Weekly usage window is not reset by a new paid subscription period, and this is not disclosed at checkout

What issue are you seeing?

Summary

Purchasing a new subscription period does not reset the weekly usage window for Codex / Work / Workspace Agents / ChatGPT for Excel, and nothing in the purchase flow discloses this. A customer can therefore pay in full for a billing period that begins with zero agent capacity.

This has been reported repeatedly since June 2026, across this repo and the community forum, with no staff response. Links at the bottom. Filing it here with a paid invoice tied to the timeline so it is concrete rather than anecdotal.

Observed timeline

All timestamps are the ones shown in the ChatGPT usage panel.

| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Aug 12, 11:29 PM | Weekly usage window opens. Account is on ChatGPT Pro. |
| Aug 16 | Pro billing period ends. Weekly window already fully consumed. |
| Aug 17 | Purchased ChatGPT Plus. $20.00. Billing period Aug 17 to Sep 17. |
| Aug 17 to Aug 19 | Usage panel reads Weekly usage limit - 0% remaining. |
| Aug 19, 11:29 PM | Window resets, on its original schedule. |

Net effect: roughly 2.5 days of a paid 31-day period with no agent capacity at all.

Two aggravating behaviors

Consumption carries across a plan change. Usage burned under the Pro ceiling continues to be measured against the much smaller Plus ceiling after a downgrade. The counter does not reset with the new billing period, so the account arrives at the lower tier already over its limit.

No escape hatch. The panel showed Usage limit resets: No usage limit resets available at this time. and the credits balance was 0, so an early reset could not be purchased either.

Expected behavior

Either of these resolves it. The second is the minimal fix.

Option 1. A new paid billing period starts a new usage window.

Option 2 (disclosure). If a customer purchases, renews, or changes plan while the weekly window is exhausted, say so before payment and show the reset date. One sentence at checkout would have made me wait two days and buy with full information.

Scope

To be precise: regular chat conversations were unaffected throughout. Per the usage panel's own wording, Usage is shared across Codex, Work, Workspace Agents, and ChatGPT for Excel. It doesn't include Chat conversations. This issue is scoped to the agent/Codex surface.

Prior reports of the same behavior

None of the following has a staff or maintainer response.

#30816 — weekly reset date silently shifted from Jul 3 to Jul 7 after subscribing to Plus.

#27027 — weekly quota not reset in unified reset, plus a metering anomaly on a Plus account.

#36246 — weekly Codex usage limit was not updated.

https://community.openai.com/t/pro-downgrade-to-plus-but-the-coding-limit-is-not-replenish-for-plus/1383180 — Jun 9, 2026. The same Pro to Plus downgrade scenario. A second user confirms it independently: My pro subscription was not reset after renewal.

https://community.openai.com/t/pro-renewal-should-warn-users-that-usage-allowance-does-not-reset-immediately/1384315 — a Pro subscriber renewed at 2% remaining and waited about a week for capacity. Requests precisely the warning described in Option 2 above.

https://community.openai.com/t/does-renewing-chatgpt-pro-reset-the-weekly-usage-limit/1386247 — Jul 10, 2026. A customer asking, before purchasing, whether renewal resets the limit. Never answered by anyone.

https://community.openai.com/t/upgraded-to-pro-plan-codex-usage-limits-remain-like-plus-account/1380072 — the same defect in the opposite direction: paying to upgrade and remaining on the lower tier's limits.

That third link is the one I would flag hardest. A customer tried to learn this in advance, in OpenAI's own forum, and there was nowhere to find out. If the behavior is intended, it should be documented somewhere a customer can read it before paying.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Step 1. On a paid plan, consume the full weekly usage allowance for Codex / Work / Workspace Agents. The usage panel will show Weekly usage limit - 0% remaining with a reset date several days out.

Step 2. Let the current billing period end, or change plan, while that weekly window is still exhausted.

Step 3. Purchase a new subscription period. In my case this was a downgrade from Pro to Plus: $20.00, billing period Aug 17 to Sep 17. The checkout flow shows no warning about the exhausted window.

Step 4. Open Settings then Usage immediately after payment completes.

Observed: Weekly usage limit - 0% remaining, with the original reset date unchanged by the purchase. Usage limit resets: No usage limit resets available at this time. Credits balance 0. No agent capacity at all until the original window expires on its own schedule.

Expected: either the new billing period opens a new window, or the checkout flow discloses beforehand that it will not, and shows the reset date so the customer can decide whether to buy now or wait.

Reproducibility: reported independently by multiple users since June 2026 (see the links in the description). In my case it held for the full Aug 17 to Aug 19 interval, roughly 2.5 days of a paid 31-day period.

There is no code snippet to attach because this is a billing and metering behavior rather than a client-side defect. Happy to provide the Stripe invoice and usage-panel screenshots privately if that helps triage.

What is the expected behavior?

_No response_

Additional information

Plan at time of purchase: ChatGPT Plus, downgraded from ChatGPT Pro. Region: Puerto Rico, US.

Redacted screenshots of the Stripe invoice and the usage panel (personal data removed) are published here: https://x.com/wilberto_23/status/2089885956232900942

Unredacted originals available to OpenAI on request. I have also filed this through billing support.

If maintainers consider this out of scope for this repo because it is a billing/metering behavior rather than a client defect, I would appreciate a pointer to the right venue rather than a silent close. The related community threads listed above have gone unanswered for over two months, which is why this ended up here.