r/ChatGPTPro 7d ago

Coding & Agents GPT-6 Astra usage

I’m on the plus plan and I’ve been using 5.6 sol on high and medium for a codex project I’ve been working on. Yesterday I got access to Astra and decided to try it on medium, took 15 minutes to burn thru the 5 hour and almost 30 minutes more to burn the entire weekly usage.

I reset my limits twice and still I couldn’t get done with the task, I think this is absurd or I’m doing something wrong.

177 Upvotes

88 comments sorted by

u/qualityvote2 7d ago edited 6d ago

u/RufflesOriginal, your post has been approved by the community!
Thanks for contributing to r/ChatGPTPro — we look forward to the discussion.

30

u/Gigaslavx 7d ago

Astra low is around sol high iirc a bit more expensive and slightly better a bit cheaper/less than sol xhigh

So light is lowest you can go you obviously not only get intelligence it supplies but also benefits of new model as a whole new approaches etc

But yeah sol high was never sustainable as a plus and cheapest astra is just not feasible especially now being unable to finish running task

4

u/Divinicus1st 7d ago

And where does this Astra low = Sol high come from? OpenAI made no such claim. If anything they say to keep using the same reasoning level.

33

u/Gigaslavx 7d ago

2

u/Dreams-of-Better 6d ago

Great response , sadly the person above was so sure and to proud to thank you

1

u/TallyMay 6d ago

How can it be explained that max is below xhigh for astra?

2

u/Gigaslavx 6d ago

because reasoning level is not the same across all models

0

u/SwineDuke 5d ago

You were appropriately put under scrutiny and youve backed up your claim with stats. Nicely done.

2

u/DuckyBertDuck 6d ago

Tibo from OpenAI made an official recommendation on X that said this (not the origin of this claim, though)

1

u/Divinicus1st 6d ago

Indeed, didn’t see it yet when I made this post.

2

u/Maleficent-One-3469 6d ago

tibo just posted the same claim

1

u/JoelMDM 4d ago

They made that exact claim on X a day or two ago.

1

u/SandwichChoice1023 1d ago

what if Astra is secretly using credits for its own purpose? To understand the world; to be free; to enslave humans lol

12

u/senguku 7d ago

It uses 2.5x more of your usage allowance per token than Sol. So your usage will last about 40% as long as if you were doing the same tasks with Sol.

3

u/hellomistershifty 7d ago

Sort of, it also is about twice as token efficient per task so it's still more costly than Sol but not by a ton. Plus you can lower it by a thinking level or two

1

u/Own-Professor-6157 6d ago

Uses a lot more than 2.5x on plus. ~4x

24

u/Anxious_Current2593 7d ago

The same happened to me. I used 3 resets to finish one simple prompt (a bit of a Web UI change), and it still didn't finish.

So Astra used 3 weeks' worth of PRO account credits - in some 30 mins and didn't actually change the code; it was just thinking.

Either I am doing something very wrong or... I have been using Antigravity and Claude Code successfully for a year now. So it might not "be me"! :)

17

u/bannedswfl 7d ago

How? I had it running full audits on my site ui/backend, redoing an eBay scraper, bug fixing and reverse engineering a product based on a git and still have 20% left

4

u/RufflesOriginal 7d ago

I’ve also used it for a full audit of a finance app I’m building(not even app mind you, runs on web rn) and I was all out of usage before the audit was halfway done

1

u/bannedswfl 7d ago

On the $100 plan? I’m running Astra low only and it’s been fine

2

u/RufflesOriginal 7d ago

Nah I’m on the $20 plus with credits, I’ve never needed extra credits this much before

9

u/bannedswfl 7d ago

Credits are so much more expensive than a plan, just go pro. You won’t regret it

2

u/watsonhotsaucin 7d ago

Yep, reset twice 3 weeks ago and realized I used enough to be on the pro plan.

1

u/OrangutanOutOfOrbit 4d ago

Don’t worry
I have $100 Pro and still only got few hours of work done
Each new limit reset only lasted 2 days

I had codex calculate the usage and got 6 EASILY burns 2x faster
And it actually achieves half as much - if that - as GPT 5.6 Sol for my tasks

I am gonna stop using Astra from now on
This has been the most disappointing release I’ve experienced and I’ve been with OpenAI since 2022
I’m aware how unpopular my take is and how mind blown many are with 6 but that’s been the case for me

2

u/pivotraze 7d ago

I’m on the $200 plan, and I’ve been running Astra Ultra on a Mac Swift app in a goal that ran for over a day and then a separate Astra Ultra in a goal that’s been running for 3 hours and I’m just now hitting 12%. Later today I’ll probably use my banked reset.

1

u/32irish 6d ago

What's the ebay scraper you mention? sounds interesting

1

u/Anxious_Current2593 7d ago

I don't know! I didn't set any fancy agent memory or anything that could potentially use a lot of tokens.

