TL;DR: What changed for ChatGPT Pro, and how do the free API credits work?
On 28 October 2026, OpenAI started giving eligible ChatGPT Pro and Business subscribers free monthly API credits: $100 on Pro 100, $200 on Pro 200, $500 on Pro 500, and $20 or $100 per paid Business seat, capped at $500 per workspace. A day later, on 29 October, it cancelled the Pro 200 Work and Codex cut it had announced on 29 September, doubled the allowance on Pro 100 and Pro 500, and lifted every Pro 200 subscriber to the higher limit. Plus is unchanged. The credits must be claimed once, need a paid plan that is at least 7 days old, expire at the end of each billing cycle and don't pay for Codex through API keys. If you already pay for Pro, claim them today and use them to ship one small API feature this month.
A month ago, OpenAI told some of its most expensive customers that they would get less for the same $200. This week it did the opposite: it took the cut back, doubled limits on two plans and handed every Pro subscriber an API budget worth up to the full price of the plan.
For a solo founder who pays for ChatGPT Pro anyway, that's a free prototyping budget. It also comes with conditions worth reading before you build anything that depends on it. Here's what changed, who qualifies, what the credits cover and how I'd use them.
What happened
The story starts on 29 September 2026. That day OpenAI launched Pro 500, a $500-a-month plan with the highest included usage and access to Ultrafast mode, and reopened Pro 200 to new subscribers. Its ChatGPT release notes added a short line: "Included usage allowances are changing." Affected Pro 200 users got an email announcing a lower Work and Codex allowance, and some reports put the start of that cut at 30 October.
Then OpenAI changed course twice in two days:
- 28 October: free API credits. Eligible ChatGPT Pro and Business subscribers can now activate promotional API credits for a linked API organization. OpenAI's developer account put it plainly: "eligible ChatGPT Pro and Business subscribers can claim up to $500 per month in API credits to build apps and agents."
- 29 October: more usage, no cut. Pro 100 and Pro 500 now include twice their previous Work and Codex allowance. OpenAI also "canceled the Pro 200 reduction announced in our September 29 email": anyone already on the higher allowance keeps it, and Pro 200 subscribers on the lower allowance had theirs doubled to match. Business Premium also gets more Work and Codex usage.
Thibault Sottiaux, who leads Codex at OpenAI, wrote on X on 29 October: "We heard your kind feedback and won't be reducing usage limits for Pro 200." According to OpenAI's Pro tiers page, existing subscribers get the new allowance "automatically without waiting for renewal", and you don't need to cancel and resubscribe to get it. The price of each plan stays the same.
What each plan gets now
Sources: OpenAI release notes, Pro tiers help page, API credits guide and Codex pricing page, read 30 Oct 2026. Business credits are pooled and capped at $500 per workspace per month. Prices in US dollars.
Two caveats from OpenAI's own wording. First, "Plus usage is unchanged." If you run Codex hard on a $20 Plus plan, nothing improved for you this week. Second, "A larger allowance does not guarantee twice as many completed tasks." How far the allowance goes still depends on the model, the context size and the speed mode: Fast mode uses it at 2.5 times the Standard rate, and Ultrafast on Pro 500 at 8 times.
Weekly GPT-6 Pro message limits in Chat stay as they were on Pro 100 and Pro 500. On Pro 200, the lower weekly limit now matches the higher one. If you've been comparing plans, our guide to ChatGPT for business workflows shows which jobs actually need Pro and which run fine on cheaper seats.
How the free API credits work
The rules are in OpenAI's API credits guide, and they matter more than the headline number.
- Who qualifies: an active, paid Pro or Business subscription that is at least seven days old. Free trials and complimentary subscriptions don't count. Plus, Go, Free and Enterprise aren't eligible.
- Who can claim: you must own both the ChatGPT subscription and the API organization, and use the same email address for both.
- How long they last: credits arrive each billing cycle and "expire at the end of the billing cycle and don't roll over." Your first grant is prorated.
- No card needed: you can call the API without a payment method while free credits remain. When they run out and you haven't bought any, requests fail with HTTP 429 and the error code credit_balance_exhausted.
- One organization: the grant only applies to the linked API organization, so use a project key from that organization.
- If you downgrade: moving to Plus, Go or Free removes the link at the end of the billing cycle. Cancelling doesn't take back credits already issued.
Source: OpenAI API credits guide, read 30 Oct 2026.
What does $200 buy? At the list price of GPT-6.1 Terra, OpenAI's cheap computer-use model at $1 per million input tokens and $5 per million output tokens, $200 covers about 200 million input tokens, or about 40 million output tokens, or a mix of the two (our calculation, before caching discounts and tool charges). That's enough to run a real internal agent or a small customer-facing feature for a month. Our breakdown of what Terra is good at explains where to point it.
