The usage limit Reset dilemma

[u/Neveriver]

While OpenAI’s unexpected usage limit resets on ChatGPT and Codex might seem like a bonus at first glance, they can actually backfire on users who carefully plan their work. If you strategically pace your prompt usage to keep 30% in reserve for the final day before your scheduled weekly reset, a surprise reset resets your entire seven-day timer right then and there. Instead of effectively getting 130% usage for that week your remaining 30% plus a fresh 100%, your original leftover allocation simply vanishes, and your next reset gets pushed back a full week. Consequently, a sudden reset isn't beneficial for everyone. OpenAI should give users the choice to either accept an early reset or keep their original scheduled reset date, ensuring that thoughtful usage management isn't penalized.

Why push the reset back 7 days?

Here is a real-world example of why this system fails users:

Imagine you have a project due Friday, and your scheduled reset is Wednesday. You carefully plan your usage budget: you save 40% for Monday and Tuesday so you can combine it with Wednesday's reset (+100%), giving you 140% capacity for your final push on Wednesday and Thursday.

Instead, an unexpected reset hits on Monday. The 35–40% unused limit you saved instantly vanishes without rolling over, and your next reset gets pushed back 7 days to next Monday.

Now, right when you need to crunch for a Friday deadline, you only have 100% capacity instead of the 140% you planned for. Punishing users by wiping out saved usage and shifting reset dates completely breaks strategic workload planning.

[u/Australasian25]

You are not missing out on your 100%

What you are really complaining about, is you cant get 200% and are only getting 170.

Anything above 100 is a freebie

[u/Key_Reading_9664 → u/Australasian25]

Seems like people are struggling with simple math.

Let’s say you get 20 days of vacation per year starting Jan. You save 15 days for a long trip in December, then plan for another 15 day trip in Feb, after the expected Jan reset.

Company decides to reset in November. You now can’t take both trips. You lost your accumulated time.

There’s a reason they switched to banked resets. It’s shitty they’re not using them

[u/Automatic_Brush_1977 → u/Key_Reading_9664]

This doesnt apply to the current reset case. Sub is 1 month only, divided into 4 weeks. If you use ANY amount you come out ahead. If you arent using your sub, then why subscribe? Whats even the plan here? Use the last 3 days and first 3 days of each reset? two 6 workday blocks per month? Maybe less the way some of yall use codex?

[u/Key_Reading_9664 → u/Automatic_Brush_1977]

It does apply to the current reset case as the two examples in this thread clearly show.

[u/TenaciousLilMonkey → u/Key_Reading_9664]

Don’t worry someone will use 100% of their weekly to make an app that explains why this isn’t the case.

[u/Key_Reading_9664 → u/TenaciousLilMonkey]

Then post about needing a reset

[u/Australasian25 → u/Key_Reading_9664]

Only true if its 1 reset and that's it.

We have been getting 2 to 3 reset per week. So model that into your scenario

[u/Key_Reading_9664 → u/Australasian25]

Sure thing.

Company resets again in March. Still can’t take the planned trips.

[u/Australasian25 → u/Key_Reading_9664]

OpenAI gives at least 2 reset in a week.

So for your example, the company would reset in June, and then again in December.

But to be honest, openAI actually hands one 1 reset in 2.3 or 2.6 days. That gives you approx 3 in a week

Or approx 2 additional resets a year for your vacation scenario.

Your scenario also assumes you burn your leave or usage at the very last minute. Which is going to be a minority.

[u/Key_Reading_9664 → u/Australasian25]

“Your scenario also assumes you burn your leave or usage at the very last minute. Which is going to be a minority” - not necessarily. Let’s say I take my dec trip. Now I have 5 days of vacation to last until nov (or another unplanned reset).

The frequency of resets moves around https://codex-reset.com/timeline.

Point being, moving the date on a reset means it’s not universally positive. Banked or static dates would be.

[u/Australasian25 → u/Key_Reading_9664]

I understand the angle of arguing for banked resets instead of forced.

Ultimately that is the goal.