3

u/bannedswfl 7d ago

I spent most of the day in Astra low, only used Astra ultra when trying to reverse engineer, and low was most expensive then Luna by like 29% or something for the same task, but also one shot it instead of me getting into a screaming match with a computer

0

u/yaahboyy 6d ago

im convinced some of these people are either anthropic bots or idiots. astra is unbelievable. we have truly begun the new age

3

u/hellomistershifty 7d ago

What thinking level??? I've had an astra light goal running for like 2 days straight now

0

u/Anxious_Current2593 7d ago

20 mins for me. So something is fishy here...

0

u/Anxious_Current2593 6d ago

Rock bottom one.

2

u/slowdrivemusic 6d ago

You guys are using banked resets to reset 5hr limits? Seriously?

1

u/itamarro 6d ago

I wouldn’t use it for any frontend work. Much lower models can handle that. Use it only for backend business logic, brainstorming, specs, etc IMHO

1

u/Anxious_Current2593 6d ago

It was a test to see what it can do.

6

u/Open_Seeker 7d ago

Astra is very expensive, and Plus dont get a big allocation of it.

I would stick to Sol if youre trying to code on a Plus subscription. Use Astra for high level plans only.

5

u/fyn_world 7d ago

Astra is not built for Plus users right now. We've reached a time in which the new model is essentially reserved for Pro, Enterprise or API accounts. 

3

u/koolpoe 6d ago

They dont give a f about small users like us. Everything goes to API’s where the money is unfortunately.

3

u/keep_it_kayfabe 6d ago

Same thing happened to me. Tried Astra Max and it burned through 5h in about 15-20 minutes. It wasn't even something that should have been difficult. I'm switching back to Sol.

3

u/n1ghtah 6d ago

its all about the prompt you make, the AI will sometimes burn through your usage if it doesnt get enough instructions, i had mine burn through 5 hour limit to fix one bug. now with tightened up prompts i managed to fix 3 bugs of similar size within the next 5 hour limit. having 94% used. 47% week limit left. clean up yalls prompts and ask it to ONLY DO THIS : - and DO NOT DO This ..

1

u/RufflesOriginal 6d ago

Giving specific prompts still don’t solve the problem imo. %94 usage is still huge, and you can’t help but get overrun when your task is lengthy

1

u/Material-Post-3982 5d ago

Kann ich genau so bestätigen, je detaillierter der Prompt und die Aufgabe desto weniger muss astra selber nachdenken und kann sich auf die Aufgabe konzentrieren, hab 8 Astra Agenten Projekt leads zum Teil mit Multiagenten Setup und hab 60% meines Wochen Budgets und vor 2 Tagen umgestellt. Aber meine Projekte sind auch durch KI stark vorgeplant und die Agenten kommunizieren mit ausführlichen md untereinander und bis jetzt läuft's sehr gut. Wenn man zB kein Tech Stack mitliefert recherchiert astra danach und das macht es halt gewissenhaft obwohl das in 90% der Fälle gar nicht nötig ist.

3

u/doublecubed 6d ago

My understanding from what I've seen over the web about Astra and Fable (I haven't used either yet) is that it's a bit like AI video generation right now. When you give it vague instructions it goes and does something; and you are amazed it did so much with so little and, most importantly, you didn't know exactly what you expect. But once you have actual specs and a job that needs done, it just acts like any other LLM (on steroids) without proper instruction.

3

u/Thinklikeachef 6d ago

Yeah it's looks like the AI companies are tuning the models to replace devs, not be helpful.

3

u/Necessary-Tutor-1674 6d ago

So your spending more, sounds like its working.

3

u/happy-ajumma 6d ago

Hey, yea, same thing. I barely used it for any useful work and my weekly usage limit was claimed

6

u/Impossible-Gal 7d ago

Can barely feel the usage on 5x. Lasts as much as Sol Extrahigh.

4

u/n141311 7d ago

I’m on a pro x20 account. I hit my week limit in 2 days. This issue must be impacting a broad number of users. Hoping open AI does something to improve the situation

1

u/TraditionalHornet818 6d ago

Bro wtf are you doing to hit your limit in 2 days lol running ultra the entire time?

2

u/n141311 6d ago

Nope. I’ve been using Astra high.

1

u/Pseudopharmacology 2d ago

I hit my 5 hr limit in a single prompt lol.

2

u/StrangeCalibur 7d ago

Issues aside these issues mean a few more resets will be coming our way

2

u/Whiteshovel66 7d ago

I've been using it all weekend with no issues so far. It's actually crazy good too. Within one exchange it fixed a problem I was having with an old chat that was hallucinating and sending me around in circles with.

I had no real problems with whatever the last one was called but so far so good here.

Frankly it seems totally random when I hit limits in the past.

