Pro 20x: Astra shows ~36% lower API-equivalent capacity per weekly quota than Sol (same-account measurements)

What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?

Codex desktop app on macOS. Exact application and bundled CLI versions are omitted from this public report for privacy; historical versions were not pinned for every measured interval.

What subscription do you have?

ChatGPT Pro 20x ($200/month), signed in with ChatGPT. The account endpoint reports planType=pro; please verify the 20x entitlement against the server-side account record.

What platform is your computer?

macOS. Exact OS version, build, and hardware details are omitted from this public report.

What issue are you seeing?

After switching from GPT-5.6 Sol to GPT-6 Astra, my locally recorded standard-API-price-equivalent usage per percentage point of weekly Codex allowance dropped substantially. A comparison on my own account, using a consistent price basis, gives about $1,925 per full weekly allowance with Sol versus $1,234 with Astra, approximately 35.9% lower.

I am requesting an accounting investigation. These dollar values are normalization estimates, not actual API charges, a published subscription entitlement, or proof that the weekly cap was reduced.

All times below are Asia/Shanghai (UTC+08:00), in 2026:

Observed interval	Main model	Weekly meter used	Standard-API-equivalent text usage during interval	Projected equivalent for 100% of weekly allowance
Sep 1 03:22 – Sep 4 15:46	GPT-5.6 Sol, with a small amount of GPT-5.4 mini	20% → 50%: 30 percentage points	$577.3742	$1,924.58
Sep 6 01:05 – Sep 7 00:31	GPT-6 Astra, with a negligible amount of GPT-5.4 mini	60% → 67%: 7 percentage points	$83.3702	$1,191.00
Sep 8 11:03 – Sep 8 13:52	GPT-6 Astra	5% → 19%: 14 percentage points	$172.8169	$1,234.41

The first two intervals share the same weekly reset identity: 2026-09-07 03:19:05 UTC. The third interval has reset time 2026-09-15 02:05:43 UTC. The lower effective capacity was already visible after switching models in the previous window, before the September 8 reset.

The current Astra interval represents roughly $12.34 per percentage point, versus $19.25 for the earlier Sol interval. Equivalently, the observed weekly meter moved about 1.56× as much per normalized API dollar.

These are interval-based extrapolations; I did not exhaust an entire weekly allowance to measure these values.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

This is a retrospective observation and measurement procedure, not a controlled minimal reproducer:

1. Use a ChatGPT Pro 20x account in Codex and record the 10,080-minute codex usage window, including used_percent and resets_at.
2. Record local token usage while working with Sol, then Astra.
3. Match the first observed upward crossings of the selected percentage endpoints to locally recorded usage in the same interval and reset window.
4. Reprice both periods on the same standard API basis and calculate: interval cost × 100 / percentage points consumed.
5. Compare model periods within the same reset identity, and check whether the difference persists in the next window.

Data source and calculation details:

• Token records came from CC Switch, using its codex_session imports of Codex session logs. Quota observations came from local Codex JSONL token_count/rate_limits metadata.
• Historical stored costs were recalculated, because some older records retained older prices.
• Fixed normalization rates, USD per million tokens, in uncached input / cached input / output order:
  • GPT-5.6 Sol: 4 / 0.4 / 20
  • GPT-6 Astra: 10 / 1 / 50
  • GPT-5.4 mini: 0.75 / 0.075 / 4.5
• OpenAI-style input_tokens includes cached input. Uncached input was calculated as input_tokens minus cache_read_tokens, avoiding double charging the cached portion.
• Reset timestamps differing by at most five seconds were grouped. Observations with reset timestamps already earlier than their observation time were excluded as stale replay.
• The normalization does not add API long-context or Fast multipliers.

My local default configuration is gpt-6-astra, xhigh reasoning, and service_tier=default. Inspected Astra task contexts included high and xhigh. Task-level Fast overrides were not present in the inspected usage metadata and remain unverified.

What is the expected behavior?

Please help reconcile these intervals against server-side metering and clarify whether the difference is expected:

1. Verify the Pro 20x entitlement and whether weekly capacity or model-specific quota accounting changed across the intervals.
2. Identify any Astra-specific subscription weighting, Fast charges, automatic review, or other shared usage that explains the discrepancy.
3. Investigate any unintended difference between recorded activity and allowance debits.
4. If allowance was incorrectly consumed, correct the accounting and restore the affected allowance as appropriate.

I am not assuming that every model must have an identical API-dollar-to-quota conversion. If the conversion intentionally differs, a documented explanation or auditable breakdown would resolve much of the uncertainty.

Additional information

Known limitations

• codex-auto-review is unpriced ($0) in CC Switch in both periods. The last 14-percentage-point interval contains 206 such unpriced records. Its underlying billing model and contribution to weekly allowance are unverified.
• This is locally recorded, account-level evidence. Other-device/cloud activity, non-text charges, retries not reflected in local usage, task-level service tiers, meter rounding, and reporting delay have not been fully reconciled.
• The measurements therefore establish a difference in the locally observed API-equivalent conversion, not a confirmed backend defect or a guaranteed weekly dollar budget.

Previously submitted Codex feedback

A report has already been submitted through the official Codex feedback channel. The private feedback reference is intentionally omitted from this public issue.

This public issue retains the subscription tier, aggregate usage amounts, and observation times. Account identifiers, exact software/OS versions, hardware details, private feedback references, local paths, source code, and raw conversation/application logs are omitted.

Related reports

• #43201 — Astra usage limits consuming rapidly.
• #38728 — earlier report of changing API-equivalent usage per quota point.

These may have different causes. This report adds a same-account Sol/Astra comparison with the price basis and remaining uncertainties stated explicitly.

Start by reviewing the account endpoint data and local Codex JSONL token_count/rate_limits metadata for the reset windows described. Compare server-side allowance debits with the Sol and Astra intervals, including the noted unpriced codex-auto-review records and related issues #43201 and #38728. Done means reconciling the discrepancy or documenting the intended model-specific accounting.