ChatGPT's $500 Tier Buys Speed While the $200 Plan Shrinks

$6,000 a year for a chatbot subscription. That is the new ceiling OpenAI set at its DevDay on September 29, with a plan called Pro 500. The $200 Pro, once the symbol of AI extravagance, suddenly looks almost reasonable.

Pro 500, the only self-serve door to Ultrafast

The pitch fits in one line: $500 a month buys 25 times the ChatGPT Plus allowance and access to Ultrafast. That premium mode runs GPT-6 Astra up to 8x faster in Codex, peaking at 300 tokens per second.

Speed just became a standalone product. On the API, Ultrafast mode costs six times the standard rate: $60 per million input tokens, $300 for output. One catch: that speed also drains your included quota faster than the normal pace.

Who pays $500 for raw speed?

The logic holds better than you might think. A coding agent chains thousands of steps, and every second of latency compounds over hours of autonomous work. For developers who live inside Codex, an 8x boost reshapes the whole day.

OpenAI already trialed the recipe in August, with a Cerebras-powered preview at 750 tokens per second. Anthropic and Cursor sell premium tiers around $200, yet nobody had priced pure velocity at $500. The audience exists: OpenAI claims 1.2 billion weekly ChatGPT users and 35 million weekly builders in Work and Codex.

The $200 Pro plan quietly shrinks

Now for the less festive part. From October 30, the $200 tier drops from 20 to 10 times the Plus allowance in Work and Codex. Weekly GPT-6 Pro messages fall from 200 to 100.

Thibault Sottiaux, Codex engineering lead, points to more efficient models and a one-time credit for current subscribers. The timing stays delicate: power users already grumbled about weekly allowances gone in a few days.

A three-rung ChatGPT Pro ladder

Back in late 2024, a $200 AI subscription sounded absurd. Two years later, it sits in the middle of a ladder that reads 100, 200, 500. The $20 Plus suddenly looks like the budget option.

Every Pro subscriber also gets a Dot, OpenAI's new personal agent, whose chats stay outside the quota. After GPT-6 Astra arrived with an AGI claim, OpenAI now monetizes every saved millisecond.

What does ChatGPT Pro 500 include?

Pro 500 costs $500 a month and includes 25 times the ChatGPT Plus allowance. It adds Astra Ultrafast in Codex and ChatGPT Work, maximum memory and 100 GB of file storage.

Can you get Ultrafast without paying $500?

Yes, through Enterprise plans or the API, where the mode costs six times the standard rate. Plus, Pro 100 and Pro 200 subscribers get no Ultrafast access at launch.