Codex credit notices are creating billing confusion
OpenAI showed a usage notice that looked like a monthly limit of $2,500 had been reached, but the intended meaning was that 2,500 had been used. The wording made it easy to confuse a with a real money charge. Other reports point to a second source of confusion: in ChatGPT browser and desktop use, version 5.6 may be counting some normal chats against the Codex quota.
In earlier 5.5 use, browser chat appeared not to reduce the Codex allowance, but now some requests show a “worked for” style status and seem to behave like . Questions that need precise calculation, such as finance math, may trigger this behavior, and questions may also appear to come out of the same Codex allowance.
Key points
- A notice that looked like a $2,500 billing limit was actually about 2,500 .
- Some ChatGPT 5.6 sessions may be reducing the Codex quota even outside an obvious coding workflow.
- Requests that need tool-like work, such as exact calculations, may switch into -like behavior.
- questions after that switch may also appear to use the Codex allowance.
- Users should check credit balance and settings before running long Codex sessions.
Sources covering this story (7)
- r/OpenAICodex credit notices are creating billing confusion ↗
- r/OpenAIThe new 5.6 models are great, but the pricing policy is not ↗
- r/OpenAIIs 5.6 sol in chatgpt browser counted against the quota of codex? ↗
- r/OpenAIChat using Codex limits (not in Work mode) ↗
- r/OpenAIAm I the only one frustrated by the new cache write pricing? ↗
- r/OpenAIDid We Just Get a Usage Reset ↗
- r/OpenAIGPT-5.6 prompt caching appears completely broken: you pay the new 1.25× cache-write fee, but cached_tokens never credits — reproducible with two curls ↗