OpenAI has launched a new $500-a-month ChatGPT subscription while confirming that customers on its existing $200 Pro plan will receive a lower usage allowance from the end of October.
The changes were announced on 29 September as part of OpenAI's DevDay 2026 announcements. The new Pro 500 plan is available immediately and offers the company's highest personal usage allowance, while the monthly price of Pro 200 remains unchanged at $200.
What is changing for ChatGPT Pro users?
OpenAI now offers three personal Pro tiers priced at $100, $200 and $500 a month. According to the company's updated Pro subscription guidance, Pro 500 includes usage equivalent to 25 times the ChatGPT Plus allowance and is the only personal Pro plan to include its new Ultrafast mode.
Ultrafast is aimed at people carrying out intensive work with AI, particularly through Codex, OpenAI's coding system. OpenAI says it can generate output in Codex at up to 300 tokens per second, around eight times the standard speed.
The more notable change for existing customers is what happens to Pro 200. OpenAI had temporarily stopped accepting new subscriptions to that tier earlier in September, but has now reopened it with a lower included usage allowance for new customers.
Eligible existing Pro 200 subscribers can keep their previous allowance until 29 October. After that, OpenAI says they will move to the new lower allowance while continuing to pay $200 a month.
The Next Web reports that from 30 October the included ChatGPT Work and Codex allowance on Pro 200 will fall from 20 times the Plus allowance to 10 times. It also reports that the weekly allowance for GPT-6 Pro in ChatGPT will fall from 200 messages to 100. OpenAI's main Pro help page confirms the forthcoming reduction, although it does not currently list those particular post-October figures.
The monthly price is only part of the cost
For businesses and professionals using AI occasionally, these limits may make little practical difference. They matter much more when ChatGPT or Codex has become part of everyday production work, where a team may be running lengthy research tasks, analysing documents or using AI throughout a software project.
The change illustrates why organisations adopting subscription-based AI tools may need to consider both the headline monthly fee and the amount of work included within it. A subscription that still costs the same can become materially more expensive for a heavy user if more usage has to be purchased separately.
OpenAI does allow customers to buy additional credits for eligible services including Codex and ChatGPT Work once their included allowance has been consumed. That means reaching the lower Pro 200 allowance does not necessarily require moving to the $500 tier, but it can make actual monthly spending less predictable for intensive users.
OpenAI is pushing further into paid business workflows
The pricing change arrives as OpenAI continues to expand ChatGPT beyond conversation and into more substantial workplace tasks. Earlier this month, OpenAI introduced GPT-6 Astra for work involving documents, spreadsheets, forms and business software.
DevDay added further workplace features, including cloud-based Codex tasks, shared ChatGPT workspaces and integrations with Slack and Microsoft Teams. Against that backdrop, Pro 500 creates a substantially more expensive personal tier for people who want the highest usage allowance and fastest processing.
For organisations already relying heavily on AI, the practical question is therefore becoming less about whether a tool has a fixed subscription price and more about how much dependable working capacity that subscription actually buys.