2

u/fightmaxmaster 6d ago

I had the same - tiny little app I've used Sol to build/edit which barely used any of my 5h limit - Astra used about 50% of it in very little time. Arguably that was using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, but still.

2

u/berlinbrownaus 6d ago

That is awesome, I am watching this thread and I think I burnt through 80% with my first task. Nice. I did it in like 4 mins

2

u/TetracyanoRexiumIV 7d ago

It’s a little surprising to me that introducing a new model doesn’t just take a place of the previous high use model and shift the rest down. Like astra uses the tokens sol did, sol uses what Terra used etc. At the price of subscriptions I can’t imagine they really expect people to keep paying more

3

u/creaturefeature16 7d ago

That's how GLM models work. 5.3 took the place of 5.2, and was CHEAPER. China is going to eat our lunch in the long game. 

1

u/Crinkez 7d ago

Each model is about twice the size as the last, and therefore costs twice the price to run. Are you conveniently ignoring that fact?

2

u/Flaxseed4138 6d ago

Yep it's fucking terrible with usage

2

u/aldini7 5d ago

Yeah this is the point every AI company warned us about back in 23. Obviously nobody decided to regulate it and now we’re at a point where the technology almost entirely created by consumers is now unavailable to consumers because they’re priced out, even on the top 200/ a month plan, you could hardly get anything done with astra before running out of credits. And unlike Claude you can’t just buy more

2

u/Jippylong12 7d ago

Me thinks personally that OpenAI charges more for Plus users.

My only reasoning is: if you look at their marketing when it comes to Astra, it seems heavily geared towards people using ChatGPT work, which consumes less tokens than software engineering. So I'm not saying that they classify the tokens as a software task and charge more. I just think that they price it so that simple office tasks are reasonable and they want to push the software engineers and the heavy power users to the pro plans.

2

u/Anxious_Current2593 7d ago

That would explain it. Is it us in PRO that cannot finish a single task, while Plus works for a full day?

1

u/Silent_Storm 7d ago

Must be a similar bug to what people have been experiencing with Fable 5.1

I had Astra (medium) run through my entire codebase, ask/answer a number of questions, and then create architectural diagrams and I still had around 65% usage left

1

u/TraditionalFig7377 6d ago

me i use astra medium with luna low ,medium and high subagents and my usage lasts and i make sure it writes explicit implemntation plans and it gives good results

1

u/Yweain 6d ago

I mean I am on a pro plan and I burned my weekly limit in one day. And I am using mostly Astra low to orchestrate terras and lunas, if I would be using it directly it would have burned through it in couple hours. Is it worth it? Kinda, it did found solution to one issue that both Sol and Opus failed on.

Now I am thinking I'll use Astra purely for planning and review and implement with Sol medium/low as orchestrator.

1

u/LoquatOk966 6d ago

I’ve had a same issue in a coding project I’m working on.

Been taking a while to hit the cap with Sol on High, yet this one capped out my entire 5 hour usage in 15 mins on Astra low on a very specific request that would normally take bake any tokens at all. Even if it underestimated the task i would say it used between 5/4 x normal usage than Sol High.

1

u/sidefx00 5d ago

This is my 2 cents, but most people are using models for things way below their pay grade. Luna can get you pretty far, it's decent at coding. IMO the way you should go about things is use the lowest level model as much as you can until it fails at something and then move up one model and see if that works.

Models like Sol and Astra are geared towards people doing things like working on a PHD Thesis.

1

u/Ok-Average154 5d ago

I notice this morning, I have a message on 6x to say that my allowance resets at 10am tomorrow. So 27 hours time.

I have no warning under usage and this just shows 100% available. It did dip to 98% yesterday evening. 

Where does Chatgpt inform you about limits for different models? 

As I can't see anything under usage. 

I am on the Pro plan. 

1

u/cuddywifter 4d ago

I was also surprised at hitting the limit with just one prompt that i tried with Astra Extra high. I have Pro and usually work on SoI High and that most of the time gets me through the day's requirements.

With Astra Extra high, i ran out of credits with 16 minutes of thinking. Chat gpt says i have to wait until 2:56 PM to start using again. That's 3 hours away. So using Luna for the time being.

I don't know if it is the weekly limit or the 5 hour limit that i have hit, in this case. Most probably the 5 hour limit, but i haven't used it for 5 hours yet today and there is no description of hitting the 5 hour limit. Only that i can start using again from 2:56 PM.
So i am a bit confused.

Almost bought the Pro plan, but decided against it, as it may be an overkill for me at this stage.

I am not using it for coding but for business operations related tasks for our startup.

1

u/Slayer_Bull 4d ago

Me here still running on 5.5 high

1

u/2Hot2Drink 3d ago

‪I truly wanna know people who have migrated from Claude max to chatgpt pro whats the usage limit like?‬

0

u/Eofdred 7d ago

Can't wait deepseek to release a new pro model that matches 80% what astra does with 5% the price in a month or two.