ChatGPT: What's free in 2026 and what isn't?

As of August 2026, you can send unlimited texts to ChatGPT. Igor Bonifacic for Engadget On August 6, OpenAI announced it was making a major change to rate limits for free and Go accounts. Starting the week of August 10, users on those tiers will be able to have unlimited text chats with ChatGPT. The company said it would continue to enforce separate limits for other forms of usage, including image generation and file uploads. Given that change, you might be wondering what limits now apply to free accounts. This article details what's changing. Model and feature access at the free tier As of August 2026, OpenAI limits free accounts to using just one of its models: GPT-5.6 Luna. Luna is the smallest of the company's recently released GPT-5.6 family of large language models. Access to the com