Hey everyone,
I'm getting really frustrated with the new ChatGPT free tier and wanted to see if anyone else is experiencing the same thing.
The promise of getting access to GPT-5 sounds great, but the reality is that the new update makes the free version almost unusable for a lot of people. The old feature that let us switch to different models is completely gone. And here's the worst part: when you hit the new, very strict message limit for GPT-5, you don't get switched to a "mini" version or an older model. You're simply locked out.
I keep getting messages like "you've reached your usage cap for now" and a timer that tells me I have to wait hours before I can send another message. This is a huge downgrade. Before, even if you ran out of GPT-4 messages, you could still continue your work with GPT-3.5. Now, it's a complete hard stop.
It feels like the free tier has gone from being a genuinely useful tool to just a limited, frustrating demo that constantly pushes you toward a paid subscription.
Has anyone else been dealing with this? What are your thoughts on this change?
#You can't use ChatGPT for a full day with this new update (as a free user)
1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)
claude same, just buy pro and use unlimited
As a plus user, this update is really bad in my opinion. Free users get 10 messages for 5 hours. And Plus users get 80 messages for 3 hours. That's really bad and discouraging to use ChatGPT. I get my chats cut off now telling me I hit the limit, where with 4o I didn't reach the messages limit to the model even ONCE.
Oh.. so even pro users are limited with this update
As a free user, this update is also bad imo. As I usually reach the limit rather quickly due to me wanting to see if I can get a good response from ChatGPT which does take usually a bit of retries. With 4o I usually didn't reach the message limit for a while, and even if I did I wouldn't have to wait many hours for it to reset, maybe just a few minutes, to half an hour to an hour or two max. But with GPT-5 it feels like as if they're just using it as a free demo for it and then expect us to upgrade to Plus or Pro, just to continue our chats as usual.
no, pro users still have unlimited messages to all models, they even still have access to 4o.
Yeah but gpt 5 is limited for them as well
I mean you can at least switch back to older models
Yeah, but free and plus users do get the short end of the stick, since they're left with either just the GPT-5 or the GPT-5 and the 3o-mini and 4o-mini.
gpt 5 isn't limited for pro users, only for free and plus users
oh my bad.. i meant to say plus
omg i hate this as a free user, the reason i stuck to gpt and was debating getting a subscription was so i dont have a message cap
i swear i only started using chatGPT around 3 months ago, and it was way better than the trap they put us free users in