"You've hit your monthly spend limit · raise it at claude.ai/settings/usage"

The Error reference explains the trigger: "Your plan's included usage can't cover this request, and the usage credits that would otherwise pay for it have reached a spend limit." That happens when one of your plan's windows has run out, or when the request is one that only usage credits pay for, such as a model that bills to usage credits.

The message names whose limit blocked you. The docs list five variants: "monthly spend limit" (Pro and Max, raise it yourself), "individual spend limit" (ask your admin), "org's monthly spend limit" (Admin settings > Usage), "team's shared budget" (a pooled budget an admin assigned to a group you belong to), and "channel's monthly spend limit" (the one Slack channel the session runs in). On organizations with usage-based billing the message says "usage limit" in place of "spend limit", as in "You've hit your individual usage limit".

When a plan window is what ran out, "the message also says when that window resets, for example · your session limit resets 3:45pm, and access returns then without anyone raising the limit". Before v2.1.239 the message did not name that time; before v2.1.268 a group's pooled budget produced the "individual spend limit" wording instead of "team's shared budget". A lowercase "spend limit reached" is a different thing: a Claude apps gateway cap set by your operator.

Your own windows: the spend limit is a monthly cap on usage credits, raised in Settings > Usage; the plan windows behind it are the session limit (every five hours) and the weekly limit (a fixed weekly time assigned to your account). When the message names a reset time, that is the one to wait for; /usage shows the same clocks.

Account-wide resets: separately, Anthropic sometimes resets 5-hour and weekly limits for everyone. Those are what this board records, each linked to its original post, and the row above shows the last one. A global reset refreshes plan windows; it does not raise a spend limit.