OpenAI will merge the usage allowances for ChatGPT and Codex into a single pool starting in December, according to an updated OpenAI help center article. The change covers Plus, Pro and Business subscribers. Today, ordinary chat sits outside the pool that Codex and ChatGPT Work draw from.
Usage under the new system will be measured in tokens. OpenAI says consumption depends on the model and the task, with more advanced models and complex tasks drawing more from the allowance. Instant chat will not count against it at all.
OpenAI says it expects most users will not have to wait for resets more often than they do now. Subscribers who hit the cap can wait for the reset, upgrade their plan or buy credits, and combined remaining usage and reset times will appear in Settings.
Key facts
- 01Starting in December, ChatGPT Plus, Pro and Business allowances will be shared across ChatGPT and Codex.
- 02Usage will be measured in tokens, and Instant chat will not draw from the shared allowance.
- 03OpenAI estimates Plus users get 5–45 GPT-6 Astra or 350–3,000 GPT-6 Luna messages per five-hour window in Work and Codex.
- 04Pro 100, Pro 200 and Pro 500 currently have no five-hour limit in Work and Codex.
- 05OpenAI has not announced an exact December start date or new allowance sizes.
The help center also shows how far a Plus allowance stretches in Work and Codex within a five-hour window. OpenAI estimates 5 to 45 local messages with GPT-6 Astra, 15 to 150 with GPT-6 Sol, 15 to 160 with GPT-6.1 Sol and 350 to 3,000 with GPT-6 Luna, and labels those figures estimates, not guaranteed message counts.
Limits can run on both a five-hour window and a weekly window, and both need allowance remaining. OpenAI's Pro 100, Pro 200 and Pro 500 tiers currently have no five-hour limit in Work and Codex, though they still come with an included allowance.
OpenAI has not published an exact December start date or new allowance sizes. Some subscribers first saw the change in a checkout notice saying plan usage would share one limit across ChatGPT and Codex, and threads on the r/codex and r/OpenAI subreddits passed 500 and 370 votes within hours.
The pooling lines up with comments from Tibo Sottiaux, who runs ChatGPT and Codex, on Lenny Rachitsky's podcast in early October. Sottiaux said OpenAI plans to merge ChatGPT's Chat and Work surfaces into one experience, without giving a date.
Codex and ChatGPT Work have scaled quickly. On July 21, OpenAI said the two products together had passed 10 million weekly active users, a figure that doubled in the two weeks after ChatGPT Work launched on July 9.
The change lands as Anthropic reworks its own caps. Anthropic said on October 30 that it is removing the five-hour limit for verified accounts on its $200 Ultra plan, with weekly limits unchanged.
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