On August 3, I created an API key for a project, loaded $20 in credits, and enabled auto-reload with these settings:
- Trigger: when balance reaches $5.00, reload back up to $20.00
- Monthly cap: $30.00 maximum in automatic reloads
Over the next two days (August 4–5), I was charged $192.24 in top-up credits — well beyond the $30 monthly cap I configured.
While investigating, I checked my ChatGPT account (Settings > Usage) and found “Automatic reload” toggled on there too — with no cap — even though I never enabled it there. I turned it off immediately. Codex showed auto-reload off, as expected. The only place I ever enabled auto-reload was on the API key.
My working theory: adding credits and enabling auto-reload on an API key also enables automatic reload at the ChatGPT account level, unrestricted by the limit set on the key. I’ve been using Codex for months and never saw a charge like this until I set up the API key with auto-reload.
Has anyone else run into this? And if any OpenAI staff see this — is this expected behavior or a bug? I’ve configured a $30/month cap and was charged 6x that in two days, so if it’s expected, the settings UI badly needs to say so.
I have invoices, more screenshots, and I’m happy to share details (minus the key itself) if it helps reproduce.