Codex adds pay-as-you-go team seats

This is less a pricing tweak than a distribution push: OpenAI is buying down adoption friction to get Codex embedded in more teams before procurement and usage habits settle elsewhere.

• –Codex-only seats are a smart pilot motion for smaller engineering groups that want access without committing to broader ChatGPT licenses
• –Token-based billing improves cost visibility, but it also shifts teams from predictable seat math to usage-based spend management
• –The lower ChatGPT Business annual price suggests OpenAI wants a ladder from broad workspace access to Codex-specific developer usage
• –Limited-time credits are a conversion lever, not just a promo, which implies OpenAI cares about active workflow adoption rather than signups
• –For teams comparing Codex, Cursor, and Claude Code, this makes rollout and budget approval part of the product competition