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cerulean ore
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if my chatgpt's extended thinking goes over 20 minutes for several times, can my account be limited for a period of time

golden lotusBOT
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Hi @cerulean ore. I'm kapa.ai, your friendly support bot. I will try to answer your question by searching through the knowledge base. :wave:

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There’s no information in the provided knowledge sources that says your account will be limited just because you use Extended / “Thinking” mode for a long time (e.g., over 20 minutes) multiple times.

What is documented:

  • Usage is mainly governed by message-based limits (e.g., GPT‑5.2 Thinking has up to 3,000 messages per week on Plus/Business; o3/o4‑mini have per‑day/week message caps). When you hit those limits, the model option is simply grayed out until the reset time; there are no overage fees or penalties.[GPT‑5.2 usage limits][o3/o4‑mini limits]
  • Business and Pro plans can have “unlimited” access to certain models, but still subject to abuse guardrails and the Terms of Use. In those cases, OpenAI may apply temporary restrictions if they detect abusive or policy‑violating behavior (e.g., automated scraping, reselling access), not just heavy but normal usage.[GPT‑5.2 usage limits]
  • More generally, OpenAI may temporarily limit or suspend access if there are policy violations, security concerns, or abusive usage patterns, and they mention “temporary restriction on your usage” under those circumstances.[ChatGPT Business limits][Troubleshooting access]

The sources do not say that simply having several long Extended/Thinking runs (within normal, manual use) will by itself trigger an account limitation. Any limits described are:

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  • Per‑user message caps (after which the model is unavailable until reset), or
  • Temporary restrictions when OpenAI detects abuse or ToS violations, not just long reasoning time.

So, based on the available information, repeatedly going over 20 minutes in Extended/Thinking mode, by itself, is not documented as a reason for your account to be limited.

Note: you can ask me a follow up question by @ mentioning me again :speech_balloon:

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@cerulean ore Kapa.ai is still learning and improving, please let me know how I did by reacting below.

cerulean ore
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@golden lotus does time that chatgpt takes to generate count towards account's limit?

golden lotusBOT
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Let me check the knowledge base for you again. One moment! :books:

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The knowledge sources don’t explicitly say that generation time itself (how many seconds or minutes the model spends thinking/streaming) counts toward your account’s limits.

What is clearly stated is that limits are based on:

So, based on the available documentation, what matters for limits is that a message/request is made and how many tokens it uses, not how long the response takes to arrive.

Note: you can ask me a follow up question by @ mentioning me again :speech_balloon:

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@cerulean ore Kapa.ai is still learning and improving, please let me know how I did by reacting below.

cerulean ore
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@golden lotus does time chatgpt takes to respond consume more account credit?

golden lotusBOT
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Let me check the knowledge base for you again. One moment! :books:

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No—the time ChatGPT takes to respond is not what consumes more of your account credit, based on the available docs.

Credits/usage are tied to:

  • Messages (for ChatGPT plans): e.g., limits like “10 messages every 5 hours” for GPT‑5.2 Free, “160 messages every 3 hours” for Plus, or weekly caps for GPT‑5.2 Thinking. These limits are per message, not per second of generation time.[GPT‑5.2 limits]
  • Tokens (for the API): you’re billed for input and output tokens, including reasoning tokens for advanced models, regardless of how long the request takes.[Pricing tokens][Token counting]

The knowledge sources do not mention any extra cost or credit usage based purely on how many seconds/minutes the model spends generating, only on how many messages/tokens are used.

Note: you can ask me a follow up question by @ mentioning me again :speech_balloon:

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@cerulean ore Kapa.ai is still learning and improving, please let me know how I did by reacting below.

cerulean ore
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@golden lotus what's the thinking limit in time? it has been over 22mins and chatgpt is still thinking, it's a big project yeah, but 22 mins? is that worth it?

golden lotusBOT
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Let me check the knowledge base for you again. One moment! :books:

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The docs don’t give a fixed time limit for how long ChatGPT can “think” on a single message, and they also don’t say that going past a certain number of minutes will get you in trouble or auto‑stopped.

What is documented:

  • For GPT‑5 / GPT‑5.2 “Thinking” in ChatGPT, limits are expressed in number of messages, not minutes (e.g., up to 3,000 messages per week for GPT‑5.2 Thinking on Plus/Business).[GPT‑5.2 limits]
  • There is a thinking‑time toggle (Light / Standard / Extended / Heavy) that controls how long the model is allowed to think before answering, but the docs don’t specify exact minute values for each setting—only that Extended/Heavy allow “more time for deeper, more comprehensive responses.”[GPT‑5.2 thinking time]

On the API side, OpenAI notes that advanced reasoning models (like GPT‑5.2 Pro) can take several minutes and recommends using background mode or increasing client timeouts, but again, no hard upper bound is published.[GPT‑5.2 pro; Background mode]

So:

  • 22 minutes is not ruled out in the docs for a very large or complex task, but it’s also not guaranteed to finish.
  • If it’s still “thinking” after that long, it may be more practical to:
    • Cancel and break the project into smaller parts, or
    • Simplify the request / narrow the scope.
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Whether it’s “worth it” is subjective: if this is a critical, complex project and you’re on a paid tier with generous limits, waiting longer might be fine; if you just need something more lightweight, it’s probably better to stop it and ask for a smaller, more focused piece of work.

Note: you can ask me a follow up question by @ mentioning me again :speech_balloon:

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@cerulean ore Kapa.ai is still learning and improving, please let me know how I did by reacting below.

plucky stone
cerulean ore
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i stopped it and used normal thinking instead of extended thinking, it was taking way too much

plucky stone
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ah

cerulean ore
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@golden lotus if i close the browser while chatgpt is still thinking, do i interrupt it or does it still continue in background?

golden lotusBOT
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Let me check the knowledge base for you again. One moment! :books:

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The knowledge sources don’t explicitly say what happens if you close your browser while a normal ChatGPT web response is still thinking.

What they do say about “background” behavior is:

  • In the ChatGPT mobile app (voice mode), if you enable Background Conversations, the conversation can continue in the background until you manually end it, force close the app, hit usage limits, or exceed 1 hour. [Voice background]
  • For the API, there is an explicit Background mode where you send a request with "background": true and the model continues running even if the client disconnects; you then poll or stream later. [[Background mode](https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/background#page-top; Streaming background]

However, there is no explicit documentation in these sources about:

  • The ChatGPT web UI continuing to run a text/Thinking request after you close the browser tab or window.
  • Whether such a request is automatically cancelled or allowed to finish in the background.

So, based on the available docs, I can’t confidently say whether closing the browser always interrupts the run or lets it finish; that behavior is not clearly documented in these sources.

Note: you can ask me a follow up question by @ mentioning me again :speech_balloon: