ChatGPT Scheduled Tasks Explained: Free Users Now Get Three

Scheduled tasks are the part of ChatGPT that keeps working when you are not there: you tell it to do something at a set time, and it does it and pings you. Until recently they were a paid feature. In its August 25, 2026 release note, OpenAI wrote the sentence that changes who this is for: "Free users can create up to three active scheduled tasks." The limits are real and worth knowing before you plan around them, but the door is open, and nothing needs buying.

Key Takeaways

• Free users get three active scheduled tasks. OpenAI announced it on August 25, 2026. There is no upgrade to buy and no waitlist.
• Free tasks run at most once a day. OpenAI's wording is that they "can run once or recur no more than once per day using flexible scheduling windows." Other plans can run a task as often as once an hour.
• Sharing works on every plan, free included. Free, Go, Plus and Pro users can all share a task, and the person receiving it can edit the instructions, connect their own apps, and keep an independent copy.
• Webhook triggers are the paid half. Tasks that fire when a Gmail message, Slack message or GitHub pull request arrives are Plus and Pro only, inside ChatGPT Work. OpenAI states plainly that "Free and Go users cannot create webhook-triggered tasks."
• A task can be a watchdog, not just an alarm. OpenAI's monitoring tasks check for a change and notify you "only when there is something worth reporting," remembering previous runs.
• Two things tasks do not work with: voice chats and GPTs. Tasks also run on every ChatGPT model except the Pro models.
• Check whether you have one you did not create. Connecting a bank account to ChatGPT Finances can add a Weekly finances update task by itself.

Who Gets Scheduled Tasks, and How Many

Every consumer plan now gets scheduled tasks, and the plan decides two separate things: how many you can have running at once, and how often each one may fire. The active-task numbers below come from OpenAI's Scheduled Tasks in ChatGPT help page, except the free-tier row, which comes from the August 25 release note.

Two honest caveats about that table. First, OpenAI's help page contradicts itself on Business and Edu: its "Usage limitations" section says "Business and Edu users can have up to 10, and Pro and Enterprise users up to 15," while its FAQ a few paragraphs later says "Pro, Business, and Enterprise users can have up to 15 active tasks." We have not picked a winner, because there is no third surface to break the tie.

Second, that help page had not caught up with the free-tier change when we read it. Its "Who can use scheduled tasks?" answer still said "available globally to Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise users," and elsewhere it said scheduled tasks "don't currently support webhooks." Both statements predate the August 25 release note that announced exactly those two things. Where the two disagree, we follow the release note: it is newer, it is dated, and it is specific. If you go and read the help page yourself and see a plan list that leaves you out, that is why.

What You Can Actually Use Three Tasks For

Three tasks and one run a day is a real constraint, so the trick on the free plan is to pick jobs where daily is the natural rhythm anyway. A task is created either from the Scheduled page in the sidebar or by simply asking, in the same plain language you would use for anything else. OpenAI's own example is "Let me know when my package gets delivered."

Good fits for a once-a-day, three-slot budget:

• A morning briefing on a topic you follow, delivered before you start work. Our guide to getting AI news from your assistant has a prompt built for exactly this.
• A recurring reminder that needs ChatGPT to actually go and look something up first, rather than a plain calendar alert.
• A monitoring task on one thing you are waiting for. These are the most efficient use of a slot, because OpenAI says a monitoring task notifies you "only when there is something worth reporting" and can stop itself once the end condition is met.

What does not fit: anything you want checked several times an hour, anything involving a voice chat, and anything that relies on a custom GPT. OpenAI lists voice chats and GPTs as unsupported with tasks, and tasks run on every ChatGPT model except the Pro models. One more limitation that is easy to trip over: if you create a task inside a project that has files, OpenAI says "the task won't be able to access those project files."

The Paid Half: Tasks That React Instead of Waiting

Webhook-triggered tasks are the genuinely different capability, and they are the clearest reason to be on Plus or Pro rather than Free. A normal scheduled task runs at a time you chose. A webhook-triggered task runs when something happens. OpenAI supports three triggers today: a new Gmail message, a message in a Slack channel, and GitHub pull request activity.

The practical examples OpenAI gives are summarizing an email announcing that registration has opened, or drafting next steps after a client leaves feedback in Slack. Two setup details matter if you try it: for Slack you have to add @ChatGPT to each channel you want monitored, and anything consequential still stops for you, since OpenAI says "actions that require approval pause until you review them."

Sharing a Task Is the Free-Plan Loophole

Sharing is the one part of the August 25 change that treats every plan alike, and it is more useful than it sounds. OpenAI says Free, Go, Plus and Pro users can share scheduled tasks, and the person on the other end "can review and customize the instructions and, when applicable, the schedule, connect their own apps, and create an independent copy."

In plain terms: someone who has worked out a good task can hand you the whole thing, and you get your own copy running against your own accounts rather than seeing their results. If you are on the free plan, that is the cheapest way to get a well-built task without building it. The one limit is the paid feature staying paid: OpenAI says running a shared webhook-triggered task "requires access to Work and the recipient's own connected app," so a shared webhook task will not run for a free user.

How to Find, Pause, or Delete a Task

Everything lives on the Scheduled page, which sits in the ChatGPT sidebar on web, mobile and the desktop app. In the desktop app you select ChatGPT from the top-left menu, then Scheduled in the sidebar. It is not in Codex.

1. To see everything: open Scheduled from the sidebar, or go to Settings > Notifications and select Manage tasks.
2. To change one: click the task pill or task title in its chat, which opens a sidebar where you can edit, pause, or delete it.
3. To stop notifications without deleting anything: Settings > Notifications controls push and email separately.

Three behaviours are worth knowing so they do not surprise you. Deleting a chat pauses its task automatically, but deleting a task does not delete the chat. Unattended tasks may pause on their own after a period of inactivity, so a task that has gone quiet may not be broken so much as ignored. And ChatGPT can create a task you never asked for: OpenAI says that when you connect a financial account, a "Weekly finances update may be created automatically." If one appears, open Scheduled, select it, and choose Pause or Delete. You do not need to turn off all ChatGPT notifications to stop it.

Should You Bother?

Use it if you have one or two things you genuinely want checked on a rhythm, and you would otherwise forget: a daily briefing, a delivery you are waiting on, a price or a page that changes. On the free plan that is three slots and one run a day, which is enough for a habit and not enough for a workflow.

Upgrade for it if you want ChatGPT to react to your inbox or your team chat rather than to a clock. That is what webhook triggers buy, and they are Plus and Pro only. If you are weighing it as a reason to pay, our guide on whether ChatGPT Plus is worth it in 2026 puts it against everything else in the tier.

Skip it if you only want a reminder. Your phone already does that, for free, without a usage limit. The point of a scheduled task is that ChatGPT does some work before it pings you.

The bigger picture is that this is another feature crossing from paid to free on ChatGPT, following unlimited text chats and a Think button on the free tier. Assistants that act on their own schedule are also the clearest everyday example of what people mean by an AI agent, which we unpack in plain terms here.