Confirmed that buying $5 credit unlocked access to the gpt-4 API for me.
I had been waiting for API access for a while, but no luck. Today, I came across this thread and went to the settings. I canceled my payment plan, started it again and topped it up with $5. After that, the gpt-4 API became immediately available on the rate limits page and in the playground.
Now, I can cancel my $20 subscription for chatgpt and sleep well.
@reg How did you buy $5 credit?
I cancelled my plan and then started a new one (Individual) and there was no option to add credit.
Just a temporary hold for $5.
Still no access to GPT-4 
@fullon_mac After clicking “Confirm” in your last screenshot, it prompted me to top-up my balance by $N, with $5 being the minimum. I’ve spent ~$0.40 but haven’t made a payment this month, which could be the reason for this extra screen.
Here’s how the billing page appears for me:
@reg Oh strange I didn’t get that option and my billing screen is different too.
Maybe due to my country or some other reason, I’m in New Zealand.
There are some countries and card types where the banking hadn’t been releasing the $5 authorization used for verifying a card. It could be that the $5 credit system was used to ensure that money was transferred instead of lost or held up in such situations.
Also could be that we’ve earned a credit rating with OpenAI already, and don’t get stuck in a prepayment system with existing accounts. I haven’t made any experiments to add to the thread’s knowledge, though (and possibly get stuck prepaying).
