ChatGPT's new plan costs $500 a month

Sam Altman leads OpenAI. The company announced a new subscription tier, costing $500 a month. Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images ChatGPT has a brand new plan — with a hefty new price tag.OpenAI announced a new subscription tier at its Tuesday DevDay. The Pro 500 plan will cost $500 a month, a $300 increase on what was formerly the company's most expensive plan.The $500 plan will include access to "Ultrafast" computing for GPT-6 Astra in ChatGPT Work and Codex. The "Ultrafast" option promises an 8x increase in speed in Codex, OpenAI's coding tool.The tier will also have OpenAI's highest included usage. While the average ChatGPT user may not care about this, it's top of mind for any coder who has hit their token limit.Some eagle-eyed X users spotted test code for a $500 a month plan last week.$500 a month is steep, totaling out to $6,000 a year. And that's only for OpenAI; AI subscribers could also hold subscriptions with Anthropic or Cursor.Still, AI lovers previously told Business Insider that the highest-priced tier — then $200 a month — was worth it. Some considered it a necessary expense for their small businesses. OpenAI's new $500 a month plan includes "Ultrafast." OpenAI OpenAI also announced that it would reopen its $200 a month Pro plan, while downgrading its allowance.The company paused sign-ups for the plan on September 10. Now, almost three weeks later, OpenAI is reopening the plan, but halving the compute. The allowance will be 10x that of the $20 a month Plus plan, down from the previous 20x multiple. Chat messages in GPT-6 Pro will also decrease from 200 to 100 a week for these subscribers.Existing subscribers will receive a one-time credit during the transition period.Thibault Sottiaux, the engineering lead for OpenAI's Codex, explained the change in a Monday X post. The changes net out at half the dollar in API spend compared to the prior plan, he wrote."I wanted to make sure to share this change ahead of time so you can all understand it before we shower you with good news," Sottiaux wrote. Read next Henry Chandonnet is a senior reporter on the Business News desk. He writes about tech culture, from Silicon Valley's startup class to the everyday AI user. He also closely covers Big Tech and the workplace. Henry previously wrote for Fast Company, where he covered trending tech news. He's written for The Daily Beast, People Magazine, and Vulture.Email Henry at hchandonnet@insider.com, reach him on Signal at henrychand.30, or follow him on X @HenryChandonnet. OpenAI Sam Altman ChatGPT More