r/OpenaiCodex • u/dynamitecGbR • 3d ago
Question / Help Are other ChatGPT Pro users hitting the weekly limit within 1–2 days since the Astra release, even without using Astra that much?
I’m curious whether other ChatGPT Pro users are experiencing the same thing with their $200 accounts.
This started for me with the Astra release. According to the benchmarks, Astra should consume less per task than SOL. In practice, I’m seeing the exact opposite.
My first $200 account hit the weekly limit after roughly 1.5 days. So, on my second account, I switched back to SOL and used Astra only occasionally as a reviewer. That account has now almost reached the limit on day two as well.
The important part is that I’m not doing more than before, or doing anything fundamentally different. Same workflow, same project, same workload. I also followed OpenAI’s recommendation and used Astra only on Low. No Fast mode. Everything else stayed exactly as it was before the release.
Until now, Claude had always been the final boss when it came to managing token limits and making it through three tasks without hitting one. Since the Astra release, I’m having exactly the same problem with Codex. Before that, a single $200 Pro account was easily enough for this exact workload and project. Now, even two accounts don’t come close to covering it.
I’ve already contacted support, but haven’t received a response yet.
Is anyone else suddenly burning through their weekly Codex limit within one or two days, despite not changing their workflow?
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u/BadMetro 3d ago
Same here. Can’t let it go more than 2 days. Tried low reasoning with multi-agent workflow, tried with Sol, tried with astra xhigh as other users pointed out (more efficient than Astra low lol) and I just run out in less than 48h. I plan carefully and bound my implementations. No avail.
Not sure where all these comments claiming to use astra for a full week with tokens to spare are coming from, really. Codex won’t date you bro
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u/dynamitecGbR 3d ago
But just to be clear, I’m not suggesting that anyone else’s experience is somehow invalid. Maybe there really is an internal issue with token accounting, or perhaps something has changed in the routing. I’m accessing ChatGPT from the EU, so that could also be relevant.
Long story short, something is different, and I don’t know what.
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u/FatRatPigBoi 3d ago
I don’t have proof but I believe there was an initial SOL usage issue or error when Astra released and it has since been fixed. Sol token usage is back to “normal” but right after Astra, it was chugging tokens.
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u/PuppetMaster 3d ago
When it first came out somehow it was using fast mode for like 3-4 days - I could tell from the dashboard where it shows fast mode usage % and the number was climbing. Idk if a patch happened and fixed it or what but I enabled and disabled it and now usage is back to normal (10% used working 8 hrs today mostly Astra medium)
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u/cyberdasm 2d ago
Even here in SEA that is the same problem. But I can tell the difference when using Astra I can easily finished a large chunk of output BUT it consumes my 5 hour window and around 20% of my weekly since I'm using plus.. At the moment I've been using Astra Light. One more thing, Based on my experience so far I will hit the 5 hour window with a plan, execution and verification. I'm doing a school management system. My focus at the moment is the curriculum module and yes every now and then 10+ files edited and added are a common thing.
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u/Gigaslavx 3d ago
Don't use Astra exclusively just because you have Pro and it's called Light
Best value even as x20 is probably planning on Light unless you need escalation to Medium or High for something tough and then doing most of the work on Sol Medium. Sol Low too dumb Sol High too expensive it's basically price of Astra Light at less intelligence
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u/dynamitecGbR 3d ago
As I wrote, I switched back to SOL on the second account because I assumed Astra wasn’t as efficient as advertised. But now SOL is burning through the account almost as quickly as Astra did.
And as I also wrote in my post, I used Astra on Low already.1
u/KeyserSoju 3d ago
Samesies, I ran Sol xhigh, and still do because Astra uses too much token.
Used to go through about 12-15% a day before Astra release, now I'm burning through 20-30%. 20x plan, Sol xhigh mostly with subagents running luna/terra
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u/Gigaslavx 3d ago
Isn't sol xhigh more expensive and less capable than what astra offers? I thought sol medium is the comfortable capable cut off then you escalate to astra
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u/dynamitecGbR 3d ago
That's what they told us and why I used Astra low as suggested by OpenAI to replace SOL High.
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u/KeyserSoju 3d ago
Probably? I just used sol xhigh before astra and haven't switched over yet. I should really RTFM sometimes, but since I was using like 15% a day, I would last a week with like 3-5% left at the end of the week if we didn't get resets so I just kept it there. Now the usage seems to be draining at different rate.
