How do I fix OpenAI insufficient quota errors?

API
1

Hi there,

Does anyone know why I keep getting this error even though I haven’t even made 1 successful request in months:

openai.RateLimitError: Error code: 429 - {'error': {'message': 'You exceeded your current quota, please check your plan and billing details. For more information on this error, read the docs: https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/error-codes/api-errors.', 'type': 'insufficient_quota', 'param': None, 'code': 'insufficient_quota'}}

My OpenAI account > Organization > Limits show I should have all of my budget left and there exist rate limits for the gpt-5 model I’m trying to use so I’d assume I should be able to use it:

Scherm­afbeelding 2025-10-20 om 20.43.47
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This is on my free tier account though, although according to the docs this should only affect the limits as shown above. Yet, I’m not even able to make 1 request without getting this error.

Can anyone help me out here please?

Thanks in advance.

Kind regards,

P.S. Also I do have $10.00 credits topped up in my balance

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“Free tier” only means now that you have not prepaid credits. It is the state of a new useless organization.

If you have recently made a new credit purchase, you should see that balance under “billing”.

If you account is not unlocked even hours after a payment and the organization not showing “tier 1”, you will need to contact OpenAI support, but I suspect this is a misunderstanding: pay first before usage is allowed.

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Yes I have $10.00 under “billing” balance, which I topped up a long time ago and is still in my account balance showing. Then I suppose it’s an issue with my account, I’ll try to contact them, thank you.

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4

Hi.
Also check if the credits you topped up didn’t expire (they are valid for about one year).
In the billing page, you can find this information in the “Credit grants” tab.

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