diff --git a/packages/frontend/src/app/pages/info-components/legal/legal.page.html b/packages/frontend/src/app/pages/info-components/legal/legal.page.html
index 59a759825..d294a9bed 100644
--- a/packages/frontend/src/app/pages/info-components/legal/legal.page.html
+++ b/packages/frontend/src/app/pages/info-components/legal/legal.page.html
@@ -157,6 +157,15 @@ <h4>RecipeSage Privacy Policy</h4>
     understanding that we may be unable to provide you with some of your desired
     services.
     <br /><br />
+    Use of the cooking assistant relies on the APIs provided by OpenAI and
+    therefore any interactions that use the cooking assistant or related
+    functionality is also by proxy subject to their terms of service.
+    <br /><br />
+    The contributor-only feature that specifies "unlimited" messages is subject
+    to protections against abuse. Currently, we consider more than 1440 messages
+    per day as abuse. (there are 1440 minutes in a day, allowing for an
+    effective rate of 1 message per minute).
+    <br /><br />
     Your continued use of our website will be regarded as acceptance of our
     practices around privacy and personal information. If you have any questions
     about how we handle user data and personal information, feel free to contact
@@ -206,6 +215,6 @@ <h4>RecipeSage Refund Policy</h4>
   </p>
   <br /><br />
 
-  These terms last updated and effective as of the 20th of January 2024.
+  These terms last updated and effective as of the 13th of October 2024.
   <br /><br />
 </ion-content>
diff --git a/packages/frontend/src/app/pages/messaging-components/assistant/assistant.page.html b/packages/frontend/src/app/pages/messaging-components/assistant/assistant.page.html
index e45e55d1d..4a61fd3b2 100644
--- a/packages/frontend/src/app/pages/messaging-components/assistant/assistant.page.html
+++ b/packages/frontend/src/app/pages/messaging-components/assistant/assistant.page.html
@@ -31,6 +31,7 @@ <h2>{{ 'pages.assistant.welcome.1' | translate }}</h2>
         <p>
           {{ 'pages.assistant.welcome.2' | translate }}<br />
           {{ 'pages.assistant.welcome.3' | translate }}<br />
+          {{ 'pages.assistant.welcome.4' | translate }}<br />
           <a
             href="https://docs.recipesage.com/docs/tutorials/assistant/"
             target="_blank"
diff --git a/packages/frontend/src/assets/i18n/en-us.json b/packages/frontend/src/assets/i18n/en-us.json
index 61ac947e3..914f4400b 100644
--- a/packages/frontend/src/assets/i18n/en-us.json
+++ b/packages/frontend/src/assets/i18n/en-us.json
@@ -245,7 +245,7 @@
   "pages.contribute.bonus.title": "As a thank you to those who make RecipeSage possible, your contributions will unlock some bonus features for your account. You will be able to:",
   "pages.contribute.bonus.feature.1": "Upload images in high-resolution",
   "pages.contribute.bonus.feature.2": "Upload multiple images for each recipe",
-  "pages.contribute.bonus.feature.3": "Increased assistant message limit",
+  "pages.contribute.bonus.feature.3": "Unlimited cooking assistant messages",
   "pages.contribute.bonus.enabled": "Enabled",
   "pages.contribute.bonus.reason": "Bonus features features are accessible only to contributors because these particular features are costly for me to host.",
   "pages.contribute.cta.1": "I originally created RecipeSage for my own family to host recipes we enjoy sharing. Since then, RecipeSage has grown into a fully-fledged open source project.",
@@ -467,7 +467,8 @@
   "pages.assistant.title": "Cooking Assistant",
   "pages.assistant.welcome.1": "Welcome to the RecipeSage cooking assistant!",
   "pages.assistant.welcome.2": "The cooking assistant is an AI model that can respond to your cooking questions and help create recipes.",
-  "pages.assistant.welcome.3": "The cooking assistant has a message limit of 5 messages/day because of the high costs to run the AI. This limit is increased to 75 messages/day for contributors.",
+  "pages.assistant.welcome.3": "The cooking assistant has a message limit of 5 messages/day because of the high costs to run the AI. This limit is removed for contributors.",
+  "pages.assistant.welcome.4": "This limit only applies to messages sent by you, and not to the AI's responses.",
   "pages.assistant.welcome.documentation": "Please read the assistant documentation",
   "pages.assistant.messageLimit": "Maximum messages reached (sorry, it's costly!). Message count resets at 0:00GMT.",
 
