Lately, ChatGPT has been extremely slow, and my $200 Pro account seems to have been “dumbed down,” frequently hitting rate limits. Yesterday afternoon, I finally couldn’t take it anymore—I upgraded to a new Plus account and asked it to draw a pelican, and it suddenly worked much better.
But when I tried to work again in the evening, I got another notification saying my quota was exhausted. Based on past experience, I wonder if a new model is about to be released. Recently, ChatGPT has been thoroughly outperformed by Claude’s Opus 5.5; many content creators are now generating entire videos directly with Opus 5.5. I have to admit, Claude’s aesthetic sense and coding ability are truly impressive. However, Claude accounts are notoriously prone to mysterious bans—I had an old Pro account from April 2023 that I’d been using for nearly three months, and then it was suddenly banned without warning.
Here are my strategies for avoiding or recovering from account bans:
Claude Account Ban Prevention: There are many anti-ban tips online, but I’ve been reflecting on why my account was fine at first and then suddenly banned. Before the ban, I had consistently hit Claude’s 5-hour usage limit. I didn’t use IP isolation or any physical anti-ban measures—so I suspect the issue was simply exceeding the 5-hour cap. Therefore, if you use Claude, I recommend always leaving some buffer in your usage.
Once an account is banned, the chances of getting it reinstated are very low. I appealed my Pro account, but so far there’s been no response.
ChatGPT Anti-Dumbing: ChatGPT doesn’t really ban accounts—it just “dumbs down” and throttles usage. I even contacted support, and they assured me my Pro account wasn’t flagged or downgraded. But my Pro account clearly struggled when asked to draw a pelican.
A friend in the group suggested letting the account rest for a few days—and it worked. Maybe this is similar to Claude: don’t overuse it. My $200 ChatGPT Pro account is used across Windows and Mac, logged in via Feishu authorization across three different entities.
So if you’re experiencing what I am—apparent dumbing-down or throttling—it’s likely your account has been placed into a restricted pool and put in “time-out.” Resting the account probably helps.
If you rely on both Claude and ChatGPT for work like I do, build up backups. For example, maintain multiple Google accounts and stagger your use of free tiers for both ChatGPT and Claude. Let each free account mature for 2–3 months, and maintain 2–3 active free accounts at a time to create three tiers of accounts.
Finally, I strongly recommend using both domestic and international models in parallel. International models excel in raw capability, while domestic models offer superior ecosystems. Both are worth becoming familiar with.