Is GPT-6.1 Sol Using Up Codex Quota Faster? OpenAI Isn't Confirming
GPT-6.1 Sol, OpenAI's model for Codex and ChatGPT Work, is not officially documented as using more quota to do the same work. However, many subscribers on the r/OpenAI subreddit say that it has been using up their quota faster this week. On the morning of October 20, Sam Altman's company reset everyone's limits again with a one-line post. The post did not say anything about how much quota people use.
Codex is OpenAI's coding agent. It works in the terminal, in code editors and in the cloud. It is included with ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscriptions. ChatGPT Work is the agent mode in the same app. It can carry out long tasks on its own. Both features use the same quota. GPT-6.1 Sol is the model that launched on September 29, replacing Astra. In the app, it is available in Work and Codex, but not in Chat, as explained on the OpenAI pricing page. In other words, ordinary ChatGPT conversations are not part of this issue.
What Subscribers Are Reporting
The most popular discussions on r/OpenAI describe similar experiences. A Codex task using Sol that took only a few percentage points of quota a week ago now seems to use much more. One user says that after an hour of work with Sol at the highest reasoning level, called xhigh in commands, their quota bar fell from 100% to 88%. Another says their weekly quota lasts only sixteen hours. Almost all these reports come from people with the $100 and $200 Pro plans who work on code for long periods. They do not mostly come from Plus subscribers who make just a few requests each day.
People have different ideas about why this is happening. Some think OpenAI quietly reduced the quota to make room for more resets. Others point to the larger context, while some say that the highest reasoning level uses a lot of tokens. These are guesses from users, not confirmed facts. The most widely repeated claim is that each percentage point of quota is now worth only one-third of what it was a month ago. No OpenAI document supports that claim.
What OpenAI Says in Its Official Documents
The Codex pricing page estimates that Plus subscribers can send between 15 and 160 local messages every five hours when using GPT-6.1 Sol. That is a tenfold difference between the low and high ends. OpenAI makes clear that these numbers are estimates, not fixed limits. Pro plans currently have no five-hour limit, so only the weekly limit applies. The pricing page does not publish the size of that weekly limit. It also warns that similar tasks can use different amounts of quota because the model, context, reasoning level and cache all affect usage. The length of a prompt alone is not enough to predict how much quota a task will use.
Because the rules work this way, it is difficult to prove from the outside that usage has changed. Quota depends on the work the model does, and that work can vary from one session to another.
The table of credit rates gives us another piece of information, and it points in the opposite direction from the complaints. For GPT-6.1 Sol, the page lists 50 credits per million input tokens, 2.5 credits for each million tokens read from the cache, and 250 credits per million output tokens. For GPT-5.6 Sol, the corresponding rates are 100, 10 and 500 credits. These rates are twice as high. However, the same page warns that credit prices alone do not tell us how much usage a subscription includes. So this comparison proves neither that usage has increased nor that it has stayed the same. Speed also matters. Fast mode uses included quota 2.5 times as quickly as standard mode. With Sol, Ultrafast mode uses it eight times as quickly. Ultrafast is available only on the $500 Pro plan.
Limitations to keep in mind
- These reports come from individual users. They are not measured tests. In the most widely discussed example, a user's quota fell from 100% to 88% in one hour. The user did not explain what the task involved, how much context it used or which speed setting was active. So we cannot fairly compare it with the week before.
- OpenAI has not published a statement about Sol's usage. Its official page gives estimates rather than fixed limits. The lack of an announcement does not prove that nothing has changed, and an announcement would not, by itself, prove that a change had occurred. People outside OpenAI cannot verify the exact figures.
- Most reports come from Pro subscribers doing coding tasks with high reasoning settings. They tell us little about Plus subscribers and nothing about ordinary Chat conversations, where Sol is not available.
- According to a Microsoft page, Sol makes two passes for each response. This could explain why each task needs more computing power. However, no document connects this technical detail to subscription quota.
