OpenAI API Credits, Free Tier & Discounts

Program	What you get	Who qualifies	How
ChatGPT Pro and Business API credits	Up to $500 a month, resets each billing cycle	Paid ChatGPT Pro ($100, $200 or $500 tiers) or Business workspace seats at least seven days old, same email on both accounts, no trials or complimentary plans.	Sign up
OpenAI for Startups	API credits and rate limit upgrades, amount not published	Startups whose VC or accelerator is in OpenAI’s partner network. The investor supplies a referral code and you submit product plans, funding details and your org ID.	Apply
Researcher Access Program	Up to $1,000 in API credits, valid 12 months	Researchers with a defined research question and a planned use of OpenAI models. Credits are tied to the account and institution named in the approved application.	Apply
Batch API	50% off input and output tokens	Any paid organization. Jobs run asynchronously within 24 hours, up to 50,000 requests or 200 MB per batch, with rate limits separate from live traffic.	Automatic
Flex processing	Batch-level prices on synchronous calls	Any organization willing to accept lower priority and slower responses. Flex rates match Batch rates for most models.	Automatic

OpenAI sells API access on prepaid credits. You add a card at platform.openai.com, buy at least $5, and the balance drains per token at the published rates. There’s no free trial credit for new accounts. The quickstart lets you run one free test request, and the Free usage tier is a $100 a month ceiling rather than money in your balance. Budget the $5 as the real entry fee.

The credit that does exist is tied to ChatGPT. Since October 28, 2026 a paid ChatGPT Pro subscription grants $100, $200 or $500 a month in API credits, matching the tier price, and Business workspaces earn $20 per Standard seat and $100 per Premium seat, pooled and capped at $500. Credits expire at the end of each billing cycle, so set up the link on day one or you’re leaving money on the table.

Beyond that, savings come from how you call the models. Batch jobs run at half price inside a 24-hour window, Flex processing gets you the same rates on slower synchronous calls, and cached input bills at 10% of list on GPT-5.6 and later. Below we list every provider-issued program, the console steps to claim them, and what runs out first on a small balance.

How to claim OpenAI API credits

Create or sign in to an accountGo to platform.openai.com and sign in. If you hold a ChatGPT Pro or Business plan, use that same email, because the subscriber API credit only links when the ChatGPT account and the API organization share an address.
Add payment details and buy creditsOpen Settings, then Billing, and select Add payment details. The first purchase has a $5 minimum and $10 is the default amount. Decide the auto recharge amount and the optional monthly cap before you save, not after the first surprise.
Claim the subscriber credit if eligibleIn ChatGPT open Settings, then Billing, find the API credits benefit and pick the API organization that should receive it. The subscription must be paid and at least seven days old. The first grant is prorated to the current cycle.
Create an API key in a projectFrom the dashboard choose a project and select Create an API key. Keys belong to projects, and the subscriber credit only applies to keys inside the linked organization, so create the key there rather than in a second organization.
Check your usage tier and limitsGo to Settings, Organization, Limits to see your tier and per-model rate limits. Build opens at $5 in purchases with a $500 monthly cap, Launch at $100 with $5,000, Grow at $500 with $200,000. Tiers upgrade on their own.
Set a spend limit before shippingSince July 22, 2026 the dashboard supports hard monthly spend limits for organizations and projects. Set one below your tier cap, add a budget alert, and remember the tier cap is separate from the limit you choose.

Ways to stretch your OpenAI API credits

Move offline work to the Batch API

Anything that can wait up to 24 hours, such as evaluations, backfills, classification or embedding jobs, belongs in a batch. gpt-5.4 costs $1.25 input and $7.50 output in Batch against $2.50 and $15 standard, and gpt-6-astra drops from $10 and $50 to $5 and $25. Batches have their own rate limits, so they don’t eat your interactive quota either.

Keep long prefixes stable for caching

On GPT-5.6 and later a prompt needs at least 1,024 visible input tokens before caching kicks in, and cached reads cost 10% of the input rate, or 5% on GPT-6.1 Sol and Terra. Put system instructions, tool definitions and reference documents first and keep them byte-identical across calls. The default cache lifetime is 30 minutes; the 12-hour option costs 2.5x on the write.

Pick the smallest model that passes

Prices span $0.10 input and $0.50 output for gpt-6-luna to $10 and $50 for gpt-6-astra, a 100x gap. Write an evaluation set first, run it against Luna or Terra, and only escalate the requests that fail. GPT-5.6 Luna was cut 80% in July 2026, which changed the math for high-volume classification overnight.

Try Flex before paying standard rates

Flex processing bills most models at the Batch rate on ordinary synchronous calls, in exchange for lower priority and slower responses. For background agents, nightly reports or anything a user isn’t watching, it’s the cheapest way to keep a request-response shape. Fast mode runs the other direction at about twice the standard price, so save it for paths where latency is measured.