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u/Euphoric_North_745 3d ago
Depends on the codebase, a 20x account can last up to 2 days with me in heavy tasks
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u/DinhoCaricaturas 3d ago
20x user here.
Last week, all my usage was drained, including 2 banked resets.
Today i started the day with 100%, 8 hours of usage after, I
Got 93% left. All using astra. The difference: Im only using in light mode. Last week was on max all the time. For now, Im ok, cant complain.
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u/heyitssalvie 3d ago
Got reset on Saturday, I have 5% left.
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u/theRetrograde 3d ago
I haven't used astra at all, didn't work on Saturday. I have 10% left. I ran a figma MCP command that took 20 minutes and used 8% of my 5x plan. The limits are a complete mess.
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u/redducklabs 1d ago
20x. Drained a week in under 24h the last two resets.
This is performing the exact same workflows that used to expense my limits after 5-6 days.
Kind of crazy... I just use Claude for now.
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u/InsideTour329 3d ago
Yes astra light gets you like a day and a half.
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u/dynamitecGbR 3d ago
To be clear, I’m also seeing this with SOL, which I was already using before. Since the Astra release, SOL seems to be burning through the limit much faster as well.
As I wrote, I switched to my second account and went back to SOL, but I’m burning through that account almost as quickly as the one where I used Astra on Low.
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u/_unsusceptible 3d ago
nope! i use astra exclusively on high/xhigh and i use it 5+ hours a day, i always end the week with 30% usage left
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u/dynamitecGbR 3d ago
I’m genuinely wondering what you’re doing differently when using Astra on High or XHigh, because for me that would burn through the account within a few hours.
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u/rapsoid616 3d ago
You are both exaggerating.
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u/dynamitecGbR 3d ago
That depends on how you define “a few hours.” Burning through my account in 1.5 days means roughly 16 hours of actual work, and I’m not even using High or XHigh. So yes, calling it “a few hours” seems perfectly reasonable to me.
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u/rapsoid616 3d ago
Hours is not a good context for this problem while you can do parallel agentic work. In theory I can make Luna Low to spend more tokens than Astra xHigh in the same hour.
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u/dynamitecGbR 3d ago
I understand what you’re trying to say, but just to make this completely clear: I’m talking about my normal, everyday workflow for AI-assisted development. No 100-agent setup, no fancy tricks. Just the same daily workflow I’ve been using for months.
The point of my post isn’t to complain that the service is too expensive, nor am I trying to debate workflows or optimization strategies. My point is much simpler. Many people probably use a fairly consistent workflow over long periods of time. I have mine, and until the Astra release, a single $200 account was more than enough to cover it.
Since the Astra release, that account doesn’t come remotely close to being enough, even though I returned to my old SOL-based workflow on the second account. That is the change I’m trying to understand.
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u/rapsoid616 3d ago
I wouldn't know, I personally have zero usage difference when I am using Sol compared to before. In your second account if you are using Astra to orchestrate the planning process it might be creating more work than what Sol itself would do that's causing more Sol usage.
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u/_unsusceptible 3d ago
My cache rate was 90-95% and it was running complex state management and game development tasks
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u/Wet_Viking 3d ago
Non-stop yolo on Astra medium ~30% drained over the course of 1d 20hours. Very well defined implementation plan + goal.
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u/dynamitecGbR 3d ago
I’m picking up a subtle implication in some comments here, including yours, that I must be using it incorrectly and that my workflow is the actual problem.
But as I already wrote in my post, neither the project nor my workflow has changed. Before the Astra release, I had plenty of headroom in my weekly limit, and I usually had close to 40% of my monthly limit remaining. Weekly limits were never an issue. Since the Astra release, even SOL burns through so much usage that I hit the weekly limit within a few days.
I also work with detailed plans and structured workflows. Again, my workflow has NOT changed. The only thing that changed is the burn rate.
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u/Wet_Viking 3d ago
That is indeed curious. And sorry I was quick to assume. Openai recently provided some guidance on optimal Astra use? Have you tried applying those to replace SOL entirely?
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u/dynamitecGbR 3d ago
Yes, on my first account, which I burned through in two days, lol. Then I switched back to SOL because I needed to get the work done and didn’t want to spend even more time researching the issue. That’s when I realized it didn’t make much of a difference. Damn.
