OpenAI yesterday unveiled its highly anticipated GPT-5 model, featuring major advancements in reasoning, coding, and tool-calling capabilities. In a departure from previous launches, the company announced that this cutting-edge model will be accessible to all ChatGPT users, including those on the free tier.
Depending on the ChatGPT subscription tier, GPT-5’s intelligence and usage limits will vary. Free-tier users will receive a limited number of high-intelligence responses, while Pro-tier users will have unlimited access. Here are the exact GPT-5 usage limits on ChatGPT:
-
ChatGPT Free tier accounts can send up to 10 messages every 5 hours. After reaching this limit, ChatGPT will automatically use the GPT-5 mini until the limit resets. Free tier users also have access to just one GPT-5 Thinking message per day.
-
ChatGPT Plus plans can send up to 80 messages every 3 hours. After reaching this limit, ChatGPT will switch to GPT-5 mini until the limit resets.
-
ChatGPT Plus or Team users can manually select the GPT-5-Thinking model from the model picker with a usage limit of up to 200 messages per week.
-
ChatGPT Pro plan offers unlimited access to GPT-5 models.
If ChatGPT automatically switches from GPT-5 to GPT-5-Thinking, it will not count toward the above limits. While this may sound good, ChatGPT Plus subscribers are unhappy with the change. Previously, they had unlimited access to OpenAI’s o3 and o4-mini Thinking models, but they are now limited to just 200 messages per week.
ChatGPT literally got worse for every single Plus user today.
— Lisan al Gaib (@scaling01) August 8, 2025
There"s no way to reliably get thinking models anymore.
Before we had o4-mini, o4-mini-high and o3.
Now we have GPT-5 Thinking with 200 messages per week and a router that exclusively routes you to some small and…
The only workaround for ChatGPT Plus users, for now, is to explicitly instruct the model to think longer through their prompts.
ngl the ChatGPT Plus "upgrade" is feeling like a massive L.
— Hasan Can (@HCSolakoglu) August 7, 2025
We went from having solid daily limits on multiple capable models (like o4-mini) to a super restrictive cap on GPT-5 and a tiny weekly limit on the "thinking" model? Math ain"t mathin
This is a huge nerf for paying… pic.twitter.com/IpTVrAjOuB
It’s unclear how OpenAI will respond to this feedback from its core subscribers. Any future changes to the usage limits for Plus users could play a key role in keeping subscribers satisfied while balancing global demand for the GPT-5 model.
Image Credit: Depositphotos.com