 20x 1047 against 1336, ChatGPT Plus 95 against 134.
Can I renew later and keep the same account?
Yes. Activation goes on your own account, so renewing is a fresh order against the same Organization ID. Renew two or three days before expiry rather than on the last day.
What is the cheapest way to test a heavier tier?
Buy the heavier tier for one month, watch where the weekly ceiling lands, then decide. Buying it annually on a guess is the expensive version of the same experiment.
Guides
All guides →Claude Max 5x vs 20x: which tier you actually need
The difference is not quality — it is how many times you can hit the wall before lunch. A practical way to size your plan.
How to pay for Claude from mainland China (2026)
Four routes, ranked by how often they actually work — and the two that quietly cost you the account.