Codex Free Tier Guide: When Free Is Enough and When to Upgrade
Codex does have a free tier. OpenAI's Codex pricing page lists Codex as included across ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, Edu, and Enterprise plans, with Free at $0/month for quick coding tasks. The practical decision is not whether Codex is free, but whether your work needs more capacity, cloud integrations, team controls, or API-key automation.
Plus is the first paid step for most individual developers. The official pricing page lists Plus at $20/month and describes Codex access on the web, in the CLI, in the IDE extension, and on iOS, plus cloud-based integrations such as automatic code review and Slack integration. Pro starts from $100/month and is positioned around higher Codex usage than Plus.
Business is the path for a shared workspace. OpenAI lists Business at $20/user/month when billed annually, or $25/user/month when billed monthly, with ChatGPT and Codex access, larger virtual machines for cloud tasks, essential admin controls, SAML SSO, MFA, and no training on business data by default.
API-key usage is different from a ChatGPT plan. OpenAI says API-key Codex can run in the CLI, SDK, or IDE extension and pays for tokens through API pricing, but it does not include cloud-based features such as GitHub code review or Slack integration. Use it for automation and CI-like environments, not as a substitute for every ChatGPT workspace feature.