Codex pricing: there is no Codex plan, and you probably already have it
Searches for Codex pricing are up more than 1,000 percent, and most of them are looking for a plan that does not exist. Codex comes with your ChatGPT plan. What each tier actually gives you.
Verdict
There is no standalone Codex subscription. Codex is included in every ChatGPT plan from Free upward, and what changes between tiers is how much of it you can use before you are throttled.
The short answer#
No separate price
What a Codex subscription costs
It is bundled into every ChatGPT plan. You are already paying for it, or you can have it free.
Codex is not a product you buy. It is a capability inside ChatGPT, and it is included in Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, Edu and Enterprise.
If you have any ChatGPT plan at all, you have Codex.
What each tier actually gives you#
| Plan | Cost | Codex access |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Included, small allowance |
| Go | $8/mo | Included, more than Free |
| Plus | $20/mo | Web, CLI, IDE extension, iOS |
| Pro | $100/mo | 5x Plus rate limits |
| Pro | $200/mo | 20x Plus rate limits |
| Business | $20/user/mo annually | Included, team controls |
| Enterprise | Custom | Included |
Plus at $20 is where Codex becomes properly usable. That is the tier that unlocks the whole surface — browser, command line, IDE extension, and mobile — rather than a taste of it.
Above Plus you are not buying a better Codex. You are buying more of the same one before it stops you.
The credit change nobody announced loudly#
On 2 April 2026, OpenAI moved Plus, Pro and Business off per-message billing. Every plan now runs on credits.
This is worth naming plainly because it is happening across the market, not just at OpenAI. A flat plan quietly becomes a plan plus a meter, and the headline price stays reassuringly still while the thing it buys shrinks. We wrote about the pattern in why software bills rise while AI gets cheaper.
What it actually costs in practice#
OpenAI's own rate card puts teams that use Codex as a primary engineering teammate at $100 to $200 per developer per month.
That figure deserves reading carefully. It describes daily, heavy, professional use — a developer who has Codex open the way they have their editor open. It is not what a small business owner automating a few tasks will spend.
| How you use it | What to budget |
|---|---|
| Trying it out | $0, Free plan |
| Occasional scripts and fixes | $20, Plus |
| Daily, several hours | $100, Pro |
| A team that depends on it | $100 to $200 per developer |
Should a small business care about Codex?#
Honestly, most should not, and it is worth saying so on a page about its price.
Codex is a coding tool. If nobody in your business writes or edits code, the fact that your $20 ChatGPT plan includes it changes nothing for you. It is not a feature you should factor into whether Plus is worth paying for.
Where it does matter:
- You have a developer, or you are one
- You maintain scripts, spreadsheets with real logic, or small internal tools
- You are paying someone hourly for work that is mostly small fixes
In that last case the arithmetic is worth doing. One hour of a contractor's time a month is usually more than a year of Plus.
What to do#
Do not go looking for a Codex plan. There isn't one, and any page offering you a Codex-specific price is describing a ChatGPT plan under a different name.
Start on the plan you already have. If Codex throttles you regularly, the next step is Plus at $20, then Pro at $100. Full plan detail is in our ChatGPT pricing guide.
The short version
What works
- It is included from the Free plan up, so trying it costs nothing and needs no new account
- Plus at $20 gives Codex on the web, the CLI, the IDE extension and iOS, which is the full surface for most people
- The tiers are honest multiples: Pro is explicitly 5x or 20x Plus rather than a vague promise of more
What does not
- The name suggests a product you buy, so people search for a price that has never existed
- Since April 2026 everything runs on credits rather than messages, which makes spend harder to predict
- OpenAI's own guidance puts heavy users at $100 to $200 a month, which is a long way from the $20 most people start on
Frequently asked questions
- How much does Codex cost?
- There is no standalone price. Codex is included in ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, Edu and Enterprise, and through the API with an API key. What you pay for is the ChatGPT plan, and Codex comes with it.
- Is Codex free?
- It is included on the Free plan, so yes in the sense that you can use it without paying. The allowance is small. Free and Go are for finding out whether it fits your work, not for doing that work.
- What does the $100 Pro Codex tier give you?
- Pro starts at $100 a month and gives either 5x or 20x higher Codex rate limits than Plus, depending on which Pro tier you take, plus preview access to newer Codex models. It is the same Codex, with the ceiling raised.
- What should a small business budget for Codex?
- Start at Plus, $20 a month. OpenAI's own rate card puts teams that rely on Codex as a primary engineering teammate at $100 to $200 per developer per month, but that is heavy daily use. Most small businesses using it occasionally never leave Plus.
Written by
Tashawar Awais
Researcher and editor
Tashawar handles verification and editing. Every figure in a review is checked a second time before it goes out, and anything that cannot be traced to a vendor page or a documented source is either qualified or cut. Where pricing is genuinely unclear, as it is with Canva team plans or Close CRM tiers, the article says so and tells the reader to confirm directly instead of quoting a number with false confidence.
- Second check on every published figure
- Removes claims the sources do not support
- Flags pricing that changes without notice