Eligible ChatGPT Pro and Business subscribers can now get up to $500 in free API credits each month for OpenAI’s developer platform. OpenAI added the benefit to its API changelog on October 28, 2026, and announced it on @OpenAIDevs, its X account for developers. The credits are meant for building and running apps and agents on the API Platform. ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus and Enterprise are not eligible.
OpenAI’s rates are almost identical to the ones Anthropic announced on October 7 for Claude Max and Team: $20 per Standard seat, $100 per Premium seat and a $500 monthly cap for a team. Anthropic introduced its credit on the day it launched Claude Haiku 5.5, its cheapest model. Both companies set the amounts in U.S. dollars.
Up to $500, depending on the plan
The amounts appear on a page in OpenAI’s developer documentation titled “API credits for ChatGPT subscribers.” On ChatGPT Pro, the credit depends on the subscription tier, which the documentation labels by price: $100 a month in credits on the “$100 tier,” $200 on the “$200 tier” and $500 on the “$500 tier.”
On ChatGPT Business, the credit depends on the workspace’s paid seats: $20 per Standard seat and $100 per Premium seat. Credits from all seats are pooled and capped at $500 per workspace per month. A workspace hits the cap at 25 Standard seats or five Premium seats; past that point, it gets nothing more.
Business workspaces that pay for a full year upfront get the whole year’s credit in one grant, capped at $6,000, and that grant expires at the end of the annual billing cycle. For all subscribers, the first grant is prorated to the time remaining in the current billing cycle.
A seven-day wait and one owner for both accounts
The subscription must be paid, active and at least seven days old; free trials and complimentary subscriptions don’t count. The person activating the credits must own both the ChatGPT subscription (or the Business workspace) and the API organization that receives them. They also need to use the same email address on both accounts.
Activation is a one-time step, done in ChatGPT (Settings, then Billing on Pro; the workspace billing settings or the Admin Console on Business) or under Billing on the API Platform. Credits then arrive with each renewal, “while these benefits are available and your subscription is eligible,” OpenAI writes. No payment method is required on the API Platform.
The credits apply only to the linked API organization; switching to another one requires contacting OpenAI support. The link is removed at the end of the billing cycle when a subscriber switches to an ineligible plan such as Plus, Go or Free, or when a Business workspace moves to ChatGPT Enterprise, which does not qualify. Canceling stops new grants without clawing back credits already issued.
Covered APIs and the Codex carve-out
The credits pay for API Platform usage billed to the linked organization. OpenAI lists the Responses API, the Agents API (including charges for OpenAI-hosted sandboxes), the Decisions API, which left beta on October 22, and the Images API. The list also includes GPT-Live and the Realtime API for real-time voice, plus built-in tools such as web search, file search and Code Interpreter, along with storage. These APIs provide access to the GPT models OpenAI offers developers, including GPT-6.1 Terra, released on October 26.
Codex is the exception: “Codex usage through API keys is not supported by this benefit,” the page says. The credits also don’t raise ChatGPT’s usage limits or those of Codex used while signed in. Usage remains subject to the API terms and rate limits.
Free credits are used before purchased ones. Unused credits expire at the end of the billing cycle and don’t roll over. When an organization has no credits left, free or purchased, API requests fail with an HTTP 429 error and the error code credit_balance_exhausted.
A close match for Claude Max and Team
When it launched Claude Haiku 5.5 on October 7, Anthropic announced “a new monthly API credit” for all Max and Team subscribers. Its documentation lists $100 a month for Max 5x and $200 for Max 20x; on Team, it’s $20 per Standard seat or $100 per Premium seat, pooled and capped at $500. Claude’s Free, Pro and Enterprise plans are excluded. The plan names are confusing: Claude Pro gets no credit, while ChatGPT Pro qualifies and ChatGPT Plus is the plan left out.
The rules line up, too: seven days on the plan before the credit can be activated, no rollover for unused credits and no payment method required. Anthropic leaves out Claude Code, its coding tool, much as OpenAI leaves out Codex used with an API key, and its credit doesn’t change usage limits in Claude. OpenAI’s pages do not mention Anthropic.
Three differences stand out in the two companies’ documentation. OpenAI’s Pro “$500 tier” gets $500 in credits, while Max 20x, Anthropic’s most expensive Max plan, gets $200. OpenAI’s Business workspaces that prepay for the year get the year’s credit all at once; Anthropic pays it out monthly on annual plans. A seat added mid-cycle can bring extra prorated credits at OpenAI, whereas Anthropic counts it only from the next billing month.
The questions OpenAI’s pages leave open
OpenAI gives no numbers on the benefit’s reach: no count of eligible subscribers, no cost figure, no usage data. The program’s duration is not guaranteed, since grants continue “while these benefits are available.” The page lists no regional restrictions.
The @OpenAIDevs post says eligible subscribers can claim the credits “starting today” and gives no rollout schedule. The page also doesn’t say how much work the credits pay for: that depends on which model is called and its price, which OpenAI sets and changes in its pricing.
What it means
Within three weeks, OpenAI and Anthropic have adopted the same approach: their high-end individual subscriptions and their team plans now bundle some API usage, with the same per-seat amounts and the same cap. OpenAI’s October 28 announcement leaves API prices unchanged. The credit turns a slice of the subscription into a use-it-or-lose-it development budget that runs until the end of the billing cycle.
The cap makes the benefit worth less per seat as a team grows. A Business workspace with 10 Standard seats gets $200, or $20 per seat; one with 100 Standard seats gets $500, or $5 per seat. Per seat, the benefit is worth the most to small teams and individual Pro subscribers; Plus subscribers and Enterprise customers get none of it.
Both credits also cover the companies’ agent products (the Agents API at OpenAI, Claude Managed Agents at Anthropic) and steer subscribers toward their developer platforms. Neither company publishes usage figures on its pages, so it isn’t clear yet how many subscribers activate the credits or what they do with them.
Still to watch: how long the program lasts, which OpenAI doesn’t guarantee; whether it expands to Plus or Enterprise, which nothing points to so far; and how other companies that sell AI assistant subscriptions respond.
Sources
- API credits for ChatGPT subscribers, OpenAI (developer documentation), page read October 29, 2026
- Changelog, OpenAI (developer documentation), entry of October 28, 2026
- Starting today, eligible ChatGPT Pro and Business subscribers can claim up to $500 per month in API credits, OpenAI Developers (@OpenAIDevs) on X, October 28, 2026
- Claim up to 500$ in API credits using your ChatGPT Pro or Business subscription, OpenAI Developer Community (relay of the @OpenAIDevs post), October 28, 2026
- API credits for Max and Team plans, Anthropic (Claude Platform Docs), page read October 29, 2026
- Introducing Claude Haiku 5.5, Anthropic, October 7, 2026
Header image: MACCUS chart. Data: OpenAI and Anthropic documentation, read October 29, 2026
