This is not a normal or defensible usage pattern. It is a pricing and metering model that feels completely detached from real work.
In roughly 3 prompts over 15–20 minutes, Codex effectively consumed what the system presents as 5 hours of available usage.
The individual numbers are even worse:
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the first prompt consumed 22 credits
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that prompt was run on low reasoning
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another prompt, processed in about 50 seconds, consumed 20 credits
That is not a small inconvenience. That is an extreme burn rate.
At that pace:
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20 credits for a 50-second prompt is about $0.80
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22 credits is about $0.88
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$40 in credits is about 1000 credits
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that means only 45 to 50 prompts
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and if those prompts keep landing around the 50-second / 20-credit range, then $40 buys only about 38 to 42 minutes of work
That works out to roughly:
- $57.60 to $63.36 per hour of processing
For ordinary development use, that is absurd.
This is the core of the problem: the system no longer feels proportional to the task being performed. Small, targeted prompts are being billed as if they were heavy, high-value operations. The relationship between task size and credit drain feels broken.
The result is not just “expensive.” The result is a tool that becomes operationally unstable:
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costs are unpredictable
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planning becomes impossible
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normal usage feels financially irrational
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trust in the product collapses
A developer cannot work properly under conditions like this. A professional tool cannot drain nearly a dollar on a small low-reasoning prompt and still expect users to see that as reasonable. A system that can erase what is framed as 5 hours of usage in 15–20 minutes is not functioning in a way that feels transparent, sustainable, or user-respecting.
This is not about wanting unlimited free access. It is about basic proportionality.
When a low-reasoning prompt can consume 22 credits, and a 50-second prompt can consume 20 credits, the metering no longer feels aligned with real effort. It feels punitive. It feels detached from ordinary use. And it makes Codex increasingly difficult to justify as a serious day-to-day development tool.
The current behavior looks excessive, aggressive, and economically out of touch with how people actually work.