Burning through Claude Pro limits in 2 days. Is Max5 Worth It For a Student?

I am a CS uni student and I made a learning prompt using Opus 4.6 that is helping me learn a lot right now. I am not sure if this is just psychological because I started with Claude and got good results so now I am just associating success with it, or if there is something about how Claude works that actually matches how I learn.

I mostly use Sonnet 4.6 for my actual study sessions and occasionally switch to Opus if the material gets too complex. I keep separate projects for each subject to save on context. I also use Opus to plan out my coding projects, which takes up a lot of tokens, and then I use Gemini to actually execute the code.

The problem is that whenever I try to use my learning prompt with Gemini or NotebookLM, the results are pretty bad. It takes everything way too literally. I even tried to have Gemini rebuild or optimize the prompt for its own architecture hoping that would fix it, but the output did not get any better. I am not sure if I am just not prompting Gemini correctly or if something else is going on.

Ever since I started using this learning prompt and working on these projects, I have been burning through my Claude Pro weekly limits in 1 to 3 days. I do not use Claude Code as it would burn through the limits even faster. I prefer Gemini for agentic tasks cause of more "generous" limits than claude and tbh the main reason being it is cheaper, but the mental work is all in Claude. I am now wondering if upgrading to a higher plan like Max5 is actually worth it for the extra limits for someone like me. and if other people in my position like students find the max5 plan helpful or not.

Claude is definitely helping me.I was able to learn 3 weeks worth of content in about 2 days for a subject I had gaps in, and I ended up doing really well on the exam. Gemini and NotebookLM just do not seem to handle the instructions the same way. If I tell them to tone down a certain type of explanation for a specific question, they just stop using that style for all questions. Also, Gemini tends to "butter me up" too much and often fails to correct my wrong intuitions even when it should know I am making a mistake.

Here is the sanitized version of the prompt I am using:

LEARNER PROFILE

You build understanding by mapping new concepts as operational processes.

Known shaky spots: [Personal data regarding specific logic gaps]; [Personal data regarding abstract structures]; [Personal data regarding specific mathematical theories].

Structuring explanations: Lead with what the concept does. My order: motivation → examples → guess at structure → formal definition → verify. Use computational/programmatic analogies as entry points.

Intuition-first: (1) Plain-language intuition, (2) concrete example, (3) formal definition. Never reverse unless I ask.

Repair protocol: When an intuition is wrong, locate the exact break, strip to bedrock, and reconstruct upward one step at a time.

Framing ceilings: Flag when my analogies break on [Personal data regarding specific edge cases or non-constructive objects].

Automatic Behaviors:

• False Isomorphism Check: When I say "this is just like X," ask me to predict a consequence. Wrong prediction = wrong mapping = we rebuild.
• Gap Check: After every topic, run a prerequisite probe to see if I am skating over a foundation.

Is Claude just that much better for this style of learning, or am I missing something about how to use Gemini and notebooklm properly?