OpenAI announced a new $100/month Pro plan for ChatGPT that targets developers using the product’s coding tool, Codex, on a daily basis. The announcement addresses a pricing gap that power users have requested: subscriptions previously jumped from $20 to $200 per month. OpenAI’s plan list now includes a free tier (with ads), an $8 Go plan (with ads), a $20 Plus plan (ad-free), and the new $100 Pro tier, with the $200 Pro tier still available despite not appearing on the pricing page.
ChatGPT pricing structure
OpenAI’s pricing structure now includes several tiers. The free plan includes ads, and there is an $8/month Go plan that also includes ads. For paid users, the $20/month Plus plan is ad-free. At the top end, a $200 Pro plan remains available, even though OpenAI’s pricing page currently does not list it.
The new $100/month Pro plan fills the gap between Plus and the highest Pro option. OpenAI’s pricing page and tier descriptions emphasize that the key differentiator is rate limits, not changes to core features. According to the company, “Both Pro plans offer the same core features. The main difference is the rate limits.”
For developers, rate limits determine how long a user can run iterative coding sessions without hitting warnings or needing to pause. The report notes that “None of the plans offer unlimited usage,” meaning even the highest tiers are constrained by usage caps.
Codex capacity and technical specifications
OpenAI positions the $100 Pro tier as being “geared to support daily usage of ChatGPT’s coding tool Codex.” The key capacity difference is concrete: the $100 Pro plan offers 5x more Codex than the Plus plan. This links the pricing change directly to an operational metric—the amount of Codex usage a developer can access under the subscription.
An OpenAI spokesperson stated that the new tier is designed “to give developers more practical coding capacity for the money, especially during high-intensity work sessions where limits matter most.” The spokesperson added that “Compared with Claude Code, Codex delivers more coding capacity per dollar across paid tiers, with the difference showing up most clearly during active coding use.”
The $200 plan offers 20× higher limits than Plus. According to OpenAI’s FAQ, these limits are “enough to support ‘your most demanding workflows continuously, even across parallel projects.’”
From an operations standpoint, the emphasis on rate limits indicates OpenAI treats Codex usage as a metered, constrained resource. The difference between tiers appears to be about scaling permissible throughput rather than changing the Codex feature set.
Temporary higher limits through May 31
OpenAI is offering elevated Codex limits on the $100 plan through May 31. After this date, the plan’s Codex limits will revert to baseline levels intended for day-to-day usage.
This time-bound detail is operationally relevant for developers. Temporary uplift periods can affect perceived performance during trial or initial onboarding phases. Teams that schedule coding sprints or plan iterative development cycles may need to account for a post-May-31 change in rate limit frequency.
Codex usage growth and competitive positioning
OpenAI reported that “more than 3 million people globally are using Codex every week,” with usage “up 5x in the past three months” and growing more than 70% month over month.”
These figures connect the company’s metering approach and tier design to observed demand. If Codex usage is accelerating at the reported rates, expanding tiers between Plus and the $200 plan could help absorb higher demand while maintaining system constraints.
OpenAI explicitly positioned the new $100 tier as competitive with Anthropic, which has offered a $100/month option for Claude. The new Pro tier represents a product-level response to a market segment accustomed to paying $100 for coding assistance. However, the source does not provide direct market share or customer migration data—only OpenAI’s stated rationale and comparative claims about coding capacity per dollar.
Source: TechCrunch