Use the subscriber credit every cycle

ChatGPT Pro credits equal the tier price, so a $200 Pro plan effectively pays for $200 of API usage a month on top of the chat product. They expire at the end of each billing cycle and are consumed before purchased credits, so route steady workloads through the linked organization and keep your prepaid balance as the overflow.

Lock projects to a service tier

Since October 21, 2026 you can restrict a project to specific service tiers in Platform settings, which stops a developer from accidentally running Fast mode in a side project. Pair that with per-project hard spend limits and the Prompt Caching dashboard, added in August 2026, to catch cache misses before they show up on the invoice.

Stay under the long-context threshold

Standard rates apply to prompts up to 272K input tokens, and separate long-context pricing applies above that. Summarize old turns, chunk documents and cap retrieval so interactive requests stay under the threshold. Fast mode supports prompts above 272K on GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra and Luna, but at Fast prices, which is the worst of both.

OpenAI API billing, explained

Everything is prepaid. Your card is charged when you buy credits, not when you make requests, and each call deducts input, cached input and output tokens at the listed per-million rates. Purchased credits expire one year after purchase, and OpenAI doesn’t extend them. When the balance reaches zero, requests fail with a credit_balance_exhausted error until you top up or a new grant lands.

The subscriber credit is a grant, not a refund. It lands in one linked API organization, covers the Responses, Agents, Decisions, Realtime and Images APIs plus built-in tool and storage charges, and is consumed before any purchased credit. It doesn’t cover Codex usage through API keys and doesn’t raise ChatGPT limits. Unused credit expires at the end of the billing cycle and never rolls over.

Two different ceilings apply. Your usage tier sets an approved monthly usage limit ($100 on Free, $500 on Build, $5,000 on Launch, $200,000 on Grow) and per-model rate limits. Separately, you can set your own hard spend limit per organization or project. Hitting either one stops requests, so check Settings, Organization, Limits when a 429 shows up without an obvious cause.

OpenAI API credits FAQ

Does OpenAI give free API credits to new accounts in 2026?

No. OpenAI publishes no sign-up credit, and the quickstart only promises one free test request. Treat anything promising a $5 or $18 trial as out of date. The practical floor is a $5 credit purchase, which also moves your organization to the Build tier, so the first dollar you spend buys you access and a tier at once.

How do I get $500 in OpenAI API credits with ChatGPT Pro?

Hold a paid Pro subscription for at least seven days, then open Settings, Billing in ChatGPT and claim the API credits benefit for an organization you own under the same email. The $100, $200 and $500 Pro tiers receive the matching amount each month. Business workspaces get $20 per Standard seat and $100 per Premium seat, pooled and capped at $500.

What is the minimum I have to add to the OpenAI API?

The Build tier opens at $5 in total credit purchases, and $5 is the minimum first purchase with $10 as the default amount. Auto recharge is offered during setup; set its amount and the optional monthly cap before saving. There’s no monthly subscription fee for API access itself.

How much cheaper is the OpenAI Batch API?

Half price on input and output for every supported model. gpt-5.4 costs $1.25 input and $7.50 output in Batch, versus $2.50 and $15 standard. Batches finish within 24 hours, often sooner, hold up to 50,000 requests or 200 MB, and use separate rate limits, so they don’t compete with your live traffic.

What are OpenAI API usage tiers after the October 2026 change?

Four levels. Free is limited to $100 of usage a month. Build opens at $5 in purchases with a $500 monthly cap, Launch at $100 with $5,000, and Grow at $500 with $200,000. On Build the Astra, Sol and Terra families share 5,000 requests and 1 million tokens per minute; Luna gets 2 million. Tiers upgrade automatically as purchases cross each threshold.

Does OpenAI train on my API data?

No, not by default. Content sent to the API isn’t used to train OpenAI models unless you explicitly opt in. Abuse monitoring logs are kept for up to 30 days. Zero Data Retention and Modified Abuse Monitoring exist for approved organizations and require an application, and some endpoints such as Files and Batches still store application state.

Can a startup get OpenAI API credits without a VC?

Not through OpenAI itself. The startups program describes free API credits, rate limit upgrades and solutions engineer time for companies whose VC is in OpenAI’s network, and the application asks for a referral code from that investor. No dollar amount is published. Founders without a partner VC should plan on prepaid usage and the ChatGPT subscriber credit.

Do unused OpenAI API credits expire?

Yes, on two clocks. Purchased credits expire one year after purchase, and OpenAI doesn’t extend them. Credits granted through a ChatGPT Pro or Business subscription expire at the end of each billing cycle and never roll over. The platform spends subscriber credits first, before touching your purchased balance, so you rarely need to manage the order yourself.

OpenAI API Credits, Free Tier and Startup Programs

OpenAI API free credits, trials and programs for November 2026

$400 loyalty credit for accounts with 6+ months of API usage

$1,250 in free credits when your org has spent $250+

$300 compute credit for o3 and o4-mini reasoning models

35% off GPT-4.1 for production accounts running 90+ days

$500 enterprise credit for scaling teams

Official OpenAI API programs

Free tier that matters

Recent program changes