So, I made an account a while back to use Dall-E, which i had great s uccess using, but ChatGPT would consistently give me a “we’re busy”" error, for the majority of the life of this account. When I finally got access to ChatGPT it informed me that OpenAi has API access to users and that i could use that in a python scripting project. So with it’s help i got the code down, and was able to troubleshoot some errors, but never actually got the script to run to completion. Now, even tho I haven’t successfully used the API even once in the execution of the script, i’m getting a quota error. So i go over to the Dashboard to find out whats wrong, and apparently, all the credit i was ‘granted’ had been ‘expired.’ Even though, I didn’t even know it was a thing i could be using. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to have that grant timer start from the first call to the api, not some arbitrary date. Essentially, i was penalized for not needing to use the api until now. I used .49 cents of the 18 dollars that was supposed to be there. What gives? Open my a…
Hi, to my knowledge the “timer” starts when you set up your Account. I can see why you are frustrated with that but I also can see why OAi is doing this the way they are. This encourages the user to really use the thing and don’t preserve the credits over a long timeframe - so from a business perspective (which they are) it makes sense to me.
But if you are working on a academic research project there is a page where you can apply to get support in tokens 
I just ran into the exact same issue - when you set up the account the fact the credit will expire is hidden in the details and when you get around to actually doing something - I just spent about half a day getting chatGPT to help me create a web page to run openai queries based on user input travel destinations - you find your credit has expired. So what am I supposed to do now - go to a paid plan? Or are they just trying to discriminate against the procrastinators? Frustrating to say the least. If they want to limit the amount of credit they float, then maybe reinstate my free credit when I try to use the API and have it expire again in another 3 months. First thing this makes me want to do is to look at competitors’ offerings.
Bluntly, yes. It costs fractions of a penny per request if you want to use the API. They’re having scaling issues as it is with paid customers so I can’t imagine giving out more free access is a high priority.