ToolsAugust 6, 2026via The Verge AI
OpenAI is giving ChatGPT free users unlimited text chats
Why it matters
OpenAI is lowering friction for free-tier users and democratizing access to advanced reasoning capabilities (the 'Think' feature), a strategic move to expand the installed base and shift the monetization lever toward compute-intensive features rather than baseline chat access.
Key signals
- Unlimited text chats launching next week for free and Go tiers
- Current rate limits on text-only chats being removed
- File uploads and images will still have limits
- 'Think' button added to free and Go tiers for reasoning on harder questions
- Feature roll-out timing: text limits removed next week; reasoning access this week
The hook
OpenAI removes rate limits on free ChatGPT text chats next week — and adds reasoning access to non-paying users.
OpenAI is making a big change for ChatGPT users on its free and Go tiers: starting next week, users on those tiers will be able to have unlimited text chats with the chatbot, according to OpenAI. Right now, you may run into rate limits if you do too many text chats on those tiers, but those limits, …