Codex credits are draining while idle / not actively used

Codex
1

Sorry for starting a new topic if this is already being tracked somewhere. I searched and found some related threads, including “Codex Credits Dissappearing”, “Codex usage after the limit reset update”, and reports where a small number of Codex tasks consumed a large part of the limit/credits.

However, I am trying to find whether there is an active topic specifically about Codex credits draining while Codex is idle or not actively being used.

In my case, the main problem is not simply that a large task used many credits. The problem is that credits appear to keep disappearing while Codex is left open/running, without me actively starting new meaningful work.

This happens repeatedly. Every night, when Codex is left running, credits continue to drain. It is still happening. Every time I step away from the computer and later come back, I find that more credits have disappeared.

My workflow has not materially changed compared with before. I use Codex in a similar way as before, including as a supervisor/monitor for my home system. But since GPT-5.5 became available, both the weekly included credits/limits and purchased credits are being consumed at an extreme and unpredictable rate.

The weekly credits/limits started disappearing so quickly that I was genuinely shocked. I then started paying for extra credits simply so I could continue using Codex. But the purchased credits also began disappearing in the same abnormal way.

Recent OpenAI payments from my bank statement:

  • April 23, 2026: OPENAI *CHATGPT SUBSCR, DUBLIN - 23.00 EUR
  • April 28, 2026: OPENAI* CHATGPT CREDIT, DUBLIN - 40.00 EUR
  • May 2, 2026: OPENAI DUBLIN Co.IE - 5.72 EUR
  • May 3, 2026: OPENAI DUBLIN Co.IE - 10.04 EUR

Recent credit-drain example:

  • Today I bought 250 credits.
  • The balance dropped from 250 to 130.
  • Later it dropped from 130 to 64.
  • I did not run anything unusually large or special that would explain this.
  • I also deliberately used Codex to draft this post so I could observe the credit consumption in real time.
  • I started this drafting session with 64 credits.
  • By the time I reached this point, I was down to 18 credits.
  • That means 46 credits were consumed just while drafting/reporting this issue.

There was also an overnight case where Codex was left running in the same monitoring/supervision role as before, and around 20% of credits were consumed by the morning. This is not an isolated case. The same pattern happens every night and every time I leave Codex open while I am away from the computer.

The most important issue is idle/background credit leakage. If Codex is doing background model calls, retries, summaries, monitoring actions, tool calls, context refreshes, or anything else billable while the user is not actively using it, that needs to be clearly visible and controllable.

Right now Codex does not provide enough detail for me to verify what consumed the credits. I cannot see a clear per-task or per-session breakdown explaining why credits were consumed while Codex was just left open/running.

Has anyone else seen this specific issue: Codex credits draining while idle or not actively used?

Also, where is the correct place to file a formal billing complaint or request credit restoration/refund for this? The in-app Codex Feedback form looks like a bug report form, not a real billing support channel. I need someone from OpenAI to inspect internal logs and explain what triggered the charges.

Please, help.

2

Welcome to the forum!

I also couldn’t find an active similar topic that seemed to cover this exact “credits draining while Codex is idle/ not running” issue.

For billing/credit restoration, I’d recommend contacting the Help Center directly:

https://help.openai.com/en

You may also want to check the Codex rate card, in case it helps with understanding how credits are counted:

https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001106-codex-rate-card

That said, if credits are being consumed while you are not actively starting tasks, that sounds like something Support would need to investigate from the account/session side.

3 
Thank you for the reply.

I followed your suggestion and contacted OpenAI Support by email with a detailed explanation of the issue

I asked Support to investigate this from internal account/session logs, because Codex does not expose enough per-session billing detail for users to verify what triggered the charges.

I’ll update this topic if I receive a useful response, in case it helps anyone else seeing similar idle/background credit consumption.

Thanks again...
4

Good!

And yes, please keep us updated here.

Hopefully you get answers soon and that it will be fixed!

5

Update:

I contacted OpenAI Support about this issue.

The response I received did not provide a billing/session-level explanation of what consumed the credits. It also did not address the main practical problem I reported: that Codex credit usage suddenly became dramatically higher than before for the same workflow.

Support suggested that I record my screen while the issue is happening, in order to show credits being consumed by themselves. However, this does not really address the core issue.

The problem is not only that credits appear to be consumed while Codex is idle or left open in the background. The problem is also that, after GPT-5.5 became available, my Codex usage seems to consume credits roughly 5x faster than it did before, even though my usage pattern has not materially changed.

In other words, the support response focused on proving/recording the “credits draining by themselves” part, but did not address the much broader issue: the abnormal increase in consumption rate compared with previous Codex usage.

What I still need from OpenAI is a concrete explanation of:

  • which Codex sessions/tasks consumed the credits
  • whether any background activity, retry loop, context refresh, summarization, tool call, or monitoring process consumed credits
  • whether GPT-5.5 or another more expensive model was automatically selected
  • why the same workflow now consumes credits at a much higher rate than before
  • whether this is expected behavior, a bug, or an unintended billing/product-side change
  • whether affected users can receive a credit restoration/refund

At the moment, I still do not have a clear explanation for the sudden 5x increase in Codex credit consumption or for the apparent idle/background drain.

6

Thanks for taking the time to update us, even though you haven’t yet got clear answers why it’s happening.

Support might even reply to you here in your topic.

7

I’ve got 2 bots running 16 hours per day everyday. Both running 5.3 codex in CLI. 10000 credits lasts me about 5 days. I just ran out and recharged again and it’s on day 5 so it’s still about the same for me. I think what you need to do is constantly start new sessions like I do every 1 million tokens spent within a session otherwise you start to incur what I’ve started to call token taxes. You just need to keep all you work planned and tracked in local docs instead of relying on the models fragile context window. If you’re still burning tokens when at idle then that means something else is still running.

8

When you say “credits are being used” it shoudl be noted that the dashboard is not instant, there is some delay to it, so you might be seeing events that occured prior, the real test is to stop doiung something then wait a couple of hours and see if you are still using tokens.

Also check to see if you have OpenClaw running as that can have pings that consume tokens in the background.

Let em know if you still have issues.

9

To be clear I have been having this issue also. And I can even be 100% sure:

this happened to me directly after a fresh reset, my usage was at 100% hourly and weekly, I was NOT using codex, but I had it open because I was planning to. I was reading the current diff to remember what I was working on previously, and then when I got to codex, my hourly and weekly usage drained – hourly down to 80%.

I, still having not used codex in a few days(no messages at all), deciding to start writing a post. ( What automatically consumes Codex usage without doing anything? - #5 by EricGT )

While I was writing that post, I observed the usage further going down, despite no usage being done yet.

10

I think if you have memories enabled, that may be what it is. I had the issue, turning it off SEEMED to fix it.