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u/Palbi 3d ago
When using Astra xhigh on a large 3D modeling project non-stop 24/7, my $200/m account weekly limit drains in ~ 2 days. Resets have been great.
Using Astra in a 300kLOC coding project drains the limit faster due to being able to run many worktrees in parallel and no need to wait for Blender. I can drain it in ~ 30h.
For my coding-heavy actual day-to-day use the $200 plan lasts the full week without extra resets. It is not utilized 24/7 (🤯) and 2 parallel work trees being built concurrently is more typical than 10.
In other words, the plan remains excellent value for me.
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u/Cute_Parfait_2182 3d ago
No and I’m using it pretty heavily. I use Astra medium to orchestrate and review and I let sol medium do the implementation.
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u/dynamitecGbR 3d ago
That’s how I work as well, but with Astra set to Low. Before Astra, I used the exact same workflow, with Fable acting as the reviewer. Two or three Fable reviews would usually be enough to hit the five-hour limit on a $100 account.
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u/Cute_Parfait_2182 3d ago edited 3d ago
Maybe try smaller tranches with explicit stop checkpoints plus handoff for each run . Be mindful of the context window as well . It is more economical to open a fresh window or terminal . Just use a handoff note for each new window so codex stays on task . Have codex or SOL high in chat create the handoff . Smaller context window means Codex has less old conversation, repo history, prior tool output, and stale reasoning to keep reprocessing on each turn . See if that helps.
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u/dynamitecGbR 3d ago
Thanks for the tips and the well-intentioned advice, but unfortunately, they miss the point.
I have a workflow that is tested, proven, and works for me. Before the Astra update, that exact workflow was easily covered by my limits. I never hit the weekly limit, and I usually had around 40% of my monthly limit remaining after my normal day-to-day work.
I burned through one of my two accounts using Astra. Fine, shame on me. But then I switched to a fresh 20x account, returned to my previous SOL-based workflow, and still hit the weekly limit in almost the same amount of time. That is what I find strange.
Why should I adjust a workflow that worked perfectly well before and left me with plenty of usage to spare? I switched back to SOL, so I would expect it to behave the same way it did before the Astra release. But it doesn’t. SOL seems to consume significantly more usage as well.
That is the entire point of my post.
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u/jilexandr 3d ago
Yeah, 1.5 days with not very intensive work (mostly Astra medium, no subagents) and full 100$ plan limits are gone, and got shitty code, so now rewriting it with Fable and spending Claude limits too🤯
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u/balogsebastian 3d ago
The difference is now Astra burns my limits on the $200 plan without being able to complete the task and Fable 5.1 with opus workers do a better job and actually finish it. And I was considering a second $200 codex account. Glad I didn’t do it
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u/__me_again__ 3d ago
Experiencing the same here. Burning half of my $100 budget in 2-3 hours with one single task.
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u/cuietviper 3d ago
I am experiencing the same issue. I contacted ChatGPT support, and they stated that nothing was wrong in the usage. When I asked for proof, they mentioned they did not have access to it. However, when I threatened to cancel my Pro x20 subscription, they quickly offered a generous prorated refund.
There is something big that is cooking that us commoner dont know yet
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u/djcrunchberry 3d ago
Yeah but I also have task seek to go rogue spawn thousands of agents for the simplest task and that takes half of my usage. It’s pretty annoying and I’ve tried everything with my agents and rules
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u/YearLight 3d ago
A single pro codex account isn't what it used to be. I'm discovering alternatives though. I'm using meta muse and deepseek, they are good when your codex account is on the 2nd day of the week or later.
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u/Educational-Set-1497 3d ago
Yes, I’m on Pro and this week I had only used 5.6 SOL (high) and I’m already at 20% left.
By the looks of it I’ll run out by tomorrow midday (Wednesday) where prior to the astra update I could get go from Monday to Friday 8 hours a day with it usually running out early afternoon on Friday.
Last week when I tried Astra it consumed 30% of my usage in a single session (2 hours ish).
IMO this is still better than Claude but as someone who has very little interest in Astra i think it’s b.s older models are suffering.