The Europe angle
Prices and credits are in US dollars, and OpenAI's help article on the credits says availability depends on the enabled cohort and country. If you're in the EU and don't see the benefit under Billing, that may be the reason, not your plan. OpenAI has launched features without Europe before: its always-on dots agents went live with Pro access excluding the European Economic Area, Switzerland and the UK, as we covered in OpenAI's agents launch without Europe.
The same week brought a European option. On 29 October, Mistral released the open weights of Mistral Large 4, a 1-trillion-parameter model it says was "trained from scratch on European infrastructure". Its API costs $0.70 per million input tokens and $2.10 per million output tokens, cheaper than Terra on both. Mistral reports 41% on Terminal-Bench 4.0, its own figure. The licence is a modified MIT licence that lets you use, fine-tune and sell products built on it, with one condition: a business that offers the model itself as a service needs a separate commercial licence. Mistral's Pierre Stock told TechCrunch the appeal is "access that can't be cut off by definition because the model is open-weighted."
That's the real lesson of this week. OpenAI's credits are a promotion that can change; OpenAI says you'll get them "while these benefits are available." An open-weight model from a European lab is a fallback no one can switch off. Our open-source AI news for October 2026 tracks the other open models worth testing.
Why OpenAI is spending money on you
Free API credits turn ChatGPT subscribers into API developers. Once your app runs on OpenAI's API, switching costs go up, and OpenAI gets usage it can later bill at full price. The credits are also a reply to a month of complaints about Codex limits, and the U-turn shows that loud, paying power users still move OpenAI's pricing.
For founders, it fits a pattern we've tracked all month: per-token prices keep falling while total AI bills keep rising, as in Dentons' forecast of 2 to 5 times higher AI bills. Free credits make the first month cheap. The hard part is the month after, when the product works and the credits are gone. For the rest of October's model and pricing news, see our AI news roundup for October 2026.
What this means for you
- Claim the credits today if you pay for Pro. It takes a few minutes under Billing in ChatGPT settings, and unused credits vanish at the end of each cycle. A new subscription has to be seven days old first.
- Spend them on one real feature. Pick one job: a support-reply agent, an invoice reader, a voice intake bot. Ship it on Terra or a similar low-cost model and measure what it would cost without credits.
- Set limits before you add a card. Without paid credits, the API simply stops with a 429 when the free balance runs out. With Auto Recharge on, it keeps billing. Decide which one you want before a customer depends on it.
- Don't downgrade to Plus to save money yet. Pro 200 is back to the higher allowance at the same price, and downgrading removes the API link at the end of the cycle. Heavy Codex users on Plus should compare Plus with Pro 100 plus $100 of credits.
- Keep a second model ready. Promotions change. Test your feature on a second provider, such as Mistral Large 4 through its API or on your own servers, so a policy change or an EU gap doesn't stop your product. Our list of AI tools small teams actually pay for helps you price the stack.
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FAQ: ChatGPT Pro API credits and the new limits
How much free API credit does ChatGPT Pro include?
Since 28 October 2026, eligible subscribers get $100 a month on Pro 100, $200 on Pro 200 and $500 on Pro 500. Business workspaces get $20 per paid Standard seat and $100 per paid Premium seat, pooled and capped at $500 a month.
Does ChatGPT Plus get free API credits?
No. Plus, Go, Free, Enterprise, free trials and complimentary subscriptions are not eligible. OpenAI also says Plus usage is unchanged by the 29 October limit increase.
Was the ChatGPT Pro 200 Codex limit cut cancelled?
Yes. On 29 October 2026, OpenAI cancelled the Pro 200 reduction announced in its 29 September email. Pro 200 subscribers on the lower Work and Codex allowance had it doubled to match the higher one, and the price stays $200 a month.
Do unused OpenAI API credits roll over?
No. The credits expire at the end of each billing cycle and don't roll over. Your first grant is prorated for the time left in the current cycle.
Can I use the free API credits for Codex?
Not through API keys. The credits cover API usage such as the Responses, Agents, Decisions, Realtime and Images APIs and built-in tools, but not Codex used through API keys, and they don't raise your ChatGPT or signed-in Codex limits.
Are the API credits available in Europe?
OpenAI's help article says availability depends on the enabled cohort and country, and prices are in US dollars. Check the Billing page in ChatGPT or the API Platform. If the benefit isn't there, it may not have reached your country yet.
About the Author
Violetta Bonenkamp, also known as MeanCEO, is an experienced startup founder with an impressive educational background including an MBA and four other higher education degrees. She has over 20 years of work experience across multiple countries, including 5 years as a solopreneur and serial entrepreneur. Throughout her startup experience she has applied for multiple startup grants at the EU level, in the Netherlands and Malta, and her startups received quite a few of those. She’s been living, studying and working in many countries around the globe and her extensive multicultural experience has influenced her immensely.
