I received this email from OpenAI, but there’s no button to add credits on my payment page. I’m still on “pay as you go.” Has anyone else had this problem? How do I add credits? (I’ve looked through all the tabs, but I can’t find it anywhere.) :
We’re reaching out to share that we will be updating how we bill for your OpenAI API account Personal (**) starting July 24, 2026. Instead of receiving a bill at the end of the month, you will need to pre-purchase credits to use the API.
Action required: To continue using the API, please add credits to your account by visiting the billing page. It’s important to purchase credits by July 24, 2026 to avoid API requests being interrupted for your application—if your account does not have sufficient credits on this date, API requests will temporarily fail for your application until credits are purchased. If you recently purchased credits, no additional action is required.
No, there’s no way to add credits, no button or link to any method. I’ve visited all the pages, which is why I’m asking here. I’ve been an OpenAI API developer for several years…
In that case I would contact support through Help and open a support case, since this seems to be account/org-specific. I would also include your screenshot.
Good catch!
I’ll correct the term in my post.
This is either a case where the account is still on the old plan or it’s a but. But @bertrand974 used pay-as-you-go in their post and this just slipped into mine as well.
It is unusual that an API account that was not forced off of arrears billing two years ago (when OpenAI hit almost everybody) would now lose that status.
During pushing all new accounts to prepayment only, doing what you describe, completely removing via “cancel plan” (platform options not seen any more) could have an existing monthly account lose that status.
A forced monthly account did not have to do any work like that on their own when they were transitioned. The API was simply switched on them.
I would not cancel my own monthly plan resource. I would make OpenAI force you off if the email is true. Then you’d have the credit purchase option.
(pay-as-you-go is meaningless to describe an account type, it’s language always there. It is to distinguish from a ChatGPT subscription)
You should report this to OpenAI right away, because there is no reason why I shouldn’t be able to purchase credits—even on a pay-as-you-go plan. To me, this looks like a major update-related issue that requires a support ticket; I run a high risk of having my API access blocked with no way to resolve it!
That is exactly the situation @bertrand974 is describing.
From the screenshot, we can tell that billing still happens monthly. From the email, we can see that monthly invoicing for this account will be switched off in July.
You are correct that other accounts were simply switched over. I would expect that there is no way to use prepaid credits and pay-as-you-go in parallel for the same account.
The button will probably appear on the switch date, or after cancelling the billing plan. I understand why this feels like a risk. What if it does not appear?
I will ping the team. Fortunately, there is still time to clarify this.
We are running mission critical workloads and we can’t risk either cancelling the plan nor waiting to see what happens on July 24th, any help would be appreciated. I also cannot find a way to contact support.
We received the same email to make sure to purchase credits, but on the billing page there is no way to purchase credits:
I can’t directly verify the migration status of org org-YiymH****** from this chat, but the UI is the best indicator: when prepaid billing is enabled, the Platform billing page shows an “Add to balance” button to purchase credits .
Since your “Personal” org billing page still only shows Pay as you go and no Add to balance, it likely hasn’t been migrated yet; I’d check again on/after July 24, 2026 at: https://platform.openai.com/account/billing
But what will happen if nothing is updated? Will everything be blocked? Why isn’t the update immediately effective?
This is something that @OpenAI_Support can answer, since I am not OpenAI employee. Hopefully, they might reply on this thread and explain that for you.