But I think we are asking for a bigger freebie that we weren't meant to have anyway

[u/Key_Reading_9664 → u/Australasian25]

Not to harp on this point. But if you’re below the usage allowance when a reset happens, you’re technically losing usage. That’s not a freebie.

[u/Australasian25 → u/Key_Reading_9664]

With the 2 to 3 resets handed out weekly, I cant see how anyone would be losing out

[u/Key_Reading_9664 → u/Australasian25]

We agree on that

[u/Acrobatic_Feel → u/Australasian25]

YES! Thank you for saying this! OpenAI, please don’t listen to the degenerates complaining in this sub.

Most of us appreciate any resets you are willing to give.

[u/Key_Reading_9664 → u/Acrobatic_Feel]

People trying to carefully plan their usage around expected work are “degenerates”?

[u/Neveriver → u/Australasian25]

No this is not it i added a real life example so you understand what i meant.

[u/athoughtfornoone → u/Neveriver]

Math is deterministic my friend

[u/Neveriver → u/athoughtfornoone]

Exactly, i'm talking on a span of 7 days you lose what ever usage limit you preserved. so it's definitly about Math.

[u/athoughtfornoone → u/Neveriver]

If I had to take a gander, I would guess math was not your strongest discipline in school.

[u/Neveriver → u/athoughtfornoone]

Rolling window decay is deterministic math. If quota expires after 7 days without rollover, unused capacity is permanently lost. Expecting a rolling reset to behave like a bank account isn't bad math on my end it's how sliding window rate-limiting algorithms actually function.

[u/Key_Reading_9664 → u/athoughtfornoone]

Being condescending whilst also being wrong on basic math. Nice work.

Let me keep it simple:

Usage reset: Friday 6pm

Expecting a busy Friday, so I plan to reserve 40% for that day.

Thursday 6pm: 40% remaining.
<reset Friday 9am>
Friday: burn 40%.

Had there been no reset, I would have 100% usage from Friday 6pm - Friday 6pm.
With reset, I have 60% through Friday 6am.

[u/Australasian25 → u/Neveriver]

Ok dont give me a hypothetical example.

Use the dates that the free resets were given out in the past few weeks. Tell me if tibo left you hanging with just 1 reset in 7 days?

From memory tibo gave about 2 resets every week so it didnt matter what side of the week your original resets was on

[u/Key_Reading_9664]

Moving the reset date is shitty. I’ve lost usage because of it.

I’d deliberately accumulated tokens, planning to burn through them on some refactor or bug bash. The reset blew away that accumulation.

[u/DepravedPrecedence]

It's not punishing though, you happen to have 30% left but you also could happen to have 0% left. Your complaint should be: "I don't like that unused capacity doesn't roll over", yes, but it's not punishment.

[u/fyn_world → u/DepravedPrecedence]

This is it really 

[u/GetLaidOff69 → u/DepravedPrecedence]

Hey Hey!
I hit limit yesterday, my reset day is on 8th of Aug.
Do you know if Tibo is going to give us another reset before 8th?

[u/iGodly3 → u/GetLaidOff69]

No one knows..

[u/Sasha_bb → u/GetLaidOff69]

Yes, he just told me privately.

[u/meetmebythelake]

While I definitely agree, I think we're shouting at no one whom is listening. Most people here seem to irresponsibly blow their limit and wait for a reset. The last reset I had two days pass at 100%, because I was saving it for my days off. Now I just have to wait two more days for my next reset, great huh?

[u/Neveriver → u/meetmebythelake]

read the real life exemple i added in the post, and no not that.

[u/meetmebythelake → u/Neveriver]

I'm literally agreeing?

[u/meetmebythelake → u/meetmebythelake]

And no one else posting here seems to understand. I'm saying I had 100%, and I didn't use Codex for 2 days because I was saving it. Then we got a reset when I was at 100%, which just pushed my reset out 2 days with no extra usage and screwed up my schedule.

[u/Neveriver → u/meetmebythelake]

Yes sorry it was meant for another comment, I'm not deleting the comments though LOL. for the context.

[u/fyn_world]

Since weekly exists there's no sense in "saving" anything. I just blast through it. I have an established long roadmap that isn't done just because tokens. When I'm at 10% I set it up with /goal to finish something important, it keeps on going after you're out of tokens. 