@@ -599,7 +600,7 @@
   "pages.account.bonus.description": "Contributors unlock certain features that are costly to host:",
   "pages.account.bonus.highResImages": "High Resolution Images",
   "pages.account.bonus.multipleImages": "Multiple Images Per Recipe",
-  "pages.account.bonus.assistantMoreMessages": "Increased Assistant Message Limit",
+  "pages.account.bonus.assistantMoreMessages": "Unlimited Cooking Assistant Messages",
   "pages.account.bonus.enabled": "Enabled",
   "pages.account.bonus.notEnabled": "Not Enabled",
   "pages.account.bonus.subscriptionExpired": "Expired {{date}}",
diff --git a/packages/trpc/src/procedures/assistant/sendAssistantMessage.ts b/packages/trpc/src/procedures/assistant/sendAssistantMessage.ts
index 05fbf5fcd..545a03bf3 100644
--- a/packages/trpc/src/procedures/assistant/sendAssistantMessage.ts
+++ b/packages/trpc/src/procedures/assistant/sendAssistantMessage.ts
@@ -20,17 +20,16 @@ export const sendAssistantMessage = publicProcedure
       });
     }
 
-    const isOverMessageLimit = await assistant.checkMessageLimit(
-      session.userId,
-    );
-    if (isOverMessageLimit) {
+    const { isOverLimit, useLowQualityModel } =
+      await assistant.checkMessageLimit(session.userId);
+    if (isOverLimit) {
       throw new TRPCError({
         message: "Over daily message limit",
         code: "TOO_MANY_REQUESTS",
       });
     }
 
-    await assistant.sendChat(input.content, session.userId);
+    await assistant.sendChat(input.content, session.userId, useLowQualityModel);
 
     return "ok";
   });
diff --git a/packages/util/server/src/ml/assistant.ts b/packages/util/server/src/ml/assistant.ts
index 6efb57ef0..ae595ca69 100644
--- a/packages/util/server/src/ml/assistant.ts
+++ b/packages/util/server/src/ml/assistant.ts
@@ -20,6 +20,10 @@ const showdown = new Converter({
   openLinksInNewWindow: true,
 });
 
+const FREE_MESSAGE_CAP = 5;
+const CONTRIB_MESSAGE_CAP = 50;
+const ABUSE_MESSAGE_CAP = 1440;
+
 export class Assistant {
   private openAiHelper: OpenAIHelper;
   /**
@@ -126,8 +130,6 @@ export class Assistant {
   }
 
   async checkMessageLimit(userId: string) {
-    if (process.env.NODE_ENV === "development") return false;
-
     const moreMessages = await userHasCapability(
       userId,
       Capabilities.AssistantMoreMessages,
@@ -148,14 +150,23 @@ export class Assistant {
       },
     });
 
-    const messageLimit = moreMessages ? 75 : 5;
+    const isOverLimit =
+      (!moreMessages && todayMessageCount >= FREE_MESSAGE_CAP) ||
+      todayMessageCount >= ABUSE_MESSAGE_CAP;
+    const useLowQualityModel =
+      moreMessages && todayMessageCount >= CONTRIB_MESSAGE_CAP;
 
-    const isOverLimit = todayMessageCount >= messageLimit;
-
-    return isOverLimit;
+    return {
+      isOverLimit,
+      useLowQualityModel,
+    };
   }
 
-  async sendChat(content: string, userId: string): Promise<void> {
+  async sendChat(
+    content: string,
+    userId: string,
+    useLowQualityModel: boolean,
+  ): Promise<void> {
     const assistantUser = await prisma.user.findUniqueOrThrow({
       where: {
         email: "assistant@recipesage.com",
@@ -172,7 +183,9 @@ export class Assistant {
     const recipes: Prisma.RecipeUncheckedCreateInput[] = [];
 
     const response = await this.openAiHelper.getChatResponseWithTools(
-      SupportedGPTModel.GPT4O,
+      useLowQualityModel
+        ? SupportedGPTModel.GPT4OMini
+        : SupportedGPTModel.GPT4O,
       context,
       [initBuildRecipe(assistantUser.id, recipes)],
     );