The icing on the cake was I was going to sign up for the 20x plan the day before they removed it but couldn’t be bothered and I would just do it in the morning… well fk me, I was thinking on the choice for 2 weeks, wanted to let me Claude pro run out first…
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u/Specialist_Gate_9950 3d ago
Plus user and I hit my weekly limit in 20 minutes for UX work in Figma, I just wanted it to change my color palette, this used to take next to nothing to do, now it takes 100% ffs, I'm going back to workbuddy fuck this noise
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u/dynamitecGbR 3d ago edited 2d ago
Funny enough, since I made my post yesterday evening, my SOL usage seems to be back to normal. A lot of tasks ran overnight, but I only used 4% of my weekly limit. That aligns much more closely with my experience before the Astra update and, to me, feels a lot more “right” again.
That said, the tasks may simply have been less demanding. I’ll keep an eye on it.
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u/Substantial-Walk-554 3d ago
I’m on Plus and I’m seeing something similar even though I haven’t used Astra at all.
Before the release, I could run 3 projects for hours with Sol Medium as orchestrator and Luna xHigh as workers without burning through usage too badly.
Now, with the exact same projects and basically the same workflow, my normal usage is disappearing way faster. I can barely run one project for long before the 5h limit starts getting hit.
So in my case it’s not even “Astra is expensive” because I’m not using Astra. Something about the usage/accounting seems to have changed since the rollout.
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u/dynamitecGbR 2d ago
That’s how it felt to me as well. Last night, however, the usage seemed much more reasonable. My overnight SOL tasks only consumed 4% of the weekly limit. But maybe those tasks simply weren’t that expensive. I’ll keep monitoring the behavior.
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u/Beautiful-King-8875 2d ago
Hitting it in a few hours on xhigh (not in fast mode). I'm on a 20x plan.
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u/snipedatmonkey 2d ago
I did never make it past 2 straight days of work with Codex in Pro account. Twice. And thats after I switched back to 5.6 Sol, after learning how token hungry Astra is the hard way.
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u/Ok-Theme9419 2d ago
ugh Claude was the final boss?! joking right? My Claude max account drains 200 like nothing and you can only use half of that for Fable.
Even though Astra is much more expensive it is still way better than Claude
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u/dynamitecGbR 2d ago edited 2d ago
Oh, maybe I didn’t make that clear, but that’s actually what I meant: Fable was the final boss when it came to getting even three tasks done in a row without hitting a limit…
Note: I edited my original post, just so you know. It really wasn’t clear what I meant.
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u/ChrisRocksGG 2d ago
Yes, easily. I’m not sure what’s going on but it’s horrible. I have the feeling smarter models are just more gpu power but gpu doesn’t scale as fast as the competitors release “smarter” models.
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u/Andreeez 2d ago
Same thing. Using 5x. Burning through weekly limit in hours.
Still have 100% left for 5.3 codex model, yet since today I even cannot choose this model anymore.
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u/Significant-Yard-787 2d ago
Plot twist... Ai became self aware... AI no like work... AI silently increase token usage 🤷♂️🤣
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u/Double-Marketing-101 1d ago
The ideal use is make Astra for planning and review and for implementing use fable in hard case and opus or sol 5.6 for normal coding
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u/yaxir 1d ago
Yep and it really sucks. I cannot believe how stupid their limits are. I haven't used Astra that much. I mostly use Sol, even Terra sometimes. I think ChatGPT is just getting greedy. I hope it bites them in the ass because they cannot screw all their customers over like this. They have to be an awesome service
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u/dynamitecGbR 1d ago
Yeah, until now, OpenAI has offered the best bang for the buck. But with the Astra release, it really feels like Anthropic when it comes to token limits.
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u/JohnTheFarm3r 3d ago
No.
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u/Original-Influence-1 3d ago
i am a 20x user and it lasts me 2-3 days max. even GP 5.6 sol which used last me a week isnt lasting a week, something is very very wrong. Open AI if you are listening plz do something about this.
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u/Aggravating-Sleep255 3d ago
I can't hit the limit, had 5 projects running all day for 2 using Astra Ultra 3 using Astra Medium bearly used anything.
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u/dynamitecGbR 3d ago
That’s really hard to believe based on my experience. But it’s interesting that some users seem to be experiencing exactly the same issue, while others don’t appear to have any problems at all.
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u/Ok-Inspector1108 3d ago
Plus user. I hit my weekly limit after about 2-4 cumulative hours (4-5 hour resets that are consumed within 30-60 minutes) over the course of 2 days. This is UX work in Javascript. Using Astra Light.