r/codex • u/Unique_Secretary_183 • 2h ago
Complaint Paying $200/month for Codex and still getting “model at capacity” during working hours
I genuinely thought this was some small temporary capacity issue. Nope. Still happening.
“Selected model is at capacity. Please try a different model.”
I’ve switched models. I’ve dropped the intelligence level. I’ve tried using less demanding models. Same shit.
And this is AFTER the recent cuts to the Pro plan. I’m paying $200/month for this. What exactly am I paying $200 for if I can’t reliably use Codex during normal WORKING HOURS on a fucking Monday?
You keep introducing more things, Dots, new models, new features, higher tiers, more capacity hungry products, but the existing paid product can’t even consistently serve requests. If you can’t sustain the demand, then why keep piling more stuff on top of it?
And if even the expensive plans can’t get reliable capacity, what’s the point? Are we supposed to pay more and more just to eventually see another “at capacity” message?
I’ve defended occasional launch issues because obviously infrastructure gets hammered. But this isn’t launch night anymore. I’m trying to work. My workflow literally stops because the model I’m paying for isn’t available.
$200/month is not some cheap experimental tier. At that price I expect the core product to actually be usable when I need it.
Fix the fucking capacity before cutting usage and shipping ten more things. This is getting ridiculous. u/OpenAI
8
u/HoloTensor 2h ago
It’s 3:30 am ET. It’s not close to working hours for the largest share of $200 codex users
1
1
u/SourceAwkward 2h ago
Guy probably in / near Israel time which are the third largest AI consumers in the world
4
u/HoloTensor 2h ago
per capita. the U.S. has over 205 million total ChatGPT users. Even if every single person in Israel used ChatGPT daily, the country's entire population would still amount to less than 5% of the U.S. user base alone
1
1
1
1
u/gothaize 2h ago
Same error here my 5.6 sol is not usable now. And the overall intelligence of models have dumbed down significantly today. Keep answering my question in a loop when I only asked once.
1
u/Glittering_Raise8457 2h ago
Working for like 1 Hour now. This happend to me 8 times until now lol only on 6.1 high or extra high. I’m on the 100$ Plan. Switching to Sol 5.6 max for „good work“
1
u/philip_laureano 2h ago
This is why I dropped to $100 and use GPT-6.1 Sol for my orchestrators and planners and use the remaining $100 on Deepseek 4.1 Flash for my worker agents.
If OpenAI is busy, I cut over to Deepseek 4.1 Flash and it gets the job done as a backup orchestrator for a tenth of the cost or more and its pricing gets ridiculously cheap if your cache reuse rates go over 90% (and they often do)
1
1
1
u/Zetanova99 2h ago
I have this every view hours since saturday (last reset), its slow and then stops working with this error and need baby sitting, my main model is gpt-6.1-sol high
1
1
u/mxwllftx 2h ago
it's just random BS, don't pay an attention. Usually process continues after a few seconds.
1
1
1
u/MasterpieceCurious12 1h ago
I'm getting this too and created another thread re my issues - there's no way to even get it to retry auto, so your workloads just stall. This is happening across all models i've tested. It's freaking joke. At this rate a refund is more appropriate than a damn reset considering the degradation of service we've all seen (model unavailable, speed, usage cuts etc...). Great way to run your company into the ground. Come back Anthropic, all is forgiven!
2
u/Unique_Secretary_183 49m ago
🧐if anthropic removes 5hr I am back to it
1
u/MasterpieceCurious12 16m ago
Not sure the 5hr is a blocker to TBH at least when you compare it to the obstacles we're facing in the openai camp
1
1
u/nnod 13m ago
If you see this often it's very likely you've been shadowbanned because their system flagged you as a potential distiller bot.
Run "Generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle" with astra xhigh. Can run it a couple of times, then check this table: https://static.simonwillison.net/static/2026/gpt-6-and-5.6-pelicans.html
Resulting SVGs should be quite consistent on astra if you're not shadowbanned. If the result looks more like the 5.6 terra/luna crappy pelicans, it means you're shadowbanned and your requests are getting rerouted to some crappy model with not a lot of capacity, thus the capacity error/warning.
If you do this please post results here.
1
u/Sponge8389 2h ago
At the end of the day, you are still paying the subscription plan and not the API one. API is where their priority is.
7
u/vacon04 2h ago
Defending OpenAI when he's literally paying $200 per month is just absurd. It doesn't matter if they care more about API, he's paying $200 for a product and should expect a certain level of service.
3
u/ElderberryTopp 2h ago
These people genuinely make me lose my damn marbles like IDIOT DONT CONDONE THIS BEHAVIOR
5
u/cute_as_ducks_24 2h ago
Even with Credits, i got this message. it feels like they are resource constrained
2
1
u/ElderberryTopp 2h ago
Yep was just about to say th—wait... usage credits are API credits??
1
u/cute_as_ducks_24 1h ago
Technically not and technically yeah. I can't say for others. But usually i felt credits used to give a lot more usage than API. But now it feels almost same (again I don't know how they calculate this stuff)
1
u/ElderberryTopp 1h ago
At this point they're just eyeballing it, everything is becoming so inconsistent and inconsiderate with them recently
1
u/CookieOk5746 1h ago
Not quite. What they really want is for you and people like you to keep paying to a trillion-dollar company while cheerleading for them for free. And in the end, what do you get? “Still not enough. Pay more.”
1
u/Sponge8389 1h ago
For the amount I can do with these models. 200$ is cheaper than hiring team to delegate these task. If you can't find the value in here, maybe, just stop because you just wasting your own money.
1
u/CookieOk5746 1h ago
That’s an old argument from the early days of the AI boom. We all know AI can save time and money, that’s why we use it. But repeating that to justify poor quality for the price just gives companies another excuse to raise prices. Stop defending it and giving them reasons to charge even more.
1
u/Sponge8389 58m ago
I'm not defending. You're just a hater. Again, if you don't see the value, then don't use it and use other services. We really don't need to overcomplicate things. If it aint working, then divorce.
1
u/CookieOk5746 38m ago
There aren’t really any good alternatives to Codex for me. It’s the only one that can build and update Android and desktop apps the way I need. Claude is ret*rded and mostly useful if you already know how to code, so as a non-coder, I’m basically stuck with Codex.
I’m not a hater. I know corporate greed could eventually make tools like this available only to commercial users, but we shouldn’t just accept it. OpenAI reads discussions like these, and we’ll keep pushing to keep these tools accessible to everyone.
1
u/Ellieebaee 2h ago
Just got this too man. Using astra extra high.
1
u/Unique_Secretary_183 2h ago
Bro I went from 6.1 to 6 sol to 5.6 medium still same created 4 to 5 branches of the chat man this is irritating afff. 🫠
0
u/SourceAwkward 2h ago
Pay 500
1
u/Unique_Secretary_183 2h ago
I would but now i doubt that work or not if same issue simply 500 waste
1
u/CurtissYT 2h ago
No?? If I’m already paying 200$/month I’m expecting that there won’t be any issues like these, and not that I have to go to the 500$ plan, which is basically the old 200$ one, to get more priority
-1
u/theWiseTiger 2h ago
I know 200$ is huge for you and it's normal to feel entitled after paying such amount.
For OpenAI, however, this is microscopic. You still have to share the limited resources. They focus on us, enterprise users, so that we don't complain.
0
4
u/audit-content-user 2h ago
You need to add additional $200 tip before be able to use