Codex usage limits on every ChatGPT plan

Codex limits on every ChatGPT plan

Codex doesn't have its own subscription, so it shares one usage allowance with ChatGPT Work across your ChatGPT plan. OpenAI publishes per-model message estimates only for ChatGPT Plus and Standard Business, and the table below breaks down how the plans compare.

Codex messages per 5 hours, by model

OpenAI gives the same estimates of local messages per five-hour window for both ChatGPT Plus and Standard Business, from GPT-6 Luna up to GPT-6 Astra.

What uses your Codex limit faster

• The model you pick changes the burn rate a lot, with GPT-6 Astra using the most of your allowance and GPT-6 Luna using the least.
• Speed modes drain your quota faster, since Fast mode uses included usage at 2.5x the Standard rate, and Ultrafast on GPT-6 Astra and GPT-6.1 Sol runs at 8x and, among Pro plans, is only on Pro 500 (eligible Enterprise and Edu plans get it too).
• Cloud tasks share the same plan allowance as local messages and can take a bigger cut of it.
• Image generation in Codex drains included limits about 3 to 5x faster on average, and you don't get it on the Free plan.
• You're pulling from a shared pool, because ChatGPT Work, ChatGPT for Excel and Workspace Agents all draw from the same allowance and credit pool where they're available.

Auto-review safety checks are free and don't count toward your plan limits when you're signed in with ChatGPT, and ChatGPT's own file-upload, voice and image generation limits in Chat (like a '50 images in the last day' banner) don't apply to Codex.

How to check your Codex usage

1. Open Settings or head to the usage dashboard at chatgpt.com/codex/settings/usage to see which allowance is used up, your credit balance, and when your limit resets.
2. Enter /status inside an active Codex CLI session to check your usage right from the terminal.
3. If you have a banked referral reset, open your profile menu, select the usage summary showing your available resets to apply it, and then check Settings > Usage to see your new reset time.

What happens when you hit the limit

• If you hit a limit in the middle of an active turn, Codex can keep working to finish that turn, subject to fair-use limits.
• Eligible Plus and Pro subscribers can buy credits to keep going without switching plans, and those credits spend at the per-model credit rates above (with Fast mode at 2x on credits and Ultrafast at 6x).
• A banked referral reset refreshes both your 5-hour and weekly Codex windows and moves your weekly reset date, and OpenAI occasionally gives eligible users a one-time reset of their limits too.
• Upgrading from ChatGPT Plus to Pro removes the five-hour limit altogether.
• You can run Codex with an API key in the CLI, SDK or IDE extension at standard API token prices, though you lose cloud features like GitHub code review and Slack.

Use your Codex allowance from your own code

If you want to call your ChatGPT subscription as an API, Plan2API hooks up your ChatGPT plan at plan2api.com/connect with a one-time device code and exposes the Codex models as openai/<model> (or codex/<model>), like openai/gpt-6.1-sol, behind a standard POST /v1/chat/completions endpoint at https://api.plan2api.com/v1 using a single p2a_ key in your Authorization: Bearer header. Every request draws from that same Codex allowance on your ChatGPT plan, and Plan2API never raises it or bills per token. If you connect more than one ChatGPT account, a request that hits one account's limit automatically moves to the next connected account before any output is sent, and when every account is out of quota, the API returns HTTP 429 with subscription_quota_exhausted and a Retry-After header in seconds for the earliest reset.

Plan2API only serves Chat Completions (POST /v1/chat/completions) and has no /v1/responses endpoint, while current Codex releases require a compatible Responses API endpoint for a custom model provider and don't support wire_api = 'chat', so this is built for your own scripts, servers, desktop tools and browser apps rather than the Codex CLI itself. The Free plan is $0 with no card needed and covers 1 connected subscription and 50 chat requests a day, while Pro is $12 a month (or $99 a year) for 3 connected subscriptions and no daily request cap.