OpenAI said on Oct. 28 that eligible ChatGPT Pro and Business subscribers can now claim up to $500 in API credits each month without paying extra.
The move changes a long-standing split between ChatGPT subscriptions and OpenAI API billing. Previously, users could pay for a ChatGPT subscription and still need to bind a credit card and separately fund API usage if they wanted to build with the models in code. Under the new setup, part of that developer spending is folded into subscription benefits.
Pro credits mirror subscription tiers
For Pro users, OpenAI is matching API credits to the subscription amount. Subscribers on the $100, $200, and $500 Pro tiers will receive the same amount in monthly API credits.
That means a user paying $100 a month for Pro keeps the higher-end ChatGPT client features and also gets $100 in developer API balance.
Business credits are pooled, with a $500 monthly cap
For Business customers, credits are calculated at the workspace level based on paid seats. Standard seats count for $20 each, while premium seats count for $100 each, and the workspace shares the total credit pool.
OpenAI is capping Business benefits at $500 per month. In practice, that means the added benefit stops increasing once a team grows beyond roughly 25 standard seats. For annual Business subscribers, OpenAI will issue the full yearly amount at once, with a maximum of $6,000 per year.
Plus, free, Enterprise, and Edu users are excluded
OpenAI also set clear eligibility limits. ChatGPT Plus users are not included in the program. Free users, Enterprise customers, Edu customers, and subscriptions that are still in a free trial or were obtained through a gift are also excluded.
Users must have held the subscription for at least seven days before they can activate the benefit.
Credits must be claimed manually
Eligible users need to claim the credits themselves. OpenAI will not deposit them automatically. The process starts from the Billing page inside ChatGPT, where the user must manually begin the claim flow and attach the credits to an API organization that uses the same email address as the subscription account.
To complete the process, the user must hold both the ChatGPT subscription and Owner permissions on the target API organization.
Once the credits are claimed, the workflow becomes simpler. Developers do not need to pre-bind a credit card on the API platform. They can generate an API key and create a project through the OpenAI Developers plugin inside ChatGPT, covering the path from claiming credits to development and testing.
Credits expire at the end of the billing cycle
The credits can be used across most core services on the OpenAI developer platform, including model calls for conversations, building Agents, Realtime voice interactions, image generation and editing, and built-in tools such as web search and the code interpreter.
OpenAI also listed several restrictions. First, the credits cannot be used to run Codex through an API key. Second, the API credits are separate from ChatGPT client-side usage limits, so receiving them does not raise the question cap on the web interface.
The main constraint is timing. The credits are valid only within the current month, or within the annual billing cycle for annual Business subscribers. Any unused amount is cleared when the billing cycle ends and does not roll over into the next month. On the first claim, the amount is prorated based on the number of days left in the current month.
When charges are applied, the system will consume the promotional credits first. Only after those are exhausted will it deduct from the user’s self-funded balance.
The original report also included two official entry points: one for claiming API credits, and another for creating an API key through the OpenAI Developers plugin in ChatGPT or Codex.
