Codex (GPT-5.5, Plus plan) – rate-limit cost per token jumped 10x+ since June 16

OpenAI's Codex desktop app on the ChatGPT Plus plan has experienced a 10-20x increase in rate-limit cost per token since June 16, reducing usable prompts from 20+ to 2-3 per 5-hour budget. User logs show smaller prompts with near-zero reasoning tokens consuming 10-27% of the budget each, compared to 1% previously. The issue coincides with an active OpenAI status incident and may indicate an unannounced rate-limit change or bug.

- Notifications /login?return to=%2Fopenai%2Fcodex You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 13.6k /login?return to=%2Fopenai%2Fcodex Codex gpt-5.5, Plus plan — rate-limit cost per token jumped ~10-20x since June 16, draining the 5h budget in 2-3 prompts 28879 appIssues related to the Codex desktop app https://github.com/openai/codex/issues?q=state%3Aopen%20label%3A%22app%22 Issues related to the Codex desktop app bugSomething isn't working https://github.com/openai/codex/issues?q=state%3Aopen%20label%3A%22bug%22 Something isn't working rate-limitsIssues related to rate limits, quotas, and token usage reporting https://github.com/openai/codex/issues?q=state%3Aopen%20label%3A%22rate-limits%22 Issues related to rate limits, quotas, and token usage reporting Description Summary Starting ~June 16, my ChatGPT Plus Codex budget drains in 2–3 prompts on gpt-5.5 , where the same model/plan/app previously gave 20+ prompts. My Codex session logs token count / rate limits events show the limit-% consumed per token has increased roughly 10–20× , with no change on my side — prompts are actually smaller now and reasoning tokens are near zero. Environment - Codex desktop app, Windows 11 - Model: gpt-5.5 , service tier = "default" - Plan: plus confirmed in rate limits.plan type - Config unchanged across the regression window Evidence — same plan, same model, same app June 12 working — 20+ prompts/day : | Prompt | Input tokens | Reasoning tokens | Primary limit % | |---|---|---|---| | 06:08 | 22,334 | 488 | 2% | | 06:09 | 52,161 | 1,130 | 3% | | 06:51 | 57,112 | 3,645 | 9% → 11% | | 06:54 | 79,961 | 5,125 | 15% → 16% | → ~57K-token prompt with 3.6K reasoning ≈ 1% of the 5h budget June 18 broken — 2–3 prompts : | Prompt | Input tokens | Reasoning tokens | Primary limit % | |---|---|---|---| | 07:22:27 | 18,910 | 152 | 18% | | 07:22:30 | 20,480 | 0 | 45% | | 07:22:34 | 23,469 | 48 | 57% | | 07:22:43 | 23,631 | 0 | 68% | | 07:22:50 | 23,839 | 0 | 77% | → ~20K-token prompt with zero reasoning ≈ 10–27% of the 5h budget Per-token limit cost changed ~10–20×. Smaller prompts, near-zero reasoning, yet each consumes 10–20× more of the 5-hour budget than a 57K-token xhigh prompt did on June 12. What I ruled out verified from logs Not reasoning effort: reasoning tokens are 0–152 today vs 3,645–5,125 on the good days. Not prompt/context bloat: input tokens dropped from 57K–80K to 18K–23K. Not my config: model reasoning effort was already high / xhigh on the working days June 12–15 . xhigh gave 30–40+ prompts on June 3, 12, 13, 15. Not the weekly cap: secondary window is only at 12%. The 5-hour window is the one draining. Corroborating timing OpenAI status page shows an active incident ongoing ~2 days since ~June 16 , which matches exactly when my usable prompt count dropped from ~9 sessions/day to ~4. Ask Was the Plus-tier gpt-5.5 rate-limit budget reduced or the per-token weighting changed around June 16? If intentional, what's the new budget? If not, can it be investigated? Session log references - Good day: rollout-2026-06-12T09-07-36-019eba71-5c57-70d0-a8fa-aa999731e9ff.jsonl - Bad day: rollout-2026-06-18T10-22-14-019ed99b-ea9d-7fa1-a86b-dca4e55a8e3e.jsonl - Rate-limit data is in token count events with rate limits payload fields: primary.used percent , secondary.used percent , plan type , resets at . Metadata Metadata Assignees Labels appIssues related to the Codex desktop app https://github.com/openai/codex/issues?q=state%3Aopen%20label%3A%22app%22 Issues related to the Codex desktop app bugSomething isn't working https://github.com/openai/codex/issues?q=state%3Aopen%20label%3A%22bug%22 Something isn't working rate-limitsIssues related to rate limits, quotas, and token usage reporting https://github.com/openai/codex/issues?q=state%3Aopen%20label%3A%22rate-limits%22 Issues related to rate limits, quotas, and token usage reporting Type Fields Give feedback https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/189141