What Has Changed in Recent Weeks
The first documented change is the size of the context. On October 12, Tibo Sottiaux, head of Codex and ChatGPT, wrote that Sol's default context in Codex and Work would increase to 500,000 tokens. The previous size was 272,000 tokens, so the new size is about 80% larger. The maximum is one million tokens, and users can change the setting. OpenAI said the goal was to reduce compactions. These are automatic summaries that an agent creates when a conversation gets too long. OpenAI has not connected this change to quota usage. The following explanation is our own analysis of the numbers in the pricing table. A larger context means the model can reread more of the conversation history at each step. A token read from the cache costs 20 times less than a new token: 2.5 credits instead of 50. When the cache works, the cost stays low. When the cache does not work as expected, the cost can be much higher.
The second change concerns the $200 Pro plan. Since September 29, the plan has been available for new subscribers again, but with a smaller quota. It now offers ten times the Plus quota instead of twenty times. Existing subscribers keep their previous quota until October 29. If a long-time subscriber's quota bar really started falling faster before that date, this reduction does not explain it. When OpenAI announced that the plan was available again, it also said that API spending would be cut in half.
The third change concerns quota resets. Tibo announces them in a series of numbered posts, such as "Day 7" and "Day 15". The October 20 reset is the latest one, following the reset after the September 26 Codex outage. A reset restores quota, but it does not explain why the quota runs out. However, anyone who has received more than one reset in a week is measuring usage over periods that are too short for reliable comparisons.
Has This Happened Before? The August Precedent
Yes. In August, OpenAI acknowledged a problem in two quick steps. On August 22, Tibo wrote that, for some users, the cache hit rate had become worse during the week. This could explain why they were using quota faster. The next day, he listed three causes: images in sessions with many compactions, heavy use of Computer History, and a title generator that was using more resources than expected. He shared these causes in another post. He then announced a reset for all subscribers. On August 29, the team said that quota would last 10% to 50% longer.
That same month, OpenAI had brought back the five-hour limit for Plus. This time, there has been no similar announcement, at least among the public statements available as of October 20. The silence does not tell us much. The August example shows that user reports can point to a real technical problem, such as a cache issue, even when the first complaints sound like simple frustration.
How to Check Whether Sol Uses More on Your Own Account
The most reliable way to find out is to measure how much quota the same task uses under the same conditions. You can use the information on OpenAI's pricing page to follow these steps, in this order.
- Open the usage dashboard, or type
/statusin a Codex terminal session. Record the quota percentage before and after completing a task that you can repeat. - Check the speed setting. Fast mode uses included quota 2.5 times as quickly. If your account switches to Fast without you noticing, it can use up quota faster without giving you another obvious sign.
- Compare the reasoning settings. OpenAI lists reasoning level as one factor that affects usage. The xhigh setting is not the best choice for every task.
- Check the context size. If you do not need 500,000 tokens, you can lower the default setting that was introduced on October 12.
- Reduce the size of AGENTS.md and the number of active MCP servers. Each one adds text to every message, which means more tokens are used.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Is GPT-6.1 Sol available with ChatGPT Plus?
Yes, but only in ChatGPT Work and Codex. Plus subscribers can use GPT-6.1 Sol in these two features, but it does not appear in the app's Chat mode. For Business, Enterprise and Edu plans, the model remains unavailable until an administrator enables it.
2. How many Sol messages can you send with Plus?
OpenAI estimates 15 to 160 local messages every five hours. These are estimates, not fixed limits, because usage depends on the model, context, reasoning and tools used. Pro plans have no five-hour limit listed on the page, so only the weekly limit applies.
3. Has OpenAI cut Plus limits?
OpenAI has not announced a cut of this kind. The changes it has announced concern the $200 Pro plan for new subscribers and the return of the five-hour Plus limit in August. Nothing has been published about reducing Sol usage limits on the $20 plan.
4. Does the October 20 reset change anything?
It restores quota to its maximum but does not change how usage is counted. To find out whether Sol uses more quota, compare the same task before and after, using the same plan and settings. After a reset, everyone's quota bar starts at the maximum, so the bar alone cannot show how much they used before it.
Conclusions
For now, the safest conclusion is that more users have reported higher quota usage over the same period, but the reason is still unknown. The context size changed on October 12. For people who use the cache and run long sessions, the difference may be real, but no figures confirm it. This article will be updated if OpenAI publishes a statement or dashboard data, as it did in August. Until then, it is worth measuring usage on your own account, because how you use Sol has a greater effect on its quota than the estimates alone might suggest.