OpenAI Codex
Verified Oct 2, 2026 ActiveOpenAI's coding agent for the terminal, IDE, desktop and cloud sandboxes, included with ChatGPT plans or billed by API tokens.
Listed on EffectHub ·
Pricing
- Pricing model
- Freemium
- Paid options from
- $8/mo
- Billing
- Monthly
No standalone Codex plan: it is bundled into ChatGPT. Free is limited exploration, Go is $8/month, Plus $20/month, Pro starts at $100/month, Business $20/user/month. Signing in with an API key instead bills per token at API rates.
Use tool ↗About OpenAI Codex
Codex is OpenAI's software-engineering agent. It reads a repository, writes and edits code, runs commands and tests, and proposes pull requests, either on your machine through the open-source Codex CLI and IDE extension or in remote sandboxes started from the ChatGPT side. It can also review pull requests automatically. Access comes with a ChatGPT subscription, or you can sign in with an API key and pay per token. It suits developers who want to hand off well-scoped tasks and review the diffs afterwards.
- API
- Yes
- Last verified
- Oct 2, 2026
Verified sources
- Codex is included with ChatGPT Free, Go ($8), Plus ($20), Pro, Business and Enterprise plans; API-key use is billed at API rateslearn.chatgpt.com ↗
- Codex CLI is a coding agent from OpenAI that runs locally, licensed Apache-2.0, signs in with ChatGPT or an API keygithub.com ↗
- Official product page (blocks automated fetches with a JavaScript challenge)openai.com ↗
Is OpenAI Codex legit?
We don’t label tools safe or unsafe. Below are the records we checked ourselves, each with the date we read it.
- Last checked
- Oct 2, 2026The site answered
- On the market since
- 2025The vendor's own material, read by us
- Operated by
- OpenAI, United StatesOur research, card verified Oct 2, 2026
Pros & cons of OpenAI Codex
Codex is the obvious pick if you already pay for ChatGPT and want an agent that can work in your terminal or off in a cloud sandbox without a second subscription. It is less compelling if you want a polished editor-native experience or need predictable monthly spend at heavy usage.
Pros
- The command-line agent is open source under Apache-2.0
- Free and Go tiers let you try it before paying for a bigger plan
- Same agent is reachable from terminal, IDE extension, desktop app and cloud tasks
- Can sign in with a ChatGPT plan or an API key, whichever billing suits you
Cons
- Usage limits on subscription plans vary by model, task and local versus cloud runs, so capacity is hard to predict
- Top-tier usage requires the higher Pro plans, which start at $100/month
- Surfaces and plan names change often, so docs and pricing pages move around
Best for
- ChatGPT subscribers who want a coding agent included in their plan
- Developers delegating well-scoped tasks and reviewing the resulting diffs
- Teams that want automated pull-request review in GitHub
Not for
- People who want a fixed, unlimited-use price for heavy daily agent work
- Teams that cannot send code to a third-party cloud service
Watch out: Subscription usage limits are shared with the rest of ChatGPT and differ by model and by local versus cloud runs, so a heavy week of agent tasks can hit the cap before the month ends. Official docs have been moving between domains; the pricing page redirected to a different host during research.
Top alternatives to OpenAI Codex
Amazon Q Developer69AWS's coding and operations assistant for IDEs, the terminal and the console, with its IDE plugins now on an end-of-support clock.Not rated yetFrom $19/seat/moOpenAI Codex head-to-head
Side-by-side fact sheets against the competitors our research or their makers name — pricing, platforms, API and both verdicts on one page.
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