OpenAI will stop capping text messages for free ChatGPT users next week, pairing the change with a default model it says makes 62% fewer factual errors.
Key Points:
- Free and Go accounts will be able to hold text-only conversations without a message limit, starting next week.
- Limits stay in place for file uploads, image generation, voice tools and other features.
- Plus and Pro subscribers get an updated flagship model and a slider that sets reasoning depth.
ChatGPT Free Tier Drops Text Caps
The company announced the shift Thursday in a blog post, and the rollout runs in stages across web, mobile and desktop. Free and Go account holders will be able to keep a text-only conversation going without hitting a message ceiling. Caps stay in place for file uploads, image generation, voice tools and other features.
GPT-5.6 Luna replaces GPT-5.5 Instant as the default model for those two tiers this week, ahead of the limit change, putting a current-generation system in front of both audiences by default.
Go subscribers, who pay $8 a month, get the same new Think button as free users, which hands the model extra time on harder questions, a feature arriving alongside the uncapped chats next week.
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GPT-5.6 Sol Slider Targets Paid Tiers
Plus and Pro subscribers, who pay $20 and $200 a month, received an updated version of GPT-5.6 Sol on the day of the announcement, ahead of any change on the free tier.
OpenAI tuned that model for ordinary chat work such as web research, planning, writing and everyday decisions. A slider now lets those subscribers set how much reasoning goes into each answer.
Internal evaluations on financial, medical and legal prompts measured responses containing at least one factual error as roughly 62% less common with Luna and 68% less common with Sol, both against GPT-5.5 Instant. No outside laboratory has reproduced those numbers, and the company has not released the evaluation set.
OpenAI Inference Costs Shape Rollout
Rate limits track inference costs, the price a provider pays each time a trained model processes a request from a user. Analysts read the removal as a sign of progress on that expense, though the company did not explain how it got there. Text also carries a lighter compute load than images, files and voice, which is why those quotas survive.
ChatGPT crossed 1 billion weekly users earlier this year, and OpenAI said the uncapped text offer remains subject to safeguards against abuse. The company framed the update as a step toward more abundant intelligence.
The GPT-5.6 family reached general availability on Jul. 9 after a limited preview and a pitch built on performance per dollar, with Sol as the flagship, Terra in the middle and Luna at the cheap end.
On Jul. 30 the company cut API prices on the two smaller models, taking 80% off Luna and 20% off Terra. GPT-5.5 Instant had served as the free default since May.
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