Shared usage cap in December worries some OpenAI users

OpenAI has announced that starting in December, the usage quota on its Plus, Pro and Business plans will be shared between ChatGPT and Codex, OpenAI's programming tool. According to OpenAI, most users will not have to wait for a reset more often than they do today. However, OpenAI has only said "starting in December" without giving an exact date.

Users noticed the change first. A message about the shared limit appeared on the subscription's billing page before the help article was updated, VGTimes reports.

Reactions online

Threads on the Reddit forums r/codex and r/OpenAI received more than 500 and 370 votes within a few hours, Startup Fortune reports. Almost all of the most popular comments asked the same question: How is usage actually counted?

On X, one user wrote on October 31: "OpenAI just lost the rest of the loyal users they had left." Another wrote: "It's over. Starting in December, bad times begin for OpenAI's users." According to VGTimes, some users are threatening to cancel their Plus subscription.

What do we know about the good news?

For those who use ChatGPT as an ordinary chatbot, there is some good news: OpenAI states in its own help article that Instant chat does not draw on the quota, FourWeekMBA and VGTimes report. FourWeekMBA stresses, however, that one X user called Instant unlimited, while OpenAI's own text only says that Instant does not draw on the quota.

Different consequences

Startup Fortune assesses that the change will affect users differently. A student who asks ChatGPT to summarize a reading list will hardly notice it. An entrepreneur who uses ChatGPT all day for presentations, code and long research tasks will hit a shared cap that did not exist in that form before. According to the same assessment, companies with multiple seats should expect that a graphic from marketing and a coding task from a developer may compete for the same quota.

Earlier mess with limits

OpenAI has undermined trust on precisely this point before, Startup Fortune assesses. When ChatGPT Work launched this summer, Startup Fortune says, citing The Decoder, the limits for Codex and Work were reset twice in one day. OpenAI later said itself that it "didn't get everything quite right" with the launch.

According to VGTimes, OpenAI announced at the end of September that the limits for Work and Codex on the $200-a-month Pro plan would be halved from October 30. On October 29, Codex head Tibo Sottiaux canceled the cut and instead doubled the limits on all Pro tiers and Business Premium. The Plus limits were not changed.

What is still missing

OpenAI has not disclosed the size of the quota per plan, the date of the switch, or how usage in ChatGPT and Codex will be converted into the shared quota.