The 5-hour Codex cap returns for Plus accounts

OpenAI is putting Plus subscribers back under a five-hour usage window on Codex and ChatGPT Work, ending several weeks in which only the weekly cap applied. The change takes effect today, and was announced on X by the engineering lead for both products, as reported by 9to5Mac.

At a glance

• Hitting either the five-hour window or the weekly cap leaves two options: wait for usage to reset on the next cycle, or buy additional credits to keep working through the current one.
• Thibault Sottiaux gave two reasons on X: the shorter window smooths load on OpenAI's compute, and casual or new Plus users were burning through a full week's allowance by accident.
• Pro subscriptions at $100 and $200 stay outside the five-hour window for the upcoming months, while Enterprise and Edu accounts continue on a separate credit-based usage system.

Rate-limit design is where the economics of coding agents becomes visible to the people paying for them. A five-hour window caps the burst rate rather than the total, which appears to be the trade OpenAI is making: a tighter short-term ceiling in exchange for a weekly allowance it can afford to keep large. The carve-out for the two Pro tiers reads as a signal about which segment the compute is being reserved for.

Sottiaux says the five-hour window smooths OpenAI's compute load

Thibault “Tibo” Sottiaux, who leads engineering for Codex and ChatGPT at OpenAI, set out two reasons for the reinstatement: one about compute, and one about how Plus subscribers run through their allowance. The shorter window, he wrote, keeps the load on OpenAI's compute smoother, which in turn lets the plan stay generous in weekly terms.

This is necessary as (a) the 5h limit allows us to smoothen the load on our compute, allowing to keep the plan generous in terms of weekly usage and (b) users on the Plus plan are relatively casual and new users, but then also just accidentally eat through their whole weeks usage and then are confused, making it not a great experience.

Pro subscriptions at $100 and $200 stay outside the limit

Sottiaux said the five-hour limit will remain switched off on the Pro $100 and Pro $200 subscriptions for the upcoming months. The announcement did not extend to Enterprise or Edu accounts, which run on a separate credit-based usage system rather than the window-and-weekly-cap structure applied to Plus.

For Plus, the weekly cap remains in place alongside the returning five-hour window, so two ceilings govern the tier. Once either is reached, the account waits for usage to reset on the next cycle or buys additional credits. OpenAI also resets limits for free on occasion, and banked resets can be earned through certain promotions and referral offers.

Weekly usage was reset early after another million active users

For the past several weeks the five-hour limit was lifted on Codex and ChatGPT Work, leaving the weekly cap as the only constraint on Plus usage. During that period OpenAI reset weekly usage early on several occasions to mark milestones, among them the addition of another million active users across the two platforms, which have since been unified into one.

The announcement itself was brief. Sottiaux had flagged the reinstatement earlier and then postponed it, he wrote, before confirming on X that the five-hour window would return the following day across both ChatGPT Work and Codex for accounts on the Plus plan.

How long the Pro exemption runs

The carve-out for Pro $100 and Pro $200 is described only as running for the upcoming months, and no end date has been given for it. On Plus, the two ceilings now operate together from today, and an account that exhausts either one is back to buying credits or waiting for the next cycle to reset.