OpenAI restores five-hour Codex and Work limits for ChatGPT Plus users, after weeks without the restriction, saying it would smoothen the load on its compute

Following several weeks during which ChatGPT users were subject only to a weekly usage cap, OpenAI announced today that it is restoring …

9to5Mac 2026-08-25 Marcus Mendes

Context & Ripple Effects

OpenAI said in July that Codex and ChatGPT Work usage had reached 10 million people, nearly doubling from earlier that month. Restoring a five-hour limit after a period governed only by a weekly cap makes capacity management visible in products aimed at intensive users.

The company has adjusted paid-user access before, including raising GPT-5 Thinking limits while restoring GPT-4o in 2025. The pattern is that subscription access is valuable but conditional on available compute, rather than an unlimited entitlement.

First-order effects

ChatGPT Plus users of Codex and Work must again pace heavy usage within five-hour windows instead of relying solely on a weekly allowance.
OpenAI can spread demand across shorter intervals, targeting a smoother compute load for Codex and Work.

Second-order effects

Teams using Codex or Work for concentrated development or knowledge-work sessions must schedule around reset windows, making burst capacity a practical constraint on their workflows.
The return of short-window controls makes the effective service level of ChatGPT Plus depend on both its weekly quota and OpenAI's real-time capacity policy.

Third-order effects

If usage continues to expand, paid AI subscriptions are likely to be governed by layered limits—model, weekly, and time-window caps—rather than a single published allowance.
Capacity allocation becomes a product-design lever: providers can preserve broad access by rationing peak demand instead of treating overload only as an outage problem.

The trend: Frontier AI services are moving toward conditional, time-based access rules that balance fast-growing demand against finite inference capacity.

