ChatGPT and Codex Will Share One Usage Limit Starting in December

Starting in December, ChatGPT and Codex will share one usage allowance on OpenAI’s Plus, Pro and Business plans. OpenAI laid out the change in a new Help Center article, published over the weekend, saying it comes as the company brings the agentic capabilities of Work into the main ChatGPT experience.

Tokens, not messages

Under the new setup, usage for both ChatGPT and Codex will be measured in tokens, the units of information a model processes and generates. How much of the allowance you use depends on the model you choose and the task you give it, and OpenAI says more advanced models and complex tasks generally use more.

One exception: Instant chat will not draw from the allowance at all. That means quick everyday questions on the Instant model shouldn’t eat into time you’d rather spend on bigger jobs, like a long Codex coding task.

What OpenAI promises

OpenAI says it is preparing the transition carefully and expects most users won’t need to wait for their usage to reset more often than they do now. You’ll be able to see your combined remaining usage and reset times in Settings, then Usage. If you hit the limit, you can wait for it to reset, upgrade your plan, or buy credits to keep using eligible features.

What’s still missing

The Help Center page doesn’t give allowance sizes for any plan or an exact start date in December, and it only names Plus, Pro and Business. As The New Stack notes, OpenAI has yet to disclose how generous the combined allowance will be.