OpenAI says that “Starting in December, Plus, Pro, and Business plans’ usage allowance will be shared across ChatGPT and Codex”, in a help center article. It says usage is to be counted in tokens and that “Instant chat will not draw from your usage”.
For today’s Work and Codex allowance, which the December change extends to ChatGPT, OpenAI’s help center gives estimates by model. In a Plus five-hour window, OpenAI estimates 5 to 45 local messages with GPT-6 Astra against 350 to 3,000 with GPT-6 Luna, about 67 to 70 times as many at the ends of the ranges, by our arithmetic.
Short explainer · ChatGPT and Codex share one allowance
A vertical news Short summarising this story. Figures come from OpenAI’s help center; our arithmetic is labelled.
Business Pill · RATE LIMITS
A short Business Engineer explainer on rate limits: why an AI product caps how much each user can do in a period. It teaches the general idea only and says nothing about this story.
The key insight: As we read OpenAI’s help center, the December change puts ChatGPT and Codex on one token-based allowance on Plus, Pro and Business, with usage set by the model and the task; for today’s Work and Codex allowance on Plus, OpenAI estimates 5-45 Astra messages against 350-3,000 Luna messages per five-hour window, and these are not December figures.
OpenAI says the change comes “as we bring the agentic capabilities of Work into the main ChatGPT experience”. It adds: “Your usage for ChatGPT and Codex will be measured in tokens, the units of information a model processes and generates”.
How much of the allowance a request uses “will depend on the model you choose and the task you ask it to do”, the article says, and “More advanced models and complex tasks generally use more of your allowance”.
OpenAI writes: “We expect most users won’t need to wait for their usage to reset more often than they do now”. Users will see their combined remaining usage and reset times in Settings, and at the limit they can “wait for it to reset, upgrade your plan, or buy credits to continue using eligible features”.
OpenAI’s estimated local messages per five-hour window on ChatGPT Plus, by model, from its help center: GPT-6 Astra 5-45, GPT-6 Sol 15-150, GPT-6.1 Sol 15-160, GPT-6 Luna 350-3,000. The ratios are our arithmetic.
What Was Posted on X
OpenAI just lost the remainder of loyal users they had left.
Starting in December, ChatGPT and Codex will share the SAME usage limits across Plus, Pro, and Business plans.
Both will draw from one shared token allowance, meaning heavy Codex usage leaves you with less usage for ChatGPT, and vice versa.
Instant chat wonโt count toward the limit.
So basically, separate ChatGPT and Codex limits are gone.
An X post by @vikktorrrre on 31 October flagged the change, saying ChatGPT and Codex will share the same usage limits across Plus, Pro and Business from December, with Instant chat not counting. OpenAI’s help center text, quoted above, is the source for the change.
๐จIt’s over. Bad times for OpenAI users are starting in December.
Plus, Pro, and Business users will have to share a single token-based allowance across ChatGPT and Codex.
Only Instant will remain unlimited, the same model available to free users.
An X post by @choblin29 on 31 October showed a screenshot of the same OpenAI help center text. The post calls Instant “unlimited”; OpenAI’s text says only that Instant chat will not draw from your usage.
How the Allowance Works Today
A second help article already describes one shared pool for two products: “Work and Codex share the usage allowance included with your plan”. It says the allowance “does not correspond to a fixed number of messages or tasks”.
Depending on the plan, limits apply over a five-hour window and a weekly window, and “Where both apply, you need allowance remaining in both to continue”. The article says “Pro 100, Pro 200 and Pro 500 currently have no five-hour usage limit in Work and Codex”, though the plans still have an included allowance.
For Plus and Standard Business, OpenAI’s table estimates local messages in a five-hour window: 5–45 with GPT-6 Astra, 15–160 with GPT-6.1 Sol, 15–150 with GPT-6 Sol and 350–3,000 with GPT-6 Luna. “These ranges are estimates, not guaranteed message counts”, it says.
The Business Lever: One Metered Budget
Under the shared allowance OpenAI describes, chat and coding draw on the same meter on these plans, so a heavy Codex session on Astra uses allowance that would otherwise go to ChatGPT, and the other way round. Instant chat is outside the meter.
Anthropic made a related change a day earlier. It said it is “removing the 5-hour limit for verified Ultra accounts” on its $200 plan, while “Weekly limits remain unchanged”, as we reported on 30 October.
The Structural Read
As we read the help articles, the shared pool is not new in kind: OpenAI already says Work and Codex share the usage allowance included with a plan, and the December change extends that pool to ChatGPT.
As we read the help articles, the meter has two clocks on some plans, a five-hour window and a weekly window, while OpenAI says Pro 100, Pro 200 and Pro 500 currently have no five-hour limit in Work and Codex.
By our arithmetic from OpenAI’s Plus estimates, a five-hour window covers about 67 to 70 times as many GPT-6 Luna messages as GPT-6 Astra messages at the ends of the published ranges.
OpenAI Help Center
“More advanced models and complex tasks generally use more of your allowance”
Three Implications
FOR CHATGPT PLUS AND PRO USERS OpenAI says combined remaining usage and reset times will show in Settings, and that at the limit users can wait, upgrade or buy credits.
FOR CODEX-HEAVY DEVELOPERS OpenAI says usage depends on the model and the task, and its table estimates 5-45 Astra messages per Plus five-hour window.
FOR RIVAL AI PLANS Anthropic said on 30 October it is removing the 5-hour limit for verified Ultra accounts while weekly limits remain unchanged, our earlier report shows.
The framework says “The limiting factors are organizational readiness, governance, workflow redesign, training, and trust.”
As we read it, a single usage meter across chat and coding is one way a provider sets the terms on which agentic work gets rationed inside a subscription. The framework is the owner’s argument and does not discuss OpenAI’s allowance change.
OpenAI’s article gives no exact December date and no new allowance sizes. The message ranges above come from the current Work and Codex article and may change when the shared allowance starts.
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OpenAI says that from December it is moving ChatGPT and Codex on Plus, Pro and Business to one token-based allowance, with Instant chat excluded. On OpenAI’s current Plus estimates, a five-hour window covers about 67 to 70 times as many GPT-6 Luna messages as GPT-6 Astra messages at the ends of the published ranges, by our arithmetic; the ranges are estimates, not guaranteed counts.
A note on sourcing. Facts come from two OpenAI help center articles and our 30 October report on Anthropic’s Claude Ultra, read on 31 October 2026. Ratios are our arithmetic. We did not contact OpenAI or Anthropic.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
