Codex 5-hour usage limit is being consumed significantly faster since reintroduction
What version of Codex CLI is running?
OpenAI Codex (v0.149.1)
What subscription do you have?
Plus
Which model were you using?
gpt-5.6-sol medium
What platform is your computer?
WINDOWS
What terminal emulator and version are you using (if applicable)?
_No response_
Codex doctor report
What issue are you seeing?
Since the 5-hour Codex usage limit was reintroduced on Plus, I’m seeing a very significant increase in quota consumption compared with my previous usage of the exact same setup.
This is not just a perception caused by comparing the 5-hour limit with the weekly limit. I previously used Codex extensively with GPT-5.6 Sol while the 5-hour limit was active, and the consumption rate was clearly much lower.
With similar projects, prompts, reasoning settings and workflows, the new 5-hour allowance is now being consumed dramatically faster.
Could you please check whether there has been a change in quota accounting, compute weighting, token/tool-call weighting, or GPT-5.6 Sol consumption since the 5-hour limit was reintroduced?
I would also appreciate confirmation of whether this is expected behaviour or a potential regression.
What steps can reproduce the bug?
Uploaded thread: 01a03e46-cfd5-7f43-ab84-7b0a072380e8
What is the expected behavior?
_No response_
Additional information
I switched away from GPT-5.6 Sol to a lower-cost model to test whether Sol itself was responsible for the unusually fast depletion.
The 5-hour quota is still being consumed extremely quickly, including for very basic tasks such as small text/content modifications on a landing page.
This makes me suspect that the issue may not be model-specific, but could instead involve the effective size of the 5-hour allowance or its metering/accounting since the limit was reintroduced.
I had previously used Codex extensively under the old 5-hour limit, including on substantially heavier development tasks, and the practical amount of work available per 5-hour window was noticeably higher.
Additional controlled observation – GPT-5.6 Terra Medium
I now have a concrete example that suggests this is not specific to GPT-5.6 Sol.
The 5-hour allowance had just reset and showed 100% remaining before this task.
Model: GPT-5.6 Terra Medium
Task: basic landing-page content/link modifications, followed by targeted lint and production build verification.
Total working time: 6m 20s
5-hour allowance after completion: 84% remaining
In other words, this relatively basic task consumed 16% of the entire 5-hour allowance in 6 minutes and 20 seconds.
CLI output:
Worked for 6m 20s
gpt-5.6-terra medium · Context 68% left · 5h 84% left
The 5-hour meter was at 100% immediately before this request.
This reinforces my suspicion that the issue may involve the effective size or accounting of the 5-hour quota rather than GPT-5.6 Sol specifically.
5 Comments
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16% of the 5-hour quota consumed in just 6 minutes with GPT-5.6 Terra Medium
O retorno do limite de 5 horas no Codex é muito restritivo. Antes, com o limite semanal, eu podia distribuir meu uso conforme minha necessidade e até concentrar grande parte da cota em um único dia. Agora posso ter quase toda a minha cota semanal disponível e ainda assim ser impedido de usar o Codex por várias horas. Seria muito melhor manter apenas o limite semanal, ou permitir que o usuário consuma livremente sua cota semanal.
I want to add a real-world data point from Codex Desktop on a ChatGPT Plus subscription.
This is not a complaint about Codex having limits. I understand that agentic coding consumes compute and that Plus cannot provide unlimited usage.
The problem is the effective amount of usable work that the current 5-hour window provides.
What happened
First 5-hour window
I started with a fresh allowance and used Codex for a real development task involving refactoring/fixing an eKYC implementation in my application.
After approximately 40 minutes of actual work, the entire 5-hour allowance was exhausted and Codex stopped my workflow.
After using the free reset
I then used the available free reset to start a fresh allowance.
After the reset, I performed only a limited amount of additional work, including a relatively simple document/Word export task.
That new 5-hour allowance has already reached approximately:
39% used / 61% remaining
Meanwhile, my weekly usage is only approximately:
6% used
So my sequence was essentially:
100% fresh 5-hour allowance → ~40 minutes of development → limit exhausted → free reset → limited additional work → another 39% consumed
I contacted OpenAI Support about this. Support explained that Codex usage is compute/token based and that large retained context, files, reasoning, tools, cached input, and speed/model choice can make later requests expensive.
I understand that explanation technically.
However, from a product and developer-experience perspective, the current behavior is still extremely disruptive.
A paid Plus user should not reasonably expect a feature described as a “5-hour usage window” to provide only around 40 minutes of practical development time under a normal agentic coding workflow.
The weekly limit is also nowhere near exhausted, yet the short-term window becomes the bottleneck.
The core UX problem
The issue is not that I expect unlimited compute.
The issue is that the current system makes sustained development unpredictable.
When I start a development session, I cannot tell whether I have:
several hours of usable Codex work;
one hour;
or only 30–40 minutes.
For an autonomous coding agent, this is particularly problematic because the limit can be reached while the agent is in the middle of reading files, modifying code, testing, debugging, and finishing a feature.
Please consider !
Codex itself is extremely useful. The problem is that the current rate-limit design is actively breaking the development workflow.
I’m sharing this because I want to continue using Codex — but an effective development session of approximately 40 minutes before being forced to stop for hours is not a sustainable experience on Plus.