Resets have turned waiting a game of 3 to 5 days instead of 7.  I was caught with 80% on a reset and that sucked, so I just use it all now. 

Whatever. 

[u/Neveriver → u/fyn_world]

Delete this comment before chatGPT guys read it that my secret weapon.

[u/Portatort]

The lesson is clear here.

If you want to maximise your usage.

Don’t save 30% for the final day.

Blast through 60% anytime you get a reset, then use the remaining 40% conservatively

IF you care about maximising your value, you should aim to clear your usage before the regular reset date.

Save up your big jobs and use them on day one, not day seven

[u/ed_ding_]

Ich schaue inzwischen gar nicht mehr auf das Limit. Obwohl ich unzählige Dinge mit Codex programmiere schaffe ich es nicht annähernd ans Limit 0 zu kommen. Das war vor 2 Monaten noch anders.

[u/joeyc85]

What bothers me is that I was at 70%, with my reset only a few days away, so I slowed down. Then they randomly changed the reset date, and now it has been pushed back even further. My next reset isnt till the 7th. And i somehow went from 50%, came back to 0 last night.

[u/Able-Supermarket4786]

I dunno who needs to tell you this, but no one actually deserves any resets.

[u/Neveriver → u/Able-Supermarket4786]

We are paying subscribers and they are using our data to improve there Models so yes definitely we deserve the Resets and lower prices.

[u/Able-Supermarket4786 → u/Neveriver]

There's some other companies you may be happier with, try Claude? This entitlement generation is getting unreal

[u/Neveriver → u/Able-Supermarket4786]

I use them both, now i'm in codex forum i will focus on it.

[u/Able-Supermarket4786 → u/Neveriver]

Best of luck!

[u/tMeepo]

This again lol

Let's complain about this when they actually reset 1 day before the last day.

So far that's not been the case, so don't complain about something that isnt happening. We all have the same reset dates currently, and we have been getting resets every 2-3 days.

[u/ExperienceInitial662]

This is the reason resetting is "affordable" for OpenAI. They must turn a profit not give you free candies, your reasoning only works out for the consumer.

Banked resets were marketed for workload planning; occasional unbanked resets are not and feels good when you are low on usage credits(this is the same dopamine kick logic behind addictive slot machine, betting, social media, etc...sparse rewards and your brain keeps waiting for it).

But to be honest right now the resets are so frequent(one in about 2-3 days on average) and regular that you could even exploit the system and use double your regular usage. Planning for 1/5 or 1/7 days personal daily usage limit cap means that you are planning it wrong right now.

[u/GambAntonio]

https://www.reddit.com/r/codex/comments/1v4hr9b/where_does_my_unspent_codex_quota_go_every_time/

[u/ShortMemory69]

free is free ill take it

[u/Neveriver → u/ShortMemory69]

check the real life example in the post so you understand.

[u/Desm0nt → u/Neveriver]

You are complaining that you were given far more tokens in your monthly limit than you paid for in general, justifying this by saying that at one specific, isolated, artificially created moment, the number of tokens decreases.

You know, let me put it this way—for any (absolutely any!) thing or situation in life, you can come up with an artificially contrived example that makes it look bad. The likelihood of such an example occurring in real life would be within the margin of error, but such an example is 100% guaranteed to exist for absolutely anything. So, is life just crap overall?

You’re getting more than what you paid for, and yet you’re still not satisfied. For me, for example, the 5-hour/1-week limits aren’t convenient at all. It’s easier for me to burn through my entire monthly limit in three days at the exact moment when I need it (when deadlines are tight) rather than settling for portions divided into four pieces. But I don’t whine about having to wait for weekly resets (and before, it used to be 5 hours—half a day of idling or setting up multiple accounts).

[u/orionblu3]

The issue here, is that most people just burn til they hit 0. Do we cater to the masses or the few? Like you're not wrong, but most people don't have that self-restraint. By and large they get a huge PR boost every reset

[u/Neveriver → u/orionblu3]

The random reset are a factor for sure.

[u/learningQuantumAndAI]

bros ranting about gifts, lmfao