OpenAI plans to give ChatGPT Plus, Pro and Business subscribers one shared usage budget for ChatGPT and Codex starting in December. The change is described on an updated OpenAI support page, The Decoder reports. It comes as OpenAI brings Work’s agent features into the main ChatGPT interface.
Tokens are pieces of text a model processes or produces. The more demanding the model or task, the faster it can use up a token budget. Users will be able to see their remaining balance and when it resets in Settings. After reaching the limit, they can wait for the reset, upgrade their plan or buy extra credits. OpenAI has not specified the size of the shared budgets or the price of extra credits in the details reported.
What counts toward the limit?
Chats using Instant models will not count toward the shared budget. That means the plans remain flat-rate for those chats, but other use of ChatGPT and Codex will draw on the same allowance. Someone who spends more of that allowance in one product will have less available for the other until the budget resets or they buy credits.
The change makes the amount of work a subscriber can do depend partly on which models and tasks they use, not just on their monthly plan. The Decoder notes that more complex models and tasks consume tokens more quickly. It also says heavy use on cheaper plans may lead users to rely on lower-quality results, though OpenAI has not published details that quantify that trade-off.
A simpler interface, a different pricing model
OpenAI had already announced plans to combine Chat and Work. The Decoder describes the merger as an effort to reduce a confusing choice: users currently face two operating modes and 11 model settings. Anthropic has also combined chat and its Cowork feature in Claude.
OpenAI recently doubled usage limits for higher-priced plans, according to The Decoder. That could give those subscribers more room under the new arrangement, but the reported information does not say how large the new budgets will be or whether limits will differ across the three plans. The shared budget changes how paid usage is divided; it does not, by itself, establish what any one user will be able to accomplish.
Why it matters
For ChatGPT subscribers who also use Codex, activity in one product will reduce the budget available to the other once the shared limits begin. Instant-model chats are exempt, but the budget sizes and extra-credit prices have not been specified, so users cannot yet tell how much the change will affect their own usage.
