OpenAI Codex Teams: Pay-As-You-Go Pricing Reshapes AI Coding Adoption

OpenAI announced pay-as-you-go pricing for Codex teams on April 2, 2026. The timing matters. With 2M builders using Codex weekly and adoption within teams growing 6x since January, the pricing structure was the missing piece blocking smaller teams from piloting AI coding assistants at scale. The traditional seat-based model creates a trap: you pay for users whether they use the tool heavily or rarely. Pay-as-you-go aligns cost with value.