Feature Request: Require Explicit Confirmation Before Using Purchased Codex Credits
I would like an option to prevent Codex from automatically consuming purchased credits after the usage included with my ChatGPT subscription has been exhausted.
Current behavior
When the included Codex usage limit is reached, any purchased credits on the account are automatically used.
There is currently no way to keep those purchased credits reserved or require explicit confirmation before they are consumed.
Why this is a problem for my use case
I use Codex for development work, which can consume a relatively large amount of usage.
At the same time, I also use GPT Work for ongoing personal workflows, including diet tracking and meal logging. These are small tasks, but they are time-sensitive because I need to record meals when they happen.
If I use all of my included Codex usage while working on a development project, GPT Work may also become unavailable until the usage limit resets.
Because of that, I would like to purchase a small amount of extra credit in advance and keep it as a reserve specifically for essential, low-volume tasks such as meal logging.
However, with the current system, this is not practical.
Once my included usage is exhausted, Codex can immediately start consuming the purchased credits automatically. A few development tasks could therefore use up the entire reserve that I intended to keep for GPT Work.
The issue is not that I do not want to buy additional credits. The issue is that I cannot control when those purchased credits are used.
Requested behavior
At minimum, I would like an account-level option such as:
Automatically use purchased credits: ON / OFF
When this option is OFF:
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Subscription-included usage is used normally.
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When the included usage limit is reached, the current task stops instead of automatically consuming purchased credits.
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The user is shown a clear message explaining that the included usage has been exhausted.
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The user can explicitly choose whether to continue using purchased credits.
For example:
You have reached your included usage limit.
Continue this task using purchased credits?
Ideally
It would be even better if purchased-credit usage could be controlled separately by product or workflow.
For example:
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Codex: Purchased credits disabled
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GPT Work: Purchased credits enabled
This would allow users to reserve purchased credits for specific workflows instead of allowing any high-usage task to consume them automatically.
A per-session or spending-limit option could also be useful, but simply providing a way to disable automatic credit consumption would solve the main problem.
Why I think this matters
Purchased credits are prepaid usage, so users should have some control over when that balance is consumed.
The current system makes it difficult to maintain a small emergency reserve for important workflows because once the subscription allowance is exhausted, the reserve can be consumed automatically by unrelated high-usage tasks.
Explicit confirmation before switching from included usage to purchased credits would make credit usage much more predictable and controllable.