Discussion

@thsottiaux Tibo on x
Tomorrow we will bring back the 5h limit for Plus accounts across ChatGPT Work and Codex. I had mentioned this a while ago, but then postponed it. 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
@forwardeditor @forwardeditor on x
The Plus account 5 hour limit must be abysmal. Sneeze and it's used up. Can you get anything done on a Plus plan?
@theo @theo on x
I was so scared until I got to the end. They are leaving the 5h limit OFF for the $100 and $200 plans! Based as hell
@paulsolt Paul Solt on x
ChatGPT Pro will NOT get the 5 hour limits. Plus is going to get 5h usage limits. Upgrade if you want to fly.
@_mahybe Mahy on x
5h limit is back in codex 💀. repotracer gets you up to 60% limits more out of it basically just makes luna do the repo searching instead of wasting sol on it. ~40% median in my tests repo below ↓
@alexgetmancom Alex Getman on x
@TJeparskis Yeah, I actually agree with you. A much better solution would be to keep the 5-hour limits as the default, but add an advanced setting that lets users disable them. Most people would never touch it and would stay on the safer default. Power users could opt out, get a …
@doctorthe113 @doctorthe113 on x
Plus users get about 60-80$ of inference. Whereas 100$ and 200$ tiers get farrrrr more inference. If this was a compute issue, shouldn't they bring it to pro users? Since they use the most tokens
@dripbitsnft @dripbitsnft on x
@kloss_xyz lol they got eveyone hooked now they up the price. Like drug dealers 🤣
@nightfairydream @nightfairydream on x
@thsottiaux I think can made the on/off button for the 5 hour limit, as some might hope can use freely but not limit. Still you can put 5 hour limit as default, which casual people might not know about this but for more ‘expert ’ user can just off the 5 hour limit, which also mee…
@officialdev_bml @officialdev_bml on x
@thsottiaux @thsottiaux Tibo, one of your biggest selling points that drove the majority of us from Claude to ChatGPT was actually because of this. You should remember that when this was announced, in the space of 2 weeks, you know how many millions of users you gained from then …
@aryanpxcr7 Aryan P on x
@thsottiaux Weekly limit was the only reason I was in codex, since I don't use my limit daily and only work on weekends, This kills the point of it, Please don't do that
@halpan666 Colin on x
@thsottiaux Tibo, I think you're missing the point of the Plus plan for many users. Many of us do not live in the United States and our dollar is not as strong. So we use the Plus plan because it's the basically the only affordable plan that makes sense. Now that you have 20 mill…
@drewcooks Drew Munro on x
@thsottiaux Let's be real anyone on a $20/month plan shouldn't be complaining about their limits using frontier models. Good move Tibo
@matthewfurnari Matt Furnari on x
@thsottiaux A 5-Hour limit is amongst the dumbest things you could do from a business perspective. I don't believe the smoothing of computes excuse. The constant synchronization of resets would be way worse than whatever this 5-hour limit does.
@adnan_himself Adnan on x
@thsottiaux I wish we could enable/disable this ourselves.
@babayagatwt Baba Yaga on x
Bringing back the 5 hour limit for Plus is probably good for OpenAI. I just don't think it's good for Plus users. The “compute smoothing” explanation sounds reasonable on paper, but there's another very obvious effect: It makes the weekly limit much harder to burn through in
@lawtonaver58308 Avery Lawton on x
@babayagatwt It just means Plus users like me cannot do some things because they will take more than 5 hours in a single run. That along with removing the not dropping a task means if we set anything even a little complicated we have to babysit Codex to add a /steer if the window…
@entrouter Noir on x
@thsottiaux FYI you didn't fix the usage issue. It's worse now.
@macintogdev @macintogdev on x
@kloss_xyz this was five hours of one sol-high thread on the $200 plan. I am right behind you. these people are crooks.
@shaka_sama69 Shaka Sama on x
These takes even so weirdly fake. Like how are people supposed to use the $20 plan for real work??? They obviously aren't, that's what the $100 and $200 plans are for smh The plus plan is for regular users and people looking to dip their toes in, not full time developers
@chendianht Haotong on x
@thsottiaux Actually, what really ruins the user experience is that the 5.6sol model degrades to the level of 5.5 mini in chat mode. Lots of users have run into this issue, and it's seriously messing with our experience. We hope you can fix this as soon as possible.
@deanfuest @deanfuest on x
@thsottiaux evidently not, lol https://x.com/...
@_stevenfan @_stevenfan on x
i canceled my $100 claude max . would need the neutered fable to accomplish anything. sad to see the models under perform, have context and memory issues still on codex. consistent performer and i havent reached its limits yet
@tjeparskis @tjeparskis on x
This might be some of the worst Codex news I've heard in a while. OpenAI is bringing the 5-hour limit back for Plus users, while Pro users keep the unrestricted setup. And part of the explanation was this:
@hypernova0771 @hypernova0771 on x
@thsottiaux Bringing back the 5h limits and considering the usage issues everyone has faced with Codex , will make the Plus plan unusable and useless for getting any real work done. Hope you understand
@wreckitdynamix Dynamix on x
@thsottiaux So explain how casual new users with a plus account are a strain to your compute more so than pro users.
@aria__han Aria on x
i have one claude and one codex subscription each. never hit limits even though i spend all day running multiple workstreams (i'm an AI consultant). the trick is to just set it to sol/opus low. just get the work done, move fast and fix fast instead of wasting time and tokens on
@pigeon__s @pigeon__s on x
@thsottiaux tibo may i propose a 1 hour limit instead? it would still be a good way to smooth our your compute and serve as a “hey slow down champ” to users but it woudlnt require you waiting half your entire day just to use Codex again
@kloss_xyz Klöss on x
cancelled both my $100 Claude Max and Codex Pro subs this week past 14 days: I've hit the 5 hour or weekly limit every single day on both plans these tiers aren't usable if you design and code daily... and oh they used to be
@hypernova0771 @hypernova0771 on x
@thsottiaux I have 2 plus accounts as getting a pro account is too expensive for me. With the 5h limits gone I have been able to get so much work done. I am not a developer but neither a casual. I hope you reconsider the decision or at the very least consider daily limits.
@xprofessah @xprofessah on x
@TJeparskis You know the 5hr cap was removed like a month or so ago??? EVERYONE had the 5hr cap before! Complaining about the 5hr cap coming back from a $20/month plan user is *WILD* considering the amount of free fucking compute youve managed to get from Tibo 😭 Yeah sorry, you d…
@torronen @torronen on x
@babayagatwt I agree. I much more prefer to get my stuff done and burn the limit in 2 days (like I am still doing with Pro 20x for some reason, even with most on Luna Max) and then change vendor... than have my tasks incomplete and waiting for me to say “continue
@arpan7sarkar Arpan on x
@thsottiaux Don't do it , this is actually a reason for choosing codex over claude
@markvalorian Mark Valorian on x
@thsottiaux Oh come on man...please don't ruin a good thing because a few loud idiots complain. You have to hold the line for the real users... Big mistake
@atsteveng Steven Graham on x
@thsottiaux This penalizes weekend builders
@lostsoulzxy @lostsoulzxy on x
@thsottiaux My condolence to those on $20, couldn't get much done in that plan anyways.
@bwsbird Byrd on x
@thsottiaux 5h limit for Plus accounts should be optional in the settings. The excuse for “stress on the system and casual and new users
r/codex r on reddit
5H limit back from tomorrow for Plus subs...
r/OpenAI r on reddit
5hr Limit is back for Plus users. $100 and $200 get a few more months.

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