ChatGPT API FAQ

General questions about the ChatGPT API

Written by Johanna C.. Updated over a week ago

What's the ChatGPT API?

The ChatGPT API will allow developers to integrate ChatGPT into their own applications, products, or services.

ChatGPT is a sibling model to InstructGPT, which is trained to follow an instruction in a prompt and provide a detailed response. Learn more about ChatGPT in the blog post.

What's the rate limits for the ChatGPT API?

Free trial users: 20 RPM 40000 TPM
Pay-as-you-go users (first 48 hours): 60 RPM 60000 TPM
Pay-as-you-go users (after 48 hours): 3500 RPM 90000 TPM

RPM = requests per minute

TPM = tokens per minute

What's the right endpoint to hit with API calls to the ChatGPT API?
Make a POST request to https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions

See Create chat completion in our API documentation for details.

Is the ChatGPT API included in the ChatGPT Plus subscription?

No, the ChatGPT API and ChatGPT Plus subscription are billed separately. The API has its own pricing, which can be found at https://openai.com/pricing. The ChatGPT Plus subscription covers usage on chat.openai.com only and costs $20/month.

I am using the free subscription of ChatGPT so does that mean I can use the ChatGPT API for free too?

No, API usage is it's own separate cost. The ChatGPT API is not available for free.

See our Pricing page.

What is "tiktoken" and how do users need to keep track of it?

To see how many tokens are in a text string without making an API call, use OpenAI’s tiktoken Python library. Example code can be found in the OpenAI Cookbook’s guide on how to count tokens with tiktoken.

Is fine-tuning available for the gpt-3.5-turbo?

Currently, we only support fine-tuning of our base models. Please review the fine-tuning guide for more details.

Does OpenAI store the data that is passed into the API?

As of March 1st, 2023, we retain customer API data for 30 days but no longer use customer data sent via the API to improve our models. You can learn more in our data usage policy.

How do I keep the Chat session focused on a topic?

The main way to keep the conversation focused on a topic is the system message. You can set this