OpenAI to reopen $200 Pro plan Tuesday with about half the API-dollar usage, Sottiaux says

OpenAI will reopen its $200 Pro subscription to new subscribers on Tuesday, but with a new way of calculating usage that nets out at half the API-dollar value of the old plan, according to a post from OpenAI's Tibo Sottiaux. "In effect, if you do the math, it will net out at half the dollar in API spend compared to the old Pro $200 plan," he wrote.

OpenAI paused new sign-ups and upgrades to Pro $200 on Sept. 10, including upgrades from Free, Go, Plus and Pro $100, and gave no reason, according to mixed-news. Before the pause, Pro $200 offered 20 times the usage of Plus, against 5 times for Pro $100.

Sottiaux gave four points he says offset the change. OpenAI is "committing to not reintroducing the 5h limit," so users can fully use the weekly allowance when they want. Over time, he wrote, "you always get more work done and with an increasing level of quality," because efficiency gains are passed down through API price cuts. OpenAI does not want an incentive to "artificially inflate the API list prices," he added. And on Tuesday it is "adding more things to the subscription that won't draw on the usage," which he did not describe.

The five-hour limit has been a sore point. In August Sottiaux wrote that OpenAI would keep it "not enabled for Pro $100 and Pro $200 subscriptions" for the upcoming months, while bringing it back for Plus.

Sottiaux also pointed to API prices. GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna, introduced this week, are at "50% of their previous price," he wrote. The Next Web reported that Sol dropped from $4 to $2 per million input tokens and from $20 to $10 per million output tokens, and Luna from $0.20 to $0.10 input and from $1.20 to $0.50 output.

Not everyone has been happy with Pro limits. On Sept. 25 a long-term Pro 20x subscriber wrote on OpenAI's community forum that hard usage limits had appeared, adding, "I received no advance email or in-product notice before these restrictions were applied to my existing subscription". Other posters in the thread reported similar errors, though those reports are anecdotal.

OpenAI has not published details of the new usage calculation on any page Guth could read. Sottiaux said he wanted to be transparent "before all the big announcements tomorrow". OpenAI's DevDay keynote is on